Judge Gives $600,000 in Traffickers’ Assets to Victims

Last week, U.S. district judge Lynn Hughes set an important legal precedent in the fight against human trafficking in the U.S. He ruled that five teenaged survivors of sex slavery in Houston will receive the entire proceeds from the sale of their traffickers’ property. As U.S. prosecutors have until now been mostly unsuccessful in getting traffickers’ assets seized, this precedent sends a strong message to other traffickers: If they get caught, they’ll lose everything they own.

The trafficking ring in this case was run by a brother and sister, Jose Luis Rojas and Maria “Nancy” Rojas, who started forcing girls and women into sexual slavery over a decade ago. Using physical and psychological abuse and economic manipulation, they imprisoned victims from Mexico who were falsely promised food service jobs. Jose once held a gun to a trafficked woman’s pregnant belly and threatened to kill her. In addition to losing their property assets (homes, brothels, restaurants and bars totaling over $600,000), the Rojas siblings were sentenced to 26 and 28 years in federal prison, respectively.

The Houston Police Department has been called to locations run by the Rojas siblings 60 times in recent years for prostitution, robberies, assaults and drug use, but the brothels remained open. This is the third time since 2005 that federal authorities have cracked down on the Rojas ring, but each time, traffickers were able to re-open brothels at the same locations by shuffling ownership. According to the Houston Chronicle:

To avoid seizures and shutdowns, ring members repeatedly transferred business ownerships or property after past crackdowns, deftly playing a paper game that left some city and state officials frustrated and clamoring for stronger laws targeting people who profit from selling women, men and minors as virtual slaves.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruben Perez, who prosecuted the case, says, “There’s a lot of money to be made–that’s why they keep rearing their ugly heads. It’s very lucrative.” Human trafficking is the third largest criminal enterprise in the world (behind weapon and drug sales), with enormous profits–an estimated $32 billion worldwide. This ruling is important because it hits traffickers where it hurts: their bank accounts.

On the downside, Judge Hughes’ ruling reflected some common myths about trafficking survivors. While granting the assets to the five teenagers, Hughes decided that nine adult women who had been manipulated, threatened and beaten by the Rojas ring were not eligible for compensation because they may have materially benefited from their own trafficking. In response, Texas-based human trafficking activist Dottie Laster, who has assisted victims of the Rojas ring in the past, asks:

What amount of money they could have kept that meant that they benefited substantially from being beaten, raped and impregnated for a commercial enterprise? Who pays for the children they have due to the trafficking? Do they get child support?

Hughes was also bothered by the fact that some of the adult survivors had been romantically involved or even had children with their traffickers, not understanding the common Romeo Pimp dynamic in sexual slavery. As prosecutor Perez notes, “Psychological coercion [can be] worse than a beating.”

Though imperfect, Hughes’ ruling is still a huge advancement, sending a clear message to traffickers that their profits can be gone in an instant.

Photo from Google Maps of the La Costenita night club after the shutdown.

Cross-posted at Ms. Blog.

Funding Issues Force Ph.D. Programs to Adapt

This is a guest post from Sofia Rasmussen, a graduate student in journalism, concentrating primarily in education and technology.

Getting a Ph.D. is a labor of love. Something student devote years of their lives to. No vacation and often times their only motivation is improving the human condition. From a Ph.D. program online to one at Harvard, completing a dissertation takes the entirety of a candidate’s person.

Obtaining a Ph.D. has never been lucrative. But for much of the twentieth century qualified Ph.D. candidates, particularly those in the natural sciences, could count on enough funding to make a respectable living wage while getting their degree. This funding could come in a number of forms: a teaching fellowship, in which Ph.D. candidate was paid to teach undergraduates within his or her field, a general fellowship from the college’s endowment, or a federal or state grant for the research the candidate was performing – or any combination of the three.

However, since the dawn of the twenty-first century, and particularly since the economic collapse of 2008, much of this funding has been reduced or is no longer available. The Federal Government’s large deficit is cutting back on the amount of grants and educational funding it is providing. Simultaneously, many state governments are struggling to stay afloat, and colleges and universities are having difficulty remaining financially independent. For example, according to the Los Angeles Times, the state university system of California (which includes such prestige as University of California at Berkeley and UCLA) experienced a 23% cut in funding this year – which resulted in raised tuition for undergraduates and far less funding for graduate students. This means that students who want to get a Ph.D. need to be extra cautious about whether the program or field they are interested in is worth their time and intellectual investment. Unlike years past, Ph.D. programs in the social sciences, and particularly the humanities can be very expensive and may not result in a job with enough of a salary to recoup the costs upon the awarding of a degree.

