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OTTAWA — At least 600 foreign women and girls are coerced into joining the Canadian sex trade each year by human traffickers, says a newly declassified RCMP report.

As many as 2,200 other newcomers are smuggled into the United States from Canada to toil in brothels, sweatshops, domestic jobs or construction work, estimates the intelligence assessment obtained by The Canadian Press.

And the RCMP says the numbers may represent just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, as it is widely believed only one in 10 victims of trafficking report the crime to police.

A public furor recently prompted the federal government to halt a visa program intended to help Canadian strip clubs hire foreign women.

The RCMP report highlights an ugly phenomenon in which traffickers use deception or force to exploit the vulnerable people they bring to Canada, making them work in slave-like conditions in the sex business and other trades.

Anywhere from 700,000 to four million people are trafficked globally each year, though it is difficult to tell “how much of this activity is occurring in Canada,” the assessment says.

“The failure by law enforcement to recognize and identify this type of crime creates significant problems in terms of investigation and information gathering.”

The report, marked Canadian Eyes Only, is the result of Project Surrender, a groundbreaking effort by the RCMP’s criminal intelligence directorate to document the extent of human trafficking to Canada.

A censored version of the assessment, completed last January, was obtained under the Access to Information Act.

In compiling the report, analysts sifted through data from the RCMP immigration and passport sections, the Immigration Department and municipal police forces, as well as criminal data banks, international studies and media reports.

Most of the illicit activity occurred in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

A “conservative estimate” indicates about 600 women and girls are introduced into the Canadian sex trade annually by traffickers, says the report.

The number of persons “easily increases” to 800 when expanded to include migrants brought into the country by criminal organizations to support illicit operations such as selling drugs or tending marijuana growing operations, and others who are forced to work off debt or pay fees to crime groups.

Women have entered Canada for the sex trade under a variety of circumstances, the report says.

“They have been tricked, forced, obligated to a debt payment schedule or, as a permanent commodity, are trafficked from city to city through Canada and the U.S.A.

“There have also been cases of Canadian girls, coerced or kidnapped, fraudulently entering the U.S.A. and forced into prostitution.”

Large organizations operating in Canada, active over decades, can move 30 to 40 people into the United States each month.

Case figures indicate that between 1,500 and 2,200 people are trafficked from Canada into the U.S. annually, though the RCMP stresses the numbers may be only a fraction of the actual total.

Other case examples include:

• The smuggling of Polish nationals through Toronto and on to Chicago, many destined to work for vehicle “chop shops” for gangs dealing in stolen cars.
• Asians brought illegally to Canada’s west coast who have moved to New York, Los Angeles and other American destinations to work in sweat shops or criminal networks.
• The smuggling of Hondurans to Canada to serve as drug couriers on Vancouver streets.
• Abuse of “mail-order bride” programs by East European crime groups to bring women into the country and exploit them.

The 17,000 seasonal agricultural workers from abroad who tend Canadian farms and orchards each year may also be open to exploitation, the report notes.

“Some of these workers have entered Canada illegally, making them vulnerable to inadequate pay and conditions,” it says.

Trafficking in persons became an offence in Canada in June 2002, but there had been no cases brought before Canadian courts at the time of the report.

The RCMP moved this year to redirect resources into a new unit to fight human trafficking.

The Canadian Council for Refugees wants the government to protect victims of the crime.

Many of the abused and exploited are routinely treated as people who have simply broken the immigration law, says the council. As a result, they are detained and deported.

“And they often are going back to the same situation that put them in jeopardy in the first place,” said Amy Casipullai, the council’s vice-president.

The Mounties had no immediate comment on the intelligence report.

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A music video of the song “The Harder They Come” featuring Jimmy Cliff

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Executive produced by Spike Jonze, this (RED), HBO & Anonymous Content 30-minute documentary follows the story of HIV positive people in Africa who were at death’s door and in as little as 40 days undergo a remarkable transformation to health, when they gain access to the 2 lifesaving pills that cost around 40 cents a day. Directed by Lance Bangs.

Konono N°1’s “Congotronics” album introduced the world to the strange and spectacular electro-traditional mixtures which are being concocted in the suburbs of Kinshasa, Congo. World music, electronica and avant-rock aficionados have all been equally amazed by this otherworldly music, which has driven the international press to come up with some surprising comparisons (from Can and Krautrock to Jimi Hendrix, Lee Perry and proto-techno!…).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cU19URUe6o&feature=related

HOW likely are French parliamentarians to approve the proposed “burqa ban”? Deputies get their first chance to debate the idea in parliament on Tuesday May 11th. As a first step, the National Assembly will examine a resolution, which carries symbolic value, but not legal force. Yet it will be a good test of the political mood. It is likely to be approved with thunderous cross-party support.

French backing for a burqa ban across the political spectrum is sometimes hard to understand. In many multicultural quarters of Europe, the idea is linked to the extreme or nationalist right. In Britain, for instance, the only party proposing a total burqa ban during the recent general-election campaign was the United Kingdom Independence Party, which also wants to pull the country out of the European Union. The far-right British National Party also called for a burqa ban in schools. One Labour minister replied that it was “not British” to tell people what to wear in the street. In a speech in Cairo last year, President Barack Obama argued that Western countries should not be “dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear”.

In France, however, the proposal draws backing from the mainstream left and right. President Nicolas Sarkozy, from the political right, said last year that the burqa, as the French call it (in reality, they mean the niqab, or all-over face-covering veil), was “not welcome” on French soil. Jean-François Copé, the leader of the ruling UMP party in parliament, has been the most active in pushing for a total ban (The Economistinterviewed Mr Copé last week). Yet the idea is also backed by politicians of all stripes, including the Communist head of a parliamentary inquiry into a ban, and various leading Socialists.

