Showing posts with label trafficking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trafficking. Show all posts

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Foreign surrogacy in Denmark is becoming less restrictive

 Above the Law has the story:

Denmark Passes New Pro-Surrogacy Regulations. The new rules in Denmark focus on two areas of surrogacy.  By ELLEN TRACHMAN  February 14, 2024

 "On February 5, 2024, the Danish government announced new surrogacy-supportive rules scheduled to come into effect on January 1, 2025. The rules address parentage for families formed by surrogacy — including commercial (compensated) surrogacy outside of Denmark — as well as for families formed by altruistic (noncompensated) surrogacy within Denmark.

...

"In Denmark, compensated surrogacy is illegal, and altruistic surrogacy has traditionally fallen into a legal gray area, pushing most hopeful parents who want to have a genetic connection to their child, but who are unable to carry a pregnancy themselves, to go abroad. The Danish government estimates that about 100 children are born to Danish parents each year by surrogacy outside of Denmark, while about five children each year are born within Denmark in altruistic surrogacy arrangements.

...

"Denmark has a history of denying parental rights to the intended parents of children born by surrogacy abroad. But on December 6, 2022, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Denmark in K.K. and Others v. Denmark. In that case, a married heterosexual couple had twins with the assistance of a Ukrainian surrogate. Under Ukrainian law, both Danish intended parents were recognized as parents of the child, and the surrogate was not a parent of the child.

...

"The ECHR found that Denmark’s refusal to recognize the parent-child relationship between the mother and child was a human rights violation — not a violation of the mother’s human rights, but of the two children, to have a recognized legal relationship with their mother.


To its credit, Denmark is reacting to the ECHR’s definitive ruling. In the announcement by the Danish government last week, the government made it clear that the country’s new rules are intended to go beyond the minimum requirements of the ECHR to merely not violate the human rights of Danish children.  (The bare minimum requirement would be to just allow stepparent adoptions.) Instead, the Danish government’s new rules go farther to protect children and their parents.

...

"The new rules permit Danish family courts to quickly make a decision on parenthood in the case of a foreign surrogacy agreement, even permitting a court ruling to be made prior to the family’s return to Denmark. The rules also require that the court assess the best interest of the child, but with a presumption that it is, of course, in the child’s best interest to have a timely recognition of their parents.

"Moreover, the court decisions are permitted to be retroactive to the birth of the child, permitting parents to have access to parental leave work benefits, inheritance rights, and all other benefits of that legal relationship. And, in contrast to a stepparent adoption, the new rules will allow recognition of the parent-child relationship with the mother or nongenetic parent even if parents have separated, or if one parent died before they had a chance to apply for parenthood.

...

"In a stated attempt to address the risk of child trafficking, the rules require that at least one intended parent be genetically related to the child. Additionally, the surrogate is required to confirm in a notarized declaration after the birth that she wishes to transfer parenthood of the child to the intended parents."

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Black market monkeys for medical research

 Monkeys used in medical research are supposed to come from carefully bred laboratory colonies, but the rising price has led to black markets, which is bad for both monkeys and for medical researchers. (And monkeys are useful for medical research because of their relatively close relation to humans, which makes for difficult conversations regardless of their source...)

The Guardian has the story:

$20,000 monkeys: inside the booming illicit trade for lab animals  by Phoebe Weston

"An international shortage of lab monkeys has driven up prices, incentivising a booming illicit trade. The problem risks undermining research, creating new pandemics, and fuelling wildlife trafficking. As the trade expands, a once-thriving species is now on the edge: in 2022, it was added to the IUCN list of endangered species. Some animal rights activists are calling to end the trade altogether.

"Long-tailed macaques are the most heavily traded primate species in the world, according to a paper published in September, and much of this is for laboratory research. The US National Association for Biological Research says non-human primates remain a critical resource for research, with about 70,000 monkeys imported a year to study infectious diseases, the brain and the creation of new drugs. Difficulty getting monkeys is compromising important research, Sacha says. Before the pandemic he was paying between $2,000 (£1,600) and $5,000 for an animal. Now, it’s about $20,000. “For a couple of years during lockdown it was near impossible to get them,” he says.

"He is not alone. Almost two-thirds of researchers struggled to find monkeys in 2021, according to a report from the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which found that the supply of monkeys for research is at crisis point. According to an article in Science, the report is the “strongest government statement yet on the precarious state of monkey research”. A similar picture is coming from Europe, where a shortage of monkeys has resulted in some research being abandoned.

"Long-tailed macaques (the monkey most commonly used in medical research) are protected under international trade law and special permits are required to import the animals into the US.

"Laboratories need pathogen-free primates that are in good condition and so do not want monkeys that have been wild-caught. With prices so high, however, traffickers are incentivised to catch them in the wild and launder them in via established breeding colonies.

"For decades, China was the largest supplier, but it banned the wild animal trade in 2020 in light of the Covid pandemic. Demand for monkeys increased significantly in the following years, but supply did not. Cambodia has since significantly increased exports to plug the gap and tap into this increasingly lucrative market.

...

"Animal rights campaigners want the US government to end the “cruel trade”, saying it poses a significant threat to public health. The National Academies report says investing in non-animal “organ on a chip” technology could reduce overall demand.

"It also recommended that the US expand its domestic breeding facilities – which it can then regulate. Sacha says: “We shouldn’t be reliant on external countries for these animals that are really critical to our ability to test new therapeutics and vaccines and medicines.”