Beyond the funding issues while getting a degree, the holder of a Ph.D. can no longer expect a rewarding and august career upon graduation as colleges and universities are replacing tenured positions with adjunct slots to cut costs. For example, according to Inside Higher Ed, starting in 2009, the number of tenure-track jobs for English Literature Ph.D.s, as well as jobs for Ph.D.s in foreign languages, has plummeted. There are far more Ph.D.s awarded than there are positions available. A similar problem exists for History Ph.D.s. What this means is that most humanities Ph.D.s are unemployed or severely underemployed and have little hope of using their degree to make a living. In one such example from Inside Higher Ed, a recent Ph.D. candidate applied to 100 job openings, only to receive a single one-year appointment offer (which she accepted), and no offers for a secure job. While there is more funding for natural sciences, those departments are also feeling the budget crunch. Grants and endowments still exist for those conducting scientific research. Further, organizations like the National Science Foundation provide lists and resources for finding such funding. Moreover, for those studying the natural sciences there may be fewer tenured professorships available but corporate side is always in need of scientists, in both traditional and emerging fields. They are also more willing to fund university research in these fields. The BP and UC Berkeley partnership has resulted in $500 million in grants but has also raised many eyebrows. So the job prospects for Ph.D. candidates in these fields are far better. Even if it may be unrealistic to become a professor, it is realistic to expect a well-paying job upon completion of a Ph.D. program.

The hard reality is that if things don’t change, getting a Ph.D. will be something reserved for the wealthy and a few, very lucky, others. As grants continue to be cut from the budget and the tab is not picked up by anyone else, only the most well off, and the most brilliant, will be able to absorb the rising costs of higher education.

“The Hunger Games,” Hollywood, and Fighting Fuck Toys

“The Hunger Games” is Hollywood’s wake-up call that female action hero movies can be successful if the protagonist is portrayed as a complex subject instead of a hyper-sexualized fighting fuck toy (FFT).

In its first weekend, “The Hunger Games” grossed $155 million, making it the third highest opener of all time (behind the last Harry Potter film and “The Dark Knight”), despite a marketing budget half the size of the major studios. “Hunger” holds the record for top opener outside of July, and the top non-sequel opener. “Hunger” also holds the distinction of being the highest grossing opener with a female protagonist.

By the second weekend, “Hunger” made $251 million in the U.S. — the fastest non-sequel to break the quarter billion dollar mark. While the movie plays up the romance angle more than the books, ”Hunger” is squarely an action thriller, set in a dystopic future world where teens fight to the death in a reality show designed to bolster the dominance of the ruling order.

“Hunger’s” success is partially based on the wide appeal of its teenage hero, Katniss Everdeen, who makes it through the movie without a single scene of sexual objectification (despite opportunities to work this into the story). Katniss is a believable, reluctant hero. She succeeds where other female heroes have failed because she isn’t a FFT.

Fighting fuck toys are hyper-sexualized female protagonists who are able to “kick ass” (and kill) with the best of them. The FFT appears empowered, but her very existence serves the pleasure of the heterosexual male viewer. In short, the FFT takes female agency, weds it to normalized male violence, and appropriates it for the male gaze.

From an ethical standpoint, Hollywood executives should be concerned about the damage girls and women sustain growing up in a society with ubiquitous images of sex objects, but they’re not. From a business standpoint, Hollywood executives should be concerned about the money they could be making with better female action heroes, but so far, they seem pretty clueless.

Hollywood rolls out FFTs every few years that generally don’t perform well at the box office (think Lara Croft, Elektra, Cat Woman, Sucker Punch), leading executives to wrongly conclude that female action leads aren’t bankable. The problem isn’t their sex. The problem is their portrayal as sex objects, and objects aren’t convincing protagonists. Subjects “act” while objects are “acted upon,” so reducing a female action hero to an object, even sporadically, diminishes her ability to believably carry a storyline. The FFT might have an enviable swagger and do cool stunts, but she’s ultimately a bit of a joke.

