The Skanner Reader,
Economy Encouraging Scammers

As the real estate meltdown affects more and more Portland-area families, local agencies are working to educate homeowners about foreclosure and mortgage scams.
Consumer complaints about moneylenders and collection agencies have bubbled to the top in the Oregon Department of Justice Top 10 Consumer Complaint Annual Report for 2009.
The list is a compilation of the number of written complaints the department receives in the preceding year. This year the top four are, in order: telecommunications companies, financial institutions, consumer scams and collection agencies.
In addition, 132 Oregonians reported losing a total of $1.2 million in international money transfer scams in 2008.

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source.theskanner.com

PHILIPPINES: Concerns grow over human trafficking as financial crisis deepens

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Photo: Newsbreak

Woman worker at Samar Province, awaiting a bus bound for Manila. The global economic crisis is creating massive job losses in the Philippines, particularly for women, who are the mainstay of the export sector.

MANILA,� – Concerns are growing that the global economic slump, which is causing increased joblessness, could see an increase in human trafficking, said specialists.

Law enforcers, labour leaders and social workers fear the unemployed may become increasingly desperate, making them vulnerable to human traffickers. Most of the Filipinos being laid off are women working in the export sector, so there is concern they will be at particular risk.

“Along with a possible upsurge of criminality as joblessness and poverty spread, there could be a rise in cases of human trafficking,” says lawyer Ferdinand Lavin, chief of the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) Anti-Human Trafficking Division. “People will be more aggressive in finding jobs and human traffickers will take advantage of the situation.”

“It is a valid fear,” says Julius Cainglet, spokesman for the Federation of Free Workers. “We tell our recently displaced workers to upgrade their skills so they can find work again and not be victimised by human traffickers.”

In 2007, the NBI dealt with 122 cases of human trafficking and in 2008, 130. Lavin says 90 percent of these were women who were victims of forced labour and exploitation.

There is no official government data on trafficking but Visayan Forum, a national NGO, said it had assisted 32,000 people since 2003, when the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was made law.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), however, said it had assisted only 6,000 victims of trafficking since 2003. Many of them were minors forced in sex slavery both domestically and outside the country. The DSWD data did not include men.

Social worker Ruby Dumpit, head of the community-based service unit of the DSWD, said the majority of trafficking victims were women. “They would prefer to work abroad and in their desperation, are vulnerable to exploitation. Others look for [normal] jobs in urban areas but end up in brothels.”

Dumpit says the growing joblessness also makes children vulnerable to trafficking as they are pressured to help boost the family income. Often, these minors find themselves being forced into pornography or prostitution, he says.

Denise, not her real name, was recently rescued by NBI operatives from a bar in Pasay City. Her parents were jobless and she was convinced by an unscrupulous job recruiter to leave her home province of Leyte ostensibly to work as a waitress in a restaurant in Metro Manila. She ended up working in the bar, younger than the 18 legal limit, and then was forced into prostitution. “I had to help my family since my parents have no work,” she says. She is now undergoing counselling at a shelter for trafficked women.

Women most vulnerable

The National Economic Development Authority and the Labor Department say 42,000 people have lost their jobs in the Philippines since the financial meltdown began, mostly in export industries.

The Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research (EILER), a local NGO, says women are especially vulnerable to job loss and exploitation since the sectors heavily affected by the global slump principally employ women.

EILER executive director, Anna Leah Colina, said: “Women account for 80 percent of the workers in export processing zones.” This does not include the contractual workers who have no security benefits.

The government has set aside P330 billion (US$6.8 billion) for a stimulus package. A third of the money will be spent on infrastructure projects. But Cainglet said the jobs to be created in infrastructure will mainly benefit male, not female, workers.

The Philippines enacted the anti-trafficking in law 2003 and authorities have so far secured only 12 convictions, representing only 2 percent of the total 573 cases filed by the Department of Justice.

Dumpit says the low conviction rate is not expected to deter trafficking perpetrators. “And more jobless people means more potential victims for them.”

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source.www.irinnews.org

AFGHANISTAN: Battle lines drawn over contraception

Photo: Khaled Nahiz/IRIN

The use of contraceptives can help reduce maternal mortality, health specialists say

FARAH,� – There are indications that some Taliban groups fervently oppose the use of contraceptives and may start using the issue as a pretext to launch further attacks on health centres, experts say.