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

The international market for squid (and how squid came to be calamari...)

China's fishing fleet plays a giant role in the international market for squid. The New Yorker has the story:

THE CRIMES BEHIND THE SEAFOOD YOU EAT.  China has invested heavily in an armada of far-flung fishing vessels, in part to extend its global influence. This maritime expansion has come at grave human cost.  By Ian Urbin in collaboration with the Outlaw Ocean Project.

"In the past few decades, partly in an effort to project its influence abroad, China has dramatically expanded its distant-water fishing fleet. Chinese firms now own or operate terminals in ninety-five foreign ports. China estimates that it has twenty-seven hundred distant-water fishing ships, though this figure does not include vessels in contested waters; public records and satellite imaging suggest that the fleet may be closer to sixty-five hundred ships. (The U.S. and the E.U., by contrast, have fewer than three hundred distant-water fishing vessels each.) 

...

" The country is largely unresponsive to international laws, and its fleet is the worst perpetrator of illegal fishing in the world, helping drive species to the brink of extinction. Its ships are also rife with labor trafficking, debt bondage, violence, criminal neglect, and death. “The human-rights abuses on these ships are happening on an industrial and global scale,” Steve Trent, the C.E.O. of the Environmental Justice Foundation, said.

...

"Vessels can now stay at sea for more than two years without returning to land. As a result, global seafood consumption has risen fivefold.

"Squid fishing, or jigging, in particular, has grown with American appetites. Until the early seventies, Americans consumed squid in tiny amounts, mostly at niche restaurants on the coasts. But as overfishing depleted fish stocks the federal government encouraged fishermen to shift their focus to squid, whose stocks were still robust. In 1974, a business-school student named Paul Kalikstein published a master’s thesis asserting that Americans would prefer squid if it were breaded and fried. Promoters suggested calling it “calamari,” the Italian word, which made it sound more like a gourmet dish. (“Squid” is thought to be a sailors’ variant of “squirt,” a reference to squid ink.) By the nineties, chain restaurants across the Midwest were serving squid. Today, Americans eat a hundred thousand tons a year.

...

"China has invested heavily in its fleet. The country now catches more than five billion pounds of seafood a year through distant-water fishing, the biggest portion of it squid. China’s seafood industry, which is estimated to be worth more than thirty-five billion dollars, accounts for a fifth of the international trade, and has helped create fifteen million jobs. The Chinese state owns much of the industry—including some twenty per cent of its squid ships—and oversees the rest through the Overseas Fisheries Association. Today, the nation consumes more than a third of the world’s fish."


Sunday, July 23, 2023

Organ trafficking, and how to reduce it -- Frederike Ambagtsheer in Conversation

Frederike Ambagtsheer, who studies illegal markets for organs and transplants,  has some sensible thoughts on how to combat organ trafficking, not least by increasing the availability of legal, ethical transplantation conducted in high quality hospitals.

Here she is in The Conversation:

Illegal organ trade is more sophisticated than one might think - who’s behind it and how it could be controlled  by Frederike Ambagtsheer

"The organ trade involves a variety of practices which range from excessive exploitation (trafficking) to voluntary, mutually agreed benefits (trade).

"These varieties warrant different, data-driven responses.

"For example, organ sellers are reluctant to report abuses because organ sales are criminalised and sellers will be held liable. Although many can be considered human trafficking victims and be offered protection, this rarely occurs. Law- and policymakers should therefore consider decriminalising organ sales (removing penalties in the law) and offer organ sellers protection, regardless of whether they agree to provide evidence that helps to dismantle criminal networks.

"Countries should also allow medical professionals to safely and anonymously report dubious transplant activity. This information can support the police and judiciary to investigate, disrupt and prosecute those who facilitate illegal organ transplants. Portugal and the UK already have successful organ trafficking reporting mechanisms in place.

"Finally, a contested example of a possible solution to reduce organ scarcity and avoid black market abuses is to allow payments or other types of rewards for deceased and living organ donation to increase organ donation rates. To test the efficacy and morality of these schemes, strictly controlled experiments would be needed.

...

" In short, rather than exclusively focusing on stricter laws, a broader range of responses is needed that both address the root causes of the problem and that help to disrupt organ trading networks."

***********

Here are all my posts that mention Dr. Ambagtsheer's work, which I've followed for more than a decade.

Thursday, January 19, 2023

NPR on black markets for kidneys from Nepal, for India

Here's an 8-minute video from National Public Radio about the black market for kidneys, trafficked from Nepal to India.  Some of the people interviewed indicate that they were duped; others decline to cooperate with prosecutors against the black market recruiters. A particular Indian hospital is named. Frank Delmonico makes an appearance near the end.  

(The video doesn't discuss any of the larger issues about the causes and consequences of the shortage of organs for transplant that make black markets busy and profitable, or how these might be addressed through legal and ethical efforts to increase the availability of transplants.)

.

HT: Frank McCormick
**********
Here's a post on the legal market for kidneys in Iran.
******* 
Here's an article from earlier this week in the Washington Monthly
We Have to Make Organ Donors Whole. by Sally Satel, January 17, 2023 
"I’m alive because of kidney donations, but there wouldn’t be an organ shortage if we made it easier for those willing to literally give a piece of themselves. New York is taking a good first step."
*******
related earlier post:

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Organ trafficking in America, on National Geographic TV, premiering tomorrow

National Geographic TV tweets about a new series on organ trafficking, premiering tomorrow night, with a video trailer that suggests that they think there is substantial organ trafficking to U.S. patients.

