Saturday

11th September

 2010

Trafficking Conference

 at Leatherhead Leisure Centre

to be opened by Chris Grayling MP

Shadow Home Secretary & MP for Epsom and Ewell

                             More details soon

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More recently, SI Members were invited to an exclusive LexisNexis private screening of the film ‘Holly.  The following is a brief report.  We came away knowing that next year’s Conference will be even more meaningful. 

‘HOLLY’

Prince Charles Cinema

1^st December 2009 

Marlene Teiwel and Barbara Watts, members of SI Epsom, attended the premiere screening of the film, which was sponsored by LexisNexis. The event was a positive initiative by the company to raise awareness of people trafficking and especially the world-wide abuse of children in the sex industry. 

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We were taken on a harrowing journey. 

The film portrayed the tragic story of a twelve-year old girl, Holly, who was held in a brothel in Cambodia, having been sold by her impoverished Vietnamese family and smuggled across the border to work as a prostitute.  Because she was a virgin she was more ‘valuable’, as a high price could be asked of her first client.

Holly is a feisty young girl and the actress playing the part conveyed the disgust, anger, terror and all other emotions with great conviction and yet she still managed to portray the anguish of this child in a very genuine and understated way. 

The impossible situation in which Holly finds herself is made shockingly clear by Patrick, who finding himself lodging in the ‘hotel’, befriends the child and eventually tries to rescue her. 

At one stage Patrick finds himself tricked into going to a family home and invited to have sex with a girl-child no more than seven or eight as her parents looked on. He is appalled and bolts! An older ‘punter’ could see nothing wrong in having sex with under-age girls, even though he has a daughter himself.  There was graphic evidence of corruption within the police force and physical abuse by the ‘minders’ of the girls.  When Holly is being transported from one brothel to another, she tries to escape by jumping from the back of the truck.  She lands in a mined field, but is able to escape unscathed.  She joins a group of street children and scavenges off rubbish tips to survive. (Both the banning of landmines and help for street children are of course issues that we Soroptimists have campaigned for recently.) Sadly, Holly ends up back in the clutches of her ‘owners’ and is taken to a higher class establishment where she is drugged into submission. 

It would be a shame to give away the ending of the film, as we hope to obtain a DVD of ‘Holly’ to show fellow members.  But needless to say, it isn’t a ‘and they all lived happily ever after’ scenario.

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The screening was followed by a question and answer session.  

The Four panelists were: 

Guy Jacobson* - the Writer/Producer of ‘Holly’, former attorney and investment banker and human rights activist. Utilising his background in Law and Economics, Jacobson founded the RedLight Children Campaign that works to eliminate the demand for child exploitation, focusing on legislation, enforcement, and the rule of law.  For his tireless efforts to in the fight against child sex trafficking, in 2008 he was awarded the US State Department’s prestigious Global Hero Award. 

Christine Beddoe - the UK representative of the international ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking) network.  Amongst other roles, she is an advisor on the protection of children from exploitation in tourism to the UN World Tourism Org. and to the European Economic and Social Council. 

Parosha Chandran is an award-winning human rights barrister, whose work has led to several advances in the law governing victims of human trafficking.  She has won the Law Society’s Barrister of the Year Award (2008) and the Society of Asian Lawyers’ Pro Bono/Human Rights Lawyer of the Year Award (2009).  She works closely with many organisations, including the POPPY project.  Since 2004, she has achieved asylum status for the majority of women supported by this initiative. 

Terry Tennans is the UK Director of International Justice Mission (IJM), which is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression.  IJM has field offices in Africa, South Asia, South East Asia and Latin America, where lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local governments to ensure victim rescue, to prosecute perpetrators and to strengthen the community and civic factors that promote functioning public justice systems. 

Comments and issues that have stayed in the mind are: 

• Everything that happened in the film was true to life and not exaggerated
• Human trafficking is recognised as being the 2^nd or 3^rd largest organised crime in the world
• A huge proportion of child victims of trafficking are snatched from care homes - evidence shows that 60% of children go missing from care within 24 hours
• It is a UK internal problem as well as international
• Education is a key factor in helping to eradicate trafficking by raising awareness and rescuing people from poverty
• Need to educate men and tackle the demand for underage sex
• In Norway it is a punishable crime to buy sex anywhere in the world
• In Cambodia the law is beginning to have teeth and 31 traffickers have recently been arrested with 9 convictions
• We must raise awareness and work together.  Whatever we can do to help, we must do it. 