A meeting in February – attended by IRIN – between Taliban insurgents and dozens of local elders and young men in Balabolok District, Farah Province, southwestern Afghanistan, was devoted to the issue of contraceptives.

A pro-Taliban religious leader spoke for almost an hour against the use of contraceptive drugs, calling them illicit and non-Islamic.

Those people who use anti-pregnancy drugs are actually murdering children, said Mawlawi Abdul Baqi, adding that the use of such drugs was against Islamic principles and should be avoided.

IRIN observed that participants at the meeting appeared to be frightened, and frequently nodded to Baqi and a handful of armed insurgents to indicate their assent. These drugs belong to Kafirs [infidels], said an insurgent with an AK-47.

There were no women at the meeting and no one mentioned maternal and infant mortality rates: Every hour at least two Afghan women die from pregnancy-related complications, and the infant mortality rate is estimated at 127 per 1,000 live births, according to aid agencies.

The condom is a bad thing

Taliban insurgents do not have a unified stance on contraceptives, but leading spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi told IRIN by phone from an unspecified location that the condom was a Western not an Islamic product. The condom is a bad thing which spreads obscenity among Muslims,” he said.

He said the condom should only be used on the advice of a doctor to prevent disease.

Contraceptive injections and pills should only be used in exceptional circumstances… In general, contraceptives should not be used to prevent childbirth because Islam favours more Muslim children and asks couples to give birth to as many children as possible, Ahmadi said.

Government advocates contraceptives

Photo: Parwin Faiz/IRIN

An average Afghan woman gives birth to 6-7 children, according to UNFPA

Unlike the Taliban, the Afghan government has been advocating the use of contraceptives in an effort to reduce maternal and infant mortality rates, and some progress has been made over the past few years.

Birth gaps have positive impacts on a mother’s health and the practice is in compliance with Sharia [Islamic] law so we will continue to recommend it, Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for MoPH, told IRIN.

Scholars like Hamdullah Rahmani, a lecturer in Islam at Kabul University, say the Taliban’s rigid social policies originate more from obscurantist traditions than true Islamic principles. They [the Taliban] are illiterate and do not know about the real spirit of Islam they’re wrong, Rahmani said.

A gap of at least two years between pregnancies is entirely in accordance with Islamic laws, said Rahmani.

Contraceptive pills and condoms have become increasingly available, especially in urban areas, since the demise of the Taliban in 2002.

Afghanistan has the highest fertility rate in Asia. The average Afghan woman gives birth to 6-7 children, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Rapid population growth (Afghanistan’s population is estimated to reach 56 million by 2050) poses serious social and development challenges, experts warn.

asf/ad/cb source.www.irinnews.org

Photo: Mohammed al-Jabri/IRIN

A new study found that girls are particularly discriminated against in Yemen (file photo)

SANAA, – Children of poor families, girls and children of the Akhdaam (servants) are the most discriminated against in Yemen, a new study has found.

The unpublished study, titled ‘Discrimination against Children and its Relation to the Cultural and Social Status in Yemen’, was conducted by Dal Centre for Cultural and Social Studies, a local NGO, in cooperation with Save the Children Sweden.

The study was conducted over a one-year period in 12 out of the country’s 21 governorates, including four main cities (Sanaa, Aden, Taiz and Mukalla), three secondary cities (Seyoun, Zabid and Marib) and 12 villages in Hajjah, al-Mahweet, Ibb, al-Dhalei, al-Baidha and Abyan provinces.

The study surveyed 1,033 people, of whom 54 percent were children aged 6-17, and the rest were parents, adults working with children and religious and social figures.

Some 78 percent of respondents said children faced discrimination in one form or another.

Hamoud al-Awdi, head of Dal Centre, said discrimination against children “threatens social harmony” in Yemen and added that poverty had become a major source of discrimination and contempt.

The study identified 13 categories of children that faced discrimination and 45 kinds of discrimination, ranging from sexism to sexual exploitation. Some 90 percent of respondents said the children most vulnerable to discrimination were Akhdaam (children of servants, who are mostly black), girls and poor children.

