More than one million people, the majority of them women and children, are smuggled across international borders to work in near slavery every year, the US state department says.

Its 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report lists more than 170 countries which it claims are not doing enough to tackle the problem.

Al Jazeera met “Svetlana”, a Ukrainian forced to work in the sex trade in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

She recounted how she was offered a job as a waitress, but the woman who had originally promised to help her in Tashkent took away her passport and threatened to harm her family if she did not co-operate.

After years of abuse, “Svetlana” has found refuge at the United Arab Emirates’ first shelter for the victims of human trafficking.

Staff at the Abu Dhabi Shelter for Women and Children say that although her story is common, there is too little awareness of the situation.

15-7-2009

In a blatant defiance to his victims and in disdain to the lives of dozens of martyrs and thousands of suppression and torture victims, the former colonel in the State Security Apparatuses Adel Jassim Fleifel announced his intention to run for the coming parliamentary elections. In an interview by Al-Watan Bahraini Newspaper on Tuesday 7th July 2009, Adel Fleifel announced his intention, as an adviser to the Islamic Unity Society, to run for the next parliament and engage in the elections in October 2010, within the fifth electoral district in Muharraq Governorate.

Adel Fleifel

Adel Fleifel’s interview with the mentioned newspaper recalled harsh and painful memories that many of the victims with their various political backgrounds went through. Adel Fleifel’s name emerged between the year 1980 and 2000 as an intelligence officer working in the dissolved State Security Apparatuses, and as an assistant to the well-known Scottish officer Ian Henderson , head of the State Security Apparatuses. He became infamous for his brutality with his detainees and mutilating them during detention, and he is considered one of those directly responsible for the death of dozens of the nation’s people under torture, and thousands of torture victims which he personally participated in torturing, or through orders issued by him or under his supervision. He is responsible for many physical and sexual abuses practiced on the detainees who were in his custody.

(more…)