@MarianaVZ  uncovers the hidden world of organ trafficking in an all-new #TraffickedWithMarianavanZeller. Don't miss the season premiere, this Wednesday at 9/8c on National Geographic.

I'm a bit skeptical about the scope of organ trafficking to U.S. patients, because as far as I can tell there isn't a lot of evidence of Americans with mysterious transplants showing up for post-transplant care at American transplant centers. But I haven't seen the show. (Not being a subscriber I doubt that I will, but I imagine I'll hear from some of you who do.)


HT: Alex Chan

Friday, December 9, 2022

Two illegal (former) kidney transplant networks analyzed: the Netcare -and Medicus cases, by Ambagtsheer and Bugter

 There aren't many successful prosecutions resulting from illegal organ trafficking, despite the fact that the prevalence of illegal kidney transplants is estimated by many sources to be high.  Here's a paper that tries to understand the nature of the black market supply chain for kidneys, by examining two prosecutions that led to convictions, connected to a hospital in Kosovo and another in South Africa.

Ambagtsheer, F., Bugter, R. The organization of the human organ trade: a comparative crime script analysis. Crime, Law and Social Change (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-022-10068-5

Abstract: "This study fills critical knowledge gaps into the organization of organ trade utilizing crime script analysis. Adopting a situational crime prevention approach, this article draws from law enforcement data to compare the crime commission process (activities, cast and locations) of 2 prosecuted organ trade cases: the Medicus case and the Netcare case. Both cases involved transnational criminal networks that performed kidney transplants from living donors. We further present similarities and differences between illegal and legal living donor kidney transplants that may help guide identification and disruption of illegal transplants. Our analysis reveal the similar crime trajectories of both criminal cases, in particular the extensive preparations and high degree of organization that were needed to execute the illegal transplants. Offenders in the illegal transplant schemes utilized the same opportunity structures that facilitate legal transplants, such as transplant units, hospitals and blood banks. Our results indicate that the trade is embedded within the transplant industry and intersects with the transport- and hospitality sector. The transplant industry in the studied cases was particularly found to provide the medical infrastructure needed to facilitate and sustain organ trade. When compared to legal transplants, the studied illegal transplant scripts reveal a wider diversity in recruitment tactics and concealment strategies and a higher diversity in locations for the pre-operative work-up of donors and recipients. The results suggest the need for a broader conceptualization of the organ trade that incorporates both organized crime and white collar crime perspectives."

***


"Although reliable figures of the trade’s scope are lacking, the World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that approx. 5000 illegal transplants are performed annually (WHO, 2007). The organ trade is reported to rank in the top 5 of the world’s most lucrative international crimes with an estimated annual profit of $840 million to $1.7 billion (May, 2017). While illegal organ transplants have been reported to take place in countries across the globe, knowledge of the trade’s operational features remains scarce (Pascalev et al., 2016)

...

"At the time of writing, only 16 convictions involving organ trade have been reported to the case law database of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, which is far less than would be expected based on global estimates of the problem (UNODC, 2022). The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has reported 9 additional cases (OSCE, 2013). All reported cases had cross-border features and most involved the facilitation of living donor kidney transplants.

...

"In 2014 the Council of Europe established a new convention against ‘Trafficking in Human Organs’ which calls for a broad prohibition of virtually all commercial dealings in organs. Accordingly, sales that occur with the consent of donors are considered to be ‘trafficking’ regardless of the circumstances involved (Council of Europe, 2015)"

...

[Netcare]"Israeli and Romanian donors were promised $20,000 for their kidneys, the Brazilian donors were promised between $3,000 and $8,000. Most donors were recruited in Brazil by 2 retired military officers (Ambagtsheer, 2021; De Jong, 2017; Scheper-Hughes, 2011). 

Payments and reimbursements: Payments took place throughout all stages of the crime commission process. Patients paid Perry/his company up to $120,000 prior to their travel and transplant. Perry, and later also Meir, subsequently paid Netcare. Netcare in turn disbursed payments to various actors in the scheme, including the transplant surgeons and the blood bank. ... Occasionally, additional payments were made directly in cash to the surgeons by Perry, his company, or his agents. Perry also paid an escort/fixer (Rod Kimberley) and a nephrologist. Kimberley paid low-tier offenders in the scheme, including the interpreters. Kimberley additionally covered the costs of recipients’ and donors’ accommodations and he gave donors pocket money upon arrival in South Africa as an advance to their kidney payment. All donors received the promised amount in cash after their operations

...

"Contrary to donors in the Netcare case, none of the Medicus’ donors received the promised amount. Some did not receive payment at all but were promised payment only if they recruited new prospective kidney sellers. Withholding payments to kidney sellers in order for them to recruit new prospective kidney sellers is a tactic in organ trafficking schemes to sustain the transplant program (De Jong, 2017).

...

"The cases diverge with respect to the locations and legal embeddedness. Contrary to the Medicus case where transplants were organized in one clinic that was not licensed to conduct transplants, transplants in South Africa were facilitated in at least 5 hospitals across the country that were legally mandated to perform transplants."

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Debate on international surrogacy in Norway

 In Norway, where surrogacy is illegal, there is a debate about whether surrogacy conducted legally in other countries should also be criminalized for Norwegians.