The comical nature of objectified female protagonists is exposed in the Escher Girls tumbler that critiques the physical contortions of FFTs in video games and comic books.

Likewise, the film “Wonder Woman: The Untold Story of Female Superheroines” documents their evolution in U.S. popular culture with special emphasis on recent hyper-sexualization and subsequent disempowerment.

With the phenomenal success of “The Hunger Games,” Hollywood can no longer deny the bankability of female action leads. Forty percent of the audience for “The Hunger Games” is male, so a great story led by a kick ass female lead who isn’t reduced to a sex object can have wide appeal. As Mark Hughes from Forbes.com points out, movie studios artificially limit their profits when they target male audiences at the expense of other demographics.

Hollywood is now on a quest to find the next Katniss Everdeen franchise. The question is, do executives know better than to turn her into a fighting fuck toy?

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“The Hunger Games” Trailer

Rush Limbaugh’s 20 Year War on Women

After Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown law school student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” for believing that insurance should cover the cost of birth control, pundits on the right and left quickly pointed out that liberal media figures have also used sexist slurs.

I have perhaps written more than anyone about the use of sexist slurs by prominent men on the left lobbed at Sarah Palin, Laura Ingraham, Hillary Clinton, and Michele Bachmann. But to lump Chris Matthews, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, or Ed Schultz in with the likes of Limbaugh downplays the veracity of Limbaugh’s very long and very public hatred of women.

Limbaugh has spent two decades attacking feminists, female political leaders, professional women, women who speak out, and women’s gains more generally. This formula makes his almost exclusively older, white, male audience feel more powerful in a world where changing gender roles have challenged non-meritorious power structures that benefit them.

Bashing Feminists

Limbaugh popularized the term “feminazi,” which aligns feminists – those who believe in the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes, and who started the anti-domestic violence and anti-child sexual abuse movements – with the most notoriously violent regime of the last century. Back in 1992, Limbaugh appeared on the Phil Donohue Show to discuss feminazi trading cards.

Limbaugh has repeatedly said that feminism “was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream.” His favorite pastime is to attack the National Organization For Women, and in October of 2010, he called them “a bunch of whores to liberalism.”

In 2010, Limbaugh defended his decision to judge the Miss American Pageant, claiming that he loves women and is a huge supporter of the women’s movement, “especially when walking behind it.”

Bashing Female Political Leaders

Limbaugh regularly attacks Hillary Clinton in sexist ways, referring to her “testicle lockbox,” calling her a “lyin ass bitch,” questioning whether Americans want an older female president, and saying she “reminds men of the worst characteristics of women they’ve encountered over their life: totally controlling, not soft and cuddly.”  Limbaugh also referred to 13-year-old Chelsea Clinton as a “dog.”

Limbaugh often makes derisive comments about Michelle Obama’s weight and said the presidential limo “weights eight tons” without the First Lady in it.  In October of 2011, Limbaugh said that “there are plenty of lard-ass women in politics” who “get a pass on every aspect of their appearance.” But they don’t get a pass from Limbaugh who makes his living insulting the physical appearance of women in power.

In this segment, Limbaugh rants against Supreme Court justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, claiming that they’re unqualified and essentially stupid.

Bashing Professional Women

In Limbaugh’s teenage fantasy world, female journalists are “info babes” and “anchorettes.” He even suggested that many women would be “flattered to be hired as eye candy.” Limbaugh believes the media, politics, and unions are under the constant threat of “chickification” from which “nothing good can come.”

Bashing Women who Speak Out

In line with the Fluke fiasco, Limbaugh seems particularly keen on attacking women who speak out. In 2011, he joked that the women who accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment appeared together because “they want to synchronize their menstrual periods.”

Just last week, when race car driver Danica Patrick told a reporter that the government should make decisions concerning contraception coverage, Limbaugh used an ad hominem attack to berate her: “What do you expect from a woman driver?”

Bashing Women’s Progress

Limbaugh is highly critical of the gains women have made in American society in recent decades. In 2009, he stated that “everybody knows it was the vacuum cleaner that liberated women more than the pill.” In his defense, Limbaugh may have said this because he doesn’t understand how the pill works.