One reason for this is France’s tradition of laïcité, a strict form of secularism, enshrined by law since 1905, and which keeps religion out of public institutions. At the time, the anti-clericalism behind the movement was largely inspired by the political left, and this legacy informs much left-wing thinking on secular matters today. When the French right proposed a ban on the headscarf (and other “conspicuous” religious symbols) in state schools in 2004, for example, the left voted massively in favour. The Socialist Party is expected to vote in favour of this week’s parliamentary resolution.

Unlike the headscarf ban, however, the upcoming law against the wearing of the burqa is not couched in terms of secularism. When a ban was first mooted, it was assumed that the legal basis for it would be French laïcité. Politicians soon realised, though, that to use this argument would be to accept that the burqa is a religious prescription of Islam. Most Muslim opinion-makers in France, including the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), an official body, and female Muslim ministers, such as Fadela Amara, reject this. The CFCM has clearly stated its “opposition to the practice on national territory”, although it also argues that a ban would stigmatise Islam.

Instead, the French are considering two grounds for outlawing the burqa, each of which—unlike laïcité—could potentially be applied in other countries. One is security, and the need to be identifiable at all times. The other is “dignity” and “equality between men and women”. Although very few women in France cover their faces—no more than 2,000, according to official estimates—it is a new trend. Politicians and researchers say that the wearing of the headscarf by French Muslims, many of whom are of North African origin where there is no tradition of covering the face, is a sign of manipulation by hardline Islamic radicals keen to test the French state. The French are unapologetic about wanting to reassert “the values of the republic” by going ahead with a ban.

How it would be applied in practice remains unclear. As it is, the Conseil d’Etat, the highest administrative court, has expressed worries about the legal grounds for a ban. If passed, Mr Copé says that it will apply not only to French Muslims, but to visitors from the Middle East too. Would such women be fined while doing their shopping on the Champs-Elysées? How can the government be sure that a woman is wearing the burqa under orders from her menfolk? Would it not lead to their further isolation, as they felt unable to venture out of the home? If that were indeed the upshot, it would be paradoxical for a law designed in part to ensure equality for women.

http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16098516&frsc=scn/fb/wl/ar/lf

I left my father’s assisted living flat white as a ghost. I was carrying a document I had just found there that held some very personal information. For as long as I could remember people were asking me - as an adoptee, if I didn’t want to search out my birth parents and if not, then why. The answer was simple - who gives a shit! I’m not saying I’m angry about it. And this ain’t the fucken Oprah show, so we aren’t gonna be out the handkerchiefs. It just was what it was, and it didn’t come as a shock to me like it does to people that only find out the truth of their adoptions as adults. I knew all about it from the very beginning. The only shock was that I found information without searching and now it was. before me: just like that.

I was in a bit of a rush that day, as my old friend L. was in Montreal from New York and had invited me to come see a Reggae show at Les Bobards. For this reason the document remained unopened.

We had met while attending the same moronic Jewish institution known as Herziliah High School. Strike that - attending is the wrong word. We met while avoiding the place like the fucking plague! To this day I want to sue these shmucks. What kind of high school in Quebec divides it’s daily curriculum up like this - Hebrew, Jewish history, English Lit., Prophets, Math, Talmud, and finally, French. That might hurt a young man in the workplace, n’est ce pas? There was a similar high school in town called Bialik, but over there they taught you Yiddish too. With that under your belt at least you could negotiate with your Nazi captors or find a decent job in the garment industry!

When I walked into the bar L. was already seated and had ordered us up some beers. I guzzled mine down before even making a proper greeting.

‘What’s this? What’s wrong now?’ she asked.

She knew all about my history so it didn’t take much explaining. ‘Give me that fucking thing! Let’s see what it says.’ I gave it to her.

‘This is how they did secrecy in the 60’s!? Liquid paper!! That’s shoddy work!’

Both my parent’s names and mine were all whited out on the document. L. made short work of scratching the gunk off with her fingernail as I anxiously watched. Now, there had always been a question as to my true heritage. Not just on my part, but amongst everyone that had ever seen or heard that I was uncircumcised. Not only that, but due to certain facial features some people were certain I had First Nations blood coursing through my veins, an idea that I found quite enchanting. I often dreamt of walking up to some paleface asshole and telling him that he spoke with forked tongue.

L. began laughing.

‘What is it?’

‘I’ll tell you what it is Christopher.’

‘Huh?’

‘Your real name, its Christopher Leslie Silzer, har!’

I just stood there flabbergasted. That was the fruitiest name I ever heard. So much for hanging out on the rez.  Nope; now I needed to go out and buy a dress and get my pussy waxed instead.

The Reggae band came on stage.  Appropriately to my mood, the group’s name was Inwards.

A 26-year-old Tunisian woman was fined in northern Italy while wearing a Muslim veil in public, reports say.

The woman was walking to a mosque, Friday with her husband when she was stopped by police and ticketed 500 euros, or about C$665, in Novara, about 38 kilometres west of Milan.

The city of 100,000 passed a bylaw in January outlawing clothes that ‘prevent identification by police.’

The region is home to the Northern League, a coalition ally supporting Italy’s conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, which seeks a nationwide ban on the traditional Islamic garments, similar to laws being proposed in Belgium and France.

Supporters say the veils are detrimental to public security and deny woman dignity.

Opponents argue such bans violate human and constitutional rights.

In Canada, Quebec is considering barring women who wear a veil from receiving government services.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/yahoocanada/100504/canada/italian_police_fine_women_for_burqa

There’s been alot of talk lately about the Niqab or Bourqa (a headdress worn by Islamic women which covers not only the head but the face as well).
Tell us what you think - should the Niqab be illegal? Would you want to deal with or be served by a women in a Niqab?

(Please answer in the comment box below)