The Norwegian Broadcasting Co. (NRK) has the story (with a little help from Google translate):

Familieminister mener surrogati skal kunne være straffbart The Minister of Family Affairs believes that surrogacy should be punishable by Chris Burke Marthe  and Ingrid Tinmannsvik

"The debate about surrogacy has created debate in Norway over several years. In 2022, surrogacy is illegal in Norway.

"Minister for Children and Families Kjersti Toppe (Sp) believes it should still be illegal to have children in this way.

...

"surrogacy in itself can be compared to human trafficking. A commercial industry where there is a great danger of exploiting vulnerable women. Shall we make children an item you can order and buy?"

...

"No one knows how many surrogate children come to Norway each year. But last year, 61 Norwegian fathers said that they became the father of a child in one of the countries it is most common to go to for surrogacy. It shows figures the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has obtained from the foreign service missions.

"About 10 years ago, the Storting passed an exemption which means that people who have children through surrogacy abroad cannot be punished.

"Tops voted against the law change and still disagrees.

...

"Anette Trettebergstuen (Labor Party), Minister of Culture and Gender Equality, reacts to Toppe's comparison of surrogacy and human trafficking.

...

"She believes a ban on punishment would not work in practice.

"- Should parents who bring a baby to the country be imprisoned? It will definitely be against the best interests of the child. And even if fines were imposed, many would probably think it was worth it", she says."


HT: Øivind Schøyen

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Allegations of organ trafficking for kidney transplants--in England and India

 From time to time there are stories of prosecutions for organ trafficking in connection with kidney transplants.

Here's a story developing in England. (Early reports were that the alleged donor/seller/victim was a child, but apparently he's not a minor):

From the BBC:

Ike Ekweremadu: Nigerian senator faces London organ-harvesting trial

"A prominent Nigerian senator and his wife who are accused of plotting to harvest a man's kidney in the UK will face trial at the Old Bailey.

"Ike Ekweremadu, 60, and Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, 55, are alleged to have transported a 21-year-old man from Nigeria to London.

"Prosecutors allege the couple planned to have his kidney removed so it could be given to their daughter.

...

"The alleged victim is said to have refused to consent to the procedure after undergoing tests at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead."

********

Not long ago I participated in an online conversation including Professor Janet Radcliffe Richards, who recalls that her view that bans on kidney sales are ill-conceived arose from news in the 1980's about a case involving Turkish sellers (here's an LA Times story from then):

London Kidneys-for-Cash Scandal Prompts Action to Ban Sale of Organs BY ROBERT BARR JULY 16, 1989

"“The concept of organs being bought and sold for money is entirely unacceptable in a civilized society,” Health Minister Roger Freeman told a House of Commons committee during debate on proposed legislation outlawing organ sales. The bill is expected to pass Parliament later this month.

"Not all lawmakers agree.

“The bill will cause death where there could be life, and to prolong suffering where we could provide relief,” said Sir Michael McNair-Wilson, a Conservative Parliament member awaiting a kidney transplant.

...

"Neil Hamilton, who cast the only vote against the bill in committee, said he had pondered the dilemma facing one Turk who allegedly sold a kidney.

“His daughter was suffering from a medical problem which threatened her life, but it could not be solved in Turkey without money,” Hamilton said. “If he did not get the money for the operation, his daughter would die.”

*********

The situation in India is complex, since there is or was something of a long tradition of kidney sales, which are against the law, and are guarded against by authorization committees that have to approve each living donor transplant. Recently, kidney exchange has become legal in India, but the law only allows close family to be the intended donor in an incompatible patient-donor pair. Below is a report of a case where it's alleged that an attempted donor was paid, and also illegally claimed to be a family relation.

Here's the Hindustan Times story:

Ruby Hall Clinic kidney transplant ‘malpractices’ probe handed over to crime branch

"Earlier on Wednesday, police officials probing the case told Magisterial court that more cases of kidney transplants based on the relationship claims have been unearthed during the interrogation of agents Ravindra Rodge and Abhijit Gatane. Both have been arrested by the police. These two agents having donated their kidneys earlier and also played the role of middlemen in at least four kidney transplants where alleged malpractices were involved.

...

"The case pertains to a kidney swap procedure, also known as paired kidney exchange, between the Moshi man and the Kolhapur woman posing as his wife, and a mother-daughter duo from Baramati."

And here's the story in the Indian Express:

Two middlemen arrested in Pune kidney transplant malpractice case. The other accused in the case, including Ruby Hall Clinic doctors, the patient who received the kidney, and the unrelated donor who was passed off as his wife--are yet to be arrested.

"Police have arrested the two middlemen over the alleged malpractices in a kidney transplant conducted at Pune’s Ruby Hall Clinic in March in which an unrelated woman was allegedly presented as the organ receiver’s wife and promised Rs 15 lakh in return.

...

"Among the 15 people named in the FIR are the hospital’s managing trustee, Dr Purvez K Grant, deputy medical director Dr Rebecca John, legal advisor Manjusha Kulkarni, nephrologist Dr Abhay Sadre, urologists Dr Bhupat Bhati and Dr Himesh Gandhi and transplant coordinator Surekha Joshi. The police also booked the two middlemen, the patient—from Pimpri Chinchwad’s Moshi area—who received the kidney, his wife, their three family members, the woman from Kolhapur who was allegedly passed off as the patient’s wife to become the donor."

***********

Among the most vigorous opponents of paying kidney donors--e.g. among some of those who think it's a crime against humanity--there's also opposition to extending the scope of legal, ethical, unpaid kidney donation and transplantation, particularly in poor countries.  One reason for this is the intuition that more transplantation will cause more paid transplantation.  The cases reported above, although rare, help to support this view.