In Limbaugh’s mind, women live longer lives because they have it easier than men. In 2006, Limbaugh compared his cat to women: “Once I feed her, guess what? She’s off until the next time she gets hungry. And she doesn’t have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat has taught me more about women than anything in my whole life.”

In Limbaugh’s world, women are conniving bimbos. He told Sandra Fluke, “If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex…we want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

For Rush Limbaugh, then, women in positions of power or those who speak out on behalf of themselves or other women are to be ridiculed and derided. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, he was identified as the most trusted news personality in the nation in a 2008 Zogby poll.

Given his 20 year war on women, it’s not at all shocking that Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke these sexist slurs. What is shocking is that the American public has finally taken notice.

2012 Election Sexism Watch #9: Bachmann Pours Away Presidential Bid

How did we miss this one? Representative Michele Bachmann performed the comically gendered role of pouring water for all of the (male) Republican candidates and the (male) host at the start of the Republican Family Forum debate in Iowa this past November.

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Some of the candidates seemed uncomfortable at this puzzling behavior, and the host joked, “I want to begin by thanking Representative Bachmann for taking care of the water for today’s event.” It’s possible that Bachmann only intended to pour water for the person sitting next to her, but was put on the spot when the host assumed she would pour water for everyone.

This event was hosted by CitizenLink, the political action arm of the uber-conservative Christian organization, Focus on the Family. CitizenLink describes itself as a “family advocacy organization that inspires men and women to live out biblical citizenship that transforms culture.” They promote traditional families as the “building block of society,” so it’s possible that Bachmann was strategically catering to an audience that is less supportive of women in “unconventional” roles.

Whether intentional or unintentional, Bachmann’s actions highlight the contradiction between traditional gender roles and conceptions of leadership.  And the lack of media focus on this incident illustrates how unremarkable it is for a woman to be in a service role in the company of men.  If Governor Rick Perry had gone around the table and dutifully poured water for all of the Republican primary contenders, it would have made the front page.

Three Reasons Why Voter ID Laws Should Be the #1 Issue for the Occupy Movement

In early 2009, I had dinner with a prominent, conservative political operative at the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney. He calmly (and accurately) predicted that the 2010 mid-term election would see the largest Republican gains in half a century. He then leaned in and half-whispered, “but you haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait until 2012 .” I pressed him on specifics, but he would only allude to a campaign that would rewrite the political rules. With the revelation that a centralized, state-by-state voter suppression campaign is underway, I now know what he was alluding to.

In 2011, a sudden wave of state-level voter restrictions in Republican-controlled states has swept the nation, just in time for the 2012 election, with 19 new laws and two executive actions on the books. Some of these laws reduced or eliminated early voting, while others did away with weekend voting and same-day registration. All 50 states require voters to prove their identification at the polls, but 17 states have pending or approved law mandating government-sponsored IDs in order to vote, despite the fact that approximately 11% of citizens don’t have such IDs (for various reasons). For some Americans, even those with ample resources, getting an ID can be quite a challenge (even for nuns!).

The Brennan Center for Justice estimates that 5 million eligible voters face disenfranchisement from these new voter ID laws.

On its face, an ID requirement to vote may seem reasonable, especially for the vast majority of Americans with IDs who use them to fly, purchase cigarettes, etc. But when considered within the broader political context, the anti-democratic intent of such legislation become clear.

The voter ID movement is based on a bald-faced lie that voter impersonation is an issue. It’s not. As the DNC humorously notes, a person is 39 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to engage in voter impersonation, and 3,600 times more likely to report a UFO.

This voting fraud figure is based on a Bush Administration investigation into the matter that involved only 70 prosecutions nationwide, some of which were honest mistakes.

We don’t have a voter impersonation fraud problem in the U.S., but we do have a voter turnout problem. Turnout in presidential years has declined since 1960, and pitifully hovers below 60% of the eligible electorate. We should be undertaking Herculean efforts to increase voter turnout, not erecting barriers to voting based on trumped-up problems to serve partisan ends. Yet, despite the data, untold resources are being spent to “correct” a problem that simply doesn’t exist. These new laws will cost taxpayers millions of dollars annually to implement, not including the cost of certain litigation. When a situation like this arises in politics, it means there are other motives at play.