*Guy Jacobson cannot return to Cambodia.  His life would be in danger, as some of the scenes were shot in Mafia run brothels - albeit with a heavy police and security guard. 

Details of the following organisations and initiatives were given: 

• Anti-Slavery International www.antislavery.org
• ECPAT UK www.ecpat.org.uk
• Helen Bamber Foundation www.helenbamber.org
• International Justice Mission www.ijmuk.org
• Medaille Trust www.medaille.co.uk/index.php
• Poppy project www.eaves4women.co.uk/POPPY_Project/Poppy_Project.php
• Purple Teardrop Campaign www.purpleteardrop.org.uk
• Redlight Children Campaign www.redlightchildren.org
• Somaly Mam Foundation www.somaly.org 

BW 12 2009

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The following item is the report from Joyce Boorman after the visit to the Amnesty Int. UK event.

  Report of the Amnesty International UK event

 ’Not Natasha*’: an evening of photography, film and debate on trafficking in the UK held on 13 May 2009

(*Natasha is a nickname given to prostitutes - sex trafficked girls and women hate it) 

Barbara Watts (SI Epsom’s Programme Action Officer) and Joyce Boorman (member SI Epsom)attended the above event on behalf of SI Epsom and SI of Southern England Region.  Approx. 150 people attended (both women and men) from various organisations. 

There was a short introduction by Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, who said that although the event was to celebrate success of the UK Government ratifying the Council of Europe Convention Against Human Trafficking in December 2008 it was important to now turn that convention into something tangible for women’s rights.  

(The ratification means the UK will formally become part of a Europe-wide agreement about setting minimum standards for protecting and supporting trafficking victims.  It also strengthens the UK’s ability to catch the criminals that exploit victims of trafficking and underlines the government’s long-term commitment to tackling this horrific crime.) 

A short film ‘Torture By Any Other Name’  then followed made by and featured Emma Thompson (herself an outspoken supporter of the campaign against trafficking) for the Helen Bamber Foundation.  The film, although only a few minutes long was harrowing to say the least with Emma playing a woman before being trafficked and during being forced into prostitution and having to have sex with up to 40 clients a day.  The film focused mostly on her face and the changes that took place.  It was a powerful piece of filming.    

The panel speakers were:

i)  Dana Popa, winner of the Jerwood photography prize for her study of trafficking in Moldova

ii)  Frances Brodrick, from the POPPY Project

iii)  Maggie Baxter, former Executive Director of WOMANKIND Worldwide and founder of Rosa UK Fund for Women and Girls (who chaired the evening)

iv)  Poonam Joshi, Amnesty’s gender policy adviser 

·                    Dana Popa 

Dana showed a selection of her poignant photographs taken of sex trafficked girls and women from Moldova.  

She said that the Republic of Moldova is the poorest nation in Europe.  Every year, thousands of young girls and women ages 12 to 40 leave the country looking for a better life (After the fall of the Soviet Union approx. 10% of the population was trafficked with the main destination being Turkey.)

An overwhelming majority of these women, especially the younger ones, become sex slaves.  Sex trafficking is the most profitable illegal business. Acquaintances, close friends, relatives (including fathers and even mothers) and boyfriends can sell a girl off for a price ranging from £200 to £2,000, depending on the girl’s physical appearance. 

The strategy is simple enough: they lure women in by offering them jobs in wealthy foreign countries as retailers, nannies or bartenders.  They offer to pay their travelling expenses, allowing women to pay them back once they start working.  However, once these women arrive in the country of destination, the traffickers immediately confiscate their passports, stick them in brothels and put them to work as prostitutes.

All of the women photographed were former sex slaves who survived to tell their stories. Some of the pictures were taken at the International Organisation of Migration centre, where girls recently rescued from traffickers are given refuge for several weeks.

All of the women photographed were mothers. Some of them chose to leave their country in order to offer their children a better life, while others became pregnant while being trafficked. Motherhood unites all of these women: motherhood either caused them to fall into the sex traffickers’ traps, or it was a consequence of the trafficking.

·                    Frances Brodrick

Frances said that the POPPY Project was set up in 2003 and funded by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform (reporting to the Ministry of Justice) to provide accommodation