But a much stronger case can be made that it is the unavailability of transplants that causes exploitative black markets, and that increasing the availability of legal transplants will reduce the demand for illegal ones.

Monday, June 27, 2022

A Forum on Kidneys for Sale in Iran, in Transplant International

 Just published in Transplant International (which is the journal of the European Society for Organ Transplantation), is a paper describing the Iranian market for kidneys in the city of Mashad, and three commentaries on it.  

 Here's the original paper:

Kidneys for Sale: Empirical Evidence From Iran  by Tannaz Moeindarbari and Mehdi Feizi

And here are three short commentaries.

Kidneys for Sale? A Commentary on Moeindarbari’s and Feizi’s Study on the Iranian Model  by Frederike Ambagtsheer1, Sean Columb, Meteb M. AlBugami, and Ninoslav Ivanovski

Kidneys for Sale: Are We There Yet? (Commentary on Kidneys for Sale: Empirical Evidence From Iran) by Kyle R. Jackson, Christine E. Haugen, and Dorry L. Segev

Criminal, Legal, and Ethical Kidney Donation and Transplantation: A Conceptual Framework to Enable Innovation  by Alvin E. Roth, Ignazio R. Marino, Kimberly D. Krawiec and Michael A. Rees

***********

The commentary by Roth, Marino, Krawiec and Rees contrasts the legal Iranian market with the dangerous black markets that operate elsewhere, outside of regular medical institutions.

Here's a recent long article that pulls together much of the discussion on compensation for donors and on sale of kidneys and transplant black markets:

Organ Trafficking, Can the illicit trade be stopped? By Sarah Glazer,  CQ Researcher, June 24, 2022 – Volume 32, Issue 22

HT: Frank McCormick


Saturday, February 5, 2022

The black market in looted antiquities

 The market for ancient art has a dark underside, that involves not just the usual shady characters we expect to encounter in black markets.

The Atlantic has the story, focusing on the law enforcement work of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's office::

THE TOMB RAIDERS OF THE UPPER EAST SIDE. Inside the Manhattan DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit. By Ariel Sabar

"When Matthew Bogdanos got a tip about a looted mummy coffin whose corpse had been dumped in the Nile, he approached the coffin’s buyer—the Metropolitan Museum of Art—with few of the courtesies traditionally accorded New York’s premier cultural institution.

...

"Bogdanos’s crackdown comes amid a broader reckoning over the West’s extraction of wealth from poor countries and people of color. The fiercest activists want Western museums to return all antiquities to their homelands, on the grounds that even legal acquisitions were tainted by colonial-era imbalances of money and power. Randall Hixenbaugh, one of Manhattan’s last surviving ancient-art dealers, told me that he has lost sales of well-provenanced objects, in part, he suspects, because sensational news stories have soured collectors on the entire sector. The push to make antiquities “unpalatable,” he contends, has less to do with the law than with an anti-European cultural politics.

"Particularly galling to Bogdanos’s detractors are his seizures of antiquities that have circulated, unquestioned, for decades. Among them is a 2,500-year-old limestone relief of a spear-toting Persian soldier, valued at $3 million. In 2017 Bogdanos removed it from an art fair at the Park Avenue Armory, as its enraged British dealer sputtered curses. The object had been owned by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts since the 1950s. Spurred by a tip from a scholar, Bogdanos’s team used archival records, decades-old photo negatives, and interviews in five countries to argue that the relief had been filched in the 1930s from an excavation in Iran. The British dealer and a colleague agreed to surrender the relief without admitting guilt, and in 2018, a New York judge ordered its repatriation."

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Evictions and coalitions in the housing market of hermit crabs--shell trafficking in the wild

 I've previously blogged about the observation that hermit crabs, who live in the shells of other animals and have to get new shells as they grow, sometimes engage in chains of exchange, that resemble kidney exchange chains, or vacancy chains in labor markets.

In particular, they resemble kidney exchange chains initiated by a deceased donor, in this case initiated by an empty shell.

 Here's a new article about hermit crabs which reports that they also engage in something that looks like organ trafficking, with a hermit crab being forcibly removed from its shell by two smaller crabs acting in concert, so that one of them may occupy the now vacant shell while the other moves into the shell of its partner in crime.

Laidre, Mark E. "The Architecture of Cooperation Among Non-kin: Coalitions to Move Up in Nature’s Housing Market." Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2021): 928.

"Coalitions typically involve two individuals (a pair), with a third individual being the target that the two-member coalition seeks to evict from its shell (Figure 1). Both members of the coalition have shells of their own, but these individuals and their shells are virtually always smaller than that of the target individual and its shell. Sometimes, based on the commotion and struggle generated during an attempted eviction, additional individuals—beyond the target and the core two-member coalition—are attracted to the area. These additional individuals—referred to as “third parties” or “bystanders”—are not part of the actual coalition, since they do not help at all to evict the target. Generally, third parties simply wait in the vicinity and sometimes position themselves in a social chain, which emanates from the back of the shell of one or both of the coalition members (Figure 2). This positioning in a social chain enables third parties to indirectly benefit, since in the event an eviction succeeds, it can catalyze a succession of back-to-back shell swaps (see Laidre, 2019a). Third parties are thus, in effect, “free riders” (Sigmund, 2010), since their positioning around the coalition offers no advantage whatsoever to the coalition itself as it works to evict the target. Indeed, whether third parties are positioned in a chain or not, they merely wait, performing no pulling actions and never adding any strength or providing any help to the two-member coalition. Interestingly, based on precisely where third parties position themselves, some may potentially even undermine the coalition (see below), effectively acting not merely as “free riders” but as “cheaters” (Sigmund, 2010). Finally, if too many bystanders accumulate, it can lead to chaotic jockeying and repositioning, with the original coalition separating.