According to the study, 12 factors were responsible for discrimination against children, most notable of which were economic disparities, unwillingness of parents to educate children about discriminatory practices and illiteracy.

maj/ar/ed source.www.irinnews.org

AFGHANISTAN: Limited scope to absorb more refugees

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

Refugees after arriving from Pakistan to a transition centre near Kabul, Afghanistan (file photo)

JALALABAD, – Life for Jamaluddin’s family was much better when they lived as refugees in Pakistan in the 1990s; things have got worse since they returned to Afghanistan in 2008.

In Pakistan, there were work opportunities for me and I could earn enough to feed my children, Jamaluddin told IRIN, adding that he could not afford to buy food after they had returned to Afghanistan because he was jobless.

Like millions of other Afghans, war and fear of death forced Jamaluddin to flee to Pakistan.

We had a house in Jalozai camp [North West Frontier Province, Pakistan] but it was destroyed by Pakistani forces, he said.

Jalozai was the largest Afghan refugee settlement but was demolished in June 2008 and its settlers were told either to go to their home country or move to other locations inside Pakistan.

Insecurity, land disputes and lack of jobs have stopped tens of thousands of returnees from moving to their original areas and rebuilding their houses. Some households, including Jamaluddin’s, have set up tents and mud huts in different parts of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar.

Many in these makeshift camps live in difficult circumstances and regret having returned to Afghanistan.

UNHCR to help more refugees return

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

Children climb down from a truck after arriving from Pakistan to a transition centre near Kabul (file photo)

The return of about five million refugees from Pakistan and Iran since 2002 has been hailed as a significant achievement of the Hamid Karzai government and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The UNHCR says the repatriation of Afghan refugees in the past seven years is “the single largest return programme” in the organisation’s history.

After a winter pause, UNHCR will resume the voluntary return drive from Pakistan on 15 March and has plans to assist 220,000 refugees until the end of 2009. UNHCR’s assistance programme for the voluntary return of refugees from Iran has been functioning all year round, without a winter pause.

Refugees will be helped to return amid a marked deterioration in Afghanistan’s overall security, economic and humanitarian situation.

“We do not have the capacity to absorb large numbers of returnees, Shamsuddin Hamid, a spokesman for the Ministry of Refugees and Returnees’ Affairs, told IRIN.

The situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated significantly since 2006, particularly on the security front. Afghanistan is also one of the poorest countries in the world and people have very little access to basic services such as health, education and livelihoods, Ingrid MacDonald, protection and advocacy manager of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), told IRIN in Kabul.

UNHCR said the nature of the repatriation had been voluntary and refugees had the freedom of choice to return to Afghanistan or stay in host countries.

It is our view that giving refugees the freedom and opportunity to make an informed choice is critical to the sustainability of return, Ewen MacLeod, UNHCR representative, told IRIN, adding that the return programme was influenced by a range of political, security, economic and social factors.

About 2.7 million Afghan refugees are currently registered in Pakistan and Iran. There are also many Afghan labour migrants in both neighbouring countries but their precise number is unknown.

Tougher refugee policies

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

Refugees wait for registration after arriving from Pakistan to a transition centre near Kabul (file photo)

Millions of Afghan refugees were hosted in Pakistan and Iran in the 1980s and 1990s when the country was first invaded by the former Soviet Union and subsequently plunged into internecine armed conflicts.

However, over the past few years both countries have toughened refugee policies and agreed to host only registered Afghans in foreseeable future.

Iran has been renewing Afghan refugees’ residence permits every six months, and those in Pakistan will have to renew theirs in December 2009, according to UNHCR.

Discussions facilitated by the UNHCR were scheduled in March between the Afghan and Pakistani authorities to discuss the fate of over 1.7 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan beyond December 2009 when their existing residence permits expire, a source who preferred anonymity told IRIN.

The Pakistani government – which is under pressure from the Afghan government, the USA and other countries to tackle extremists on its territory – has indicated it wants to put an end to the presence of Afghan refugees in its North West Frontier and Baluchistan provinces.

Iran ordered all Afghan refugees to leave Sistan and Baluchistan provinces in 2008, apparently for security reasons.

af/ad/at/cb source.www.irinnews.org