The motives here are startling to those concerned about democratic representation. In short, this is a corporate-sponsored attack on democracy, spearheaded by Republicans intent on disenfranchising certain groups in the electorate in order to gain political control.

1. Corporate ties are first reason why voter ID efforts are ideal for the Occupy Movement, a grassroots effort that started in New York this past September to challenge “the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process.”

The corporate organization behind the new spate of voter ID laws is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which claims to be a “nonpartisan public-private partnership” between legislators, the private sector, and the general public to promote “principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty.” (How is requiring government-issued ID to vote a promotion of “limited government” and “individual liberty”?) In actuality, ALEC is a hyper-conservative Republican organization that receives 98% of its funding from corporate entities, such as Exxon Mobil, Atria (formerly Phillip Morris tobacco), AT&T, Coca-Cola, and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation.

And ALEC is more than just a corporate lobbying organization. They work directly with legislators (who are ALEC members) to craft model legislation that is then introduced in statehouses across the country without acknowledging that corporations drafted the bill. ALEC drafted model ID voter legislation, and every single new voter ID law was passed with ALEC member involvement. ALEC’s policy agenda for 2011 included bills to deregulate polluting industries, privatize education, eliminate unions, and voting restrictions.

David and Charles Koch, two brothers who have quietly promoted their radical, free-market agenda with $100 million in contributions to conservative causes, including bankrolling Scott Walker’s election and subsequent recent assault on public unions in Wisconsin, have long ties to ALEC. Koch Industries has been one of a select group of members on ALEC’s governing board for nearly two decades, and from what little financial information is available, the Koch contribution to ALEC likely exceeds $1 million. The lead lobbyist for Koch Industries formerly chaired ALEC. Koch brother involvement in voter ID laws should be of particular interest for the Occupy Movement considering that David Koch’s project, Citizens for a Sound Economy, spearheaded the effort to repeal Glass-Steagall that enabled banking institutions to gamble in securities and tank the economy in 2008.

The purpose of new voter ID laws is to demobilize certain portions of electorate who are more likely to vote for Democrats, a goal laid out by ALEC founder, Paul Weyrich many decades ago who stated that “I don’t want everybody to vote… Our leverage in the elections goes up as the voting populus goes down.”

2. The second reason why voter ID laws are a great target for the Occupy Movement is that they disproportionately affect Black Americans, Latino/a voters, U.S. citizens who were born in other countries, elderly people, people with disabilities, transgendered people, and students — all of whom are less likely to have the required ID for different reasons. A 2006 Brennan Center study finds that 25% of Black , 16% percent of Latino/s, and 18% percent of elderly Americans lack the necessary ID. Some on the left have accurately likened these new laws to Jim Crow Era poll taxes because the expense involved in obtaining an ID place a disproportionate burden on many groups that have been historically disenfranchised.

What do all of these groups have in common? With the exception of elderly Americans who have shifted Republican in recent years (although they still comprise the most active voting group for Democrats), the Americans who will be disproportionately affected by voter ID laws all vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

3. The third reason that a voter ID campaign is ideal for Occupy is waning public support for the movement, most of which is based on a rejection of OWS tactics. Occupy still garners more support(44%) than opposition (35%), so this movement is anything but dead, but tactical shifts are required for longevity and continued relevance.

A grassroots movement is precisely what is needed to stem the tide of anti-democratic tendencies conjured by voter ID efforts. The corporate sponsors of voter suppression timed these efforts perfectly — enough time for implementation prior to the 2012 election, not enough time for constitutional challenges to move through the courts, and Republican control of the Department of Justice would certainly put an end to inquiries recently initiated by Eric Holder.

There is little doubt that voter ID efforts will affect the upcoming presidential election. The states that have restricted voting rights also have 185 Electoral College votes, two-thirds of the 270 needed to win the presidency. Out of the twelve battleground states in the upcoming election, five have already restricted voting rights and two others are considering new limitations.

Occupy could mount a state-by-state response with the concrete goals of getting people ready to vote, registering new voters, and overturning these laws.

Corporate Mistreatment

Here is a story of how one corporation mistreats its employees. The corporation, Crossmark, is a large marketing and sales company that dominates the retail market in the U.S.

http://www.kountzeonline.com/biography.html