"Whether with third parties present or not, the two members of the coalition attempt to physically evict the target. The target remains flipped on its back (i.e., with the dorsal side of its shell on the ground) and the opening of the target’s shell faces upward, allowing both coalition members to use their claws and legs to grab at and pull the anterior portion of the target’s body. As the coalition forcibly pulls, the target attempts to resist by clinging inside its shell. Typically, the two coalition members both pull simultaneously; though at times the two may alternate attempts at pulling, each doing so sequentially as one or the other member briefly rests. Both members of a coalition appear strongly involved, in terms of time and effort. Yet coalitions are not always successful. In some cases, one or both coalition members may give up; or the target individual may manage to flip itself over, escape from being pinned down, and run away. If a coalition is successful at evicting the target, the time till eviction occurs can vary widely, from just minutes up to hours (Laidre, personal observation). Once a coalition is successful and the target individual is evicted from its shell, then the evictee is pushed to the side and remains naked and shell-less as one of the coalition members moves into its now empty shell."

************

Earlier:

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Saturday, December 11, 2021

Disrupting black markets: call for papers

 Laws banning markets often create black markets. And the same technologies that facilitate legal markets may do so for illegal markets that we would like to extinguish, e.g. involving human trafficking, trade in endangered species or drugs, ransomware, etc.

How can we control such markets?

Here's a call for papers:

Call for Papers , Annals of Operations Research 

Special Issue: Applications of Operations Research and Data Science in Disrupting Illicit Markets 

Guest Editors: Mahdi Fathi, University of North Texas, TX, USA, mahdi.fathi@unt.edu 

Panos M. Pardalos, University of Florida, FL, USA, pardalos@ufl.edu 

Dursun Delen, Oklahama State University, OK, USA, dursun.delen@okstate.edu 

Stefan Gold, University of Kassel, Germany, gold@uni-kassel.de

 Marzieh Khakifirooz, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico, mkhakifirooz@tec.mx 

Full paper submission deadline: 31 August 2022 

Friday, December 4, 2020

The black market for endangered birds

Laws that ban markets are sometimes the blueprints for the black markets that arise in the place of legal markets. That turns out to be the case in the black market for endangered birds.

 The NY Times has the story:

He Once Trafficked in Rare Birds. Now, He Tells How It’s Done.--After a chance encounter in Brazil, Johann Zillinger became one of the world’s most prolific wildlife smugglers. Three decades and two prison stints later, he says he has gone straight.

"In the early years, Mr. Zillinger was able to get the birds through customs in Brazil by greasing some palms. Over time, though, airport officials’ demands rose too high, Mr. Zillinger said, and he focused on eggs. Strapped to his body, the eggs would keep warm crossing the ocean to Portugal, where he would transfer them from human to conventional incubator. The hardest part, he said, was not cracking them. “That’s the 10 percent we lost, but other than that, it was foolproof.”

...

"The key to laundering animals, Mr. Zillinger said without irony, is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a treaty adopted in 1975 to ensure that the legal trade in wildlife does not drive threatened species to extinction. Those can be traded only if they fall under one of many exceptions. The crucial exception for traffickers was captive breeding.

"Mr. Zillinger and other traffickers found that they could obtain a valid CITES document to disguise smuggled animals as captive bred. They simply needed to claim that they were, and, after all but the most incredible claims, officials would issue paperwork declaring wild, trafficked birds to be born in captivity. CITES officials have admitted that such documents were wrongfully issued."

********

And here's the report on CITES corruption, from TRAFFIC.org:

Addressing corruption in CITES documentation processes

Sunday, October 4, 2020

Grocery supply chains: TNR reviews "The Secret Life of Groceries"

 The New Republic reviews The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket, by Benjamin Lorr,  (It tells you more than you want to know about supply chains, from farmed shrimp in Thailand to American long haul trucking...)

There’s No Such Thing as Ethical Grocery Shopping--“The Secret Life of Groceries” exposes the dark secrets of America’s food supply. by Josephine Livingstone

Having read the review but not the book, it sounds like a broad based followup on this 2015 story from the Guardian:

Shrimp sold by global supermarkets is peeled by slave labourers in Thailand

by Associated Press: Margie Mason, Robin McDowell and Esther Htusan in Samut Sakhon and Martha Mendoza in Washington Mon 14 Dec 2015

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Crime and punishment in the sex trade--an ongoing controversy in the U.S.

Two stories in the NY Times speak of the difficulty of regulating the sex trade, which may consist of both voluntary sex workers and victims of trafficking.

Here's a story from October:

In Washington, a Fight to Decriminalize Prostitution Divides Allies

Supporters say a bill being considered by the District of Columbia Council would protect prostitutes in the nation’s capital. Critics say it would be a boon to sex traffickers.  By Timothy Williams, Oct. 17, 2019

"The proposal is dividing the city’s progressive community, pitting some women’s groups against advocates for sex workers. Some prostitutes who have been sex trafficked find themselves on the other side from sex workers who have not been. But all sides agree that prostitution practiced openly would reverberate well beyond the city’s thriving but shadowy sex industry of street prostitution, massage parlors, strip clubs and high-end call girls."

*********
And a more recent story:
Charged With Prostitution, She Went to a Special Court. Did It Help?   By Christina Goldbaum, Jan. 6, 2020

"When New York State created a network of 12 Human Trafficking Intervention Courts, criminal justice professionals hailed it as an innovation. The courts send people into counseling sessions to help them leave the multibillion-dollar sex trade while dismissing their charges and sealing their records.
"But even as courts like these have begun to proliferate nationwide, New York’s own have come under increasing criticism, six years into their operation, that they are not living up to their promise.
...
"The division has become more pronounced in recent years with more mainstream acceptance of decriminalizing prostitution. The two camps have sparred over whether the goal should be to eliminate all sex trade — and by extension, sex trafficking — or make prostitution a regulated industry.

"While the debate unfolds, there is little question that the efforts have changed how prostitution is policed. The number of prostitution-related arrests in New York in 2019 dropped dramatically from the previous year."

Friday, October 11, 2019

Followup on Robert Kraft: disappearing sex trafficking in Florida

Vanity Fair has a followup on the widely publicized Florida investigation of sex trafficking that included the arrest of Patriots owner Robert Kraft.  The reporter points out that the trafficking charges have evaporated, and in general concludes that much of the concern with trafficking is in fact simply targeted at voluntary foreign sex workers:

“YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED”: THE WILD, DISTURBING SAGA OF ROBERT KRAFT’S VISIT TO A STRIP MALL SEX SPA
After the Patriots owner made two trips to Orchids of Asia Day Spa, where a half-hour “massage” costs $59, he was charged with soliciting a prostitute. What happened next was not what anyone expected.
BY MAY JEONG

"Human trafficking is a serious problem: The Department of Health and Human Services calls it the world’s “fastest-growing criminal industry.” But some anti-trafficking groups, in search of funding, routinely overstate the scale of the commercial sex trade. They frequently claim that 300,000 minors are “at risk” for being sold into sexual slavery in America each year—a number that has been debunked by researchers as wildly overinflated. (The Washington Post dismisses it as a “nonsense statistic.”) In 2018, the FBI confirmed a total of 649 trafficking cases in America, adults included.
...
"Florida’s new sex registry is the latest in a long line of similar laws. One of America’s first laws against prostitution, in fact, was the 1870 Act to Prevent the Kidnapping and Importing of Mongolian, Chinese, and Japanese Females for Criminal or Demoralizing Purposes, intended to protect the public from “scandal and injury.” The law was a precursor to the Page Act of 1875, which aimed to “end the danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral Chinese women,” which in turn was a precursor to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—the first law to bar all members of a specific ethnicity or nationality from immigrating.

"The raids on Orchids and other massage parlors in South Florida were conducted in the name of rescuing women from sex trafficking. But the only people put in jail were the women themselves. A few, like Lulu and Mandy, managed to post bail and were placed under house arrest. But others were transferred to the custody of ICE. Women who migrated to America in search of work—who chose the least bad option available to them—were being punished for what one of their lawyers calls “the crime of poverty.”
...
"Within weeks of the raids, the state’s case had evaporated. There was no $20 million trafficking ring, no women tricked into sex slavery. The things the state had mistaken as markers for human trafficking—long working hours, shared eating and living arrangements, suspicion of outside authorities, ties to New York and China—were, in fact, common organizing principles of many Chinese immigrant communities. As an assistant state attorney in Palm Beach told the court on April 12: “There is no human trafficking that arises out of this investigation.”
********

See earlier post:

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Friday, June 28, 2019

Legal brothels and sex trafficking in Germany

Apparently it's hard to staff a really high volume brothel entirely with voluntary sex workers.  The Guardian has the story:

Trouble in Paradise: the rise and fall of Germany's 'brothel king'
Jürgen Rudloff’s chain of ‘wellness spas’ sold sex as a health service for men. But his business model was fatally flawed – as his trial for aiding and abetting trafficking revealed

"Until his dramatic fall from grace, Jürgen Rudloff was the self-proclaimed “brothel king” of Germany. Owner of a chain of clubs he boasted was the “the largest marketplace for sex in Europe”, he was every inch the well-dressed entrepreneur, a regular face on reality TV and chat shows.

"Rudloff is now serving a five-year sentence for aiding and abetting trafficking. His trial laid bare the misery and abuse of women working as prostitutes at his club who, according to court documents, were treated like animals and beaten if they didn’t make enough money. His imprisonment has dismantled the idea of Germany’s “clean prostitution” industry and raised troubling questions about what lies behind the legalised, booming sex trade.

"Prostitution – legalised in Germany in 2002 – is worth an annual €15bn (£13.4bn), and more than a million men visit prostitutes every day. The change in the law led to a rise in “super brothels”, attracting tourists from countries where such establishments are illegal.
...
"The Paradise business model is the same as the hundreds of other “sauna clubs” across Germany – brothel owners provide the premises, and the women are self-employed. Yet Rudloff’s high-volume, low-cost model only works if the supply of women is enough to satisfy demand and bring enough customers through the doors.

"According to court documents, this became a problem for Paradise almost immediately. There weren’t enough women to fill the clubs. So Rudloff’s friends in the industry offered to help him out.

"In 2008, as Rudloff was growing his business, investigators in Augsburg, Bavaria – a hundred miles from Stuttgart – received a tip-off that gangs from the city were trafficking women from eastern Europe, and sending them to work in Paradise. (While prostitution is legal in Germany, pimping and sex trafficking are not.)
...
"Peter Holzwarth, the chief prosecutor at the trial, argued that the owner and management at the clubs were guilty of Organisationsdelikt – aiding and abetting an organisation involved in criminality. “He knew – in the cases brought to court – that the women working at his club were being exploited by pimps,” says Holzwarth. “And he knew the women were trafficked, or rather, he thought that they might be and [still let them work], and that is sufficient for a conviction.”

"The court agreed. Sentencing Rudloff in late February this year, the judge remarked: “A clean brothel of this size is hard to imagine.” He said he hoped the convictions would serve as a warning to the sex industry.
...
"For prosecutors like Holzwarth, Rudloff’s conviction is a warning to those cashing in on Germany’s insatiable demand for commercial sex. “Rudloff’s case was not an isolated incident,” he says. “In my opinion, cooperation between brothel owners and pimps is risky but profitable for both sides. A win-win situation … but the case has had an impact already. I think brothel owners will be more careful about dealing with pimps.”

Monday, June 10, 2019

Fighting trafficking by decriminalizing sex work in Mexico City

The Guardian has the story:

Mexico City will decriminalize sex work in move against trafficking

"Mexico City lawmakers have given the green light to decriminalize sex work in the capital, hoping it will be a first step to a crackdown on sex trafficking that traps thousands of Mexican women and children.

"Lawmakers in Mexico City’s congress on Friday voted 38-0, with eight abstentions, in favor of a bill to remove a line in the civic culture law which said prostitutes and their clients can be fined or arrested if neighbors complained.

"Temistocles Villanueva, a local representative with the ruling center-left Morena party, said the new law recognized that people had the right to engage in sex work.

“It’s a first step that has to lead to regulation of sex work, to fight human trafficking and strengthen the rights of sex workers,” he said. “Exercising sexuality in our country is still a taboo topic that few of us dare to talk about.“

"Sex work is allowed in much of Mexico but states have different and sometimes unclear rules, meaning workers frequently operate in legal vacuums which can leave them vulnerable to exploitation and trafficking by crime gangs.

"Mexico is a source, transit and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor, with Mexican women and children the most at risk from sex trafficking, according to the US state department."

Thursday, March 7, 2019

Prosecuting customers in the fight against sex trafficking of illegal immigrants in American massage parlors

Recent headlines from an investigation into sex trafficking have included the arrests of high profile customers, which may do more to limit the market than targeting massage parlor brothels and those who work in them and operate them.

Here's a NY Times headline that has garnered more attention than most prostitution investigations:

Patriots Owner Robert Kraft Charged in Florida Prostitution Investigation
"Robert K. Kraft, the billionaire owner of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, was charged on Friday with two counts of soliciting sex as part of a wide-ranging investigation into prostitution and suspected human trafficking in South Florida.

"The charges against Mr. Kraft, 77, in Jupiter, Fla., came after the police used video surveillance to observe activity inside several day spas and massage parlors. The police said that the parlors had been used for prostitution and that many of the women involved were considered to be victims."
************
And here's a followup story that describes the working conditions, which are themselves violations of American labor laws. But the sex workers are in no position to seek help from the law, since they are vulnerable twice over, first as illegal immigrants (who have typically entered on a short term visa and overstayed) and second as illegal sex workers (although they can be counted as crime victims rather than as criminals in some investigations of trafficking).

Behind Illicit Massage Parlors Lie a Vast Crime Network and Modern Indentured Servitude

"The frequently middle-aged women who work in parlors with names like Orchids of Asia and Rainbow Spa are often struggling to pay off high debts to family members, loan sharks, labor traffickers and lawyers who help them file phony asylum claims. In some cases, their passports are taken and their illegal immigration status keeps them further in the shadows, with some of them rotated every 10 days to two weeks between spas operated by the same owners. Forced to pay for their own supplies and even their own condoms, many women must sleep on the same massage tables where they service customers and cook on hot plates in cramped kitchens or on back steps.
...
"Law enforcement officials said there were an estimated 9,000 illicit massage parlors across the country, from Orlando to Los Angeles.
...
"The women are paid just a sliver of the $60 or more the client pays for an hourlong massage. Their real money — and chance at a better life — comes in the form of tips, which they are encouraged or forced to amplify through illegal means.
...
"The ubiquity of the massage parlors offers an accessibility and sheen of normalcy not offered by traditional brothels. And as the massage parlors have expanded even into small-town America in recent years, meticulously detailed review sites like Rubmaps have served as the Yelp and Foursquare of the illicit parlor business, with graphic anatomical descriptions of the women and explicit breakdowns of the sexual services proffered.
...
"A federal law enforcement official...said that the most common method for smuggling women from Asian countries was either a fraudulent tourist visa or a fraudulent work visa, such as for nursing work.
...
"One reason the Asian massage parlors remain so poorly understood is the extreme reluctance of the women to speak with the police and even with their own lawyers.
...
"Some fear retaliation by traffickers to their families in China, and some feel morally indebted to those who helped find them a job, said Chris Muller, the director of training and external affairs at Restore NYC, an anti-sex-trafficking organization.
...
"Bradley Myles, chief executive of Polaris Project, a nonprofit that works to combat human trafficking, said that the madams arrested on big raids like the recent ones in Florida — known as “mamasans” — are often women in their 60s and 70s who have spent decades in the sex trade but are usually pretty far down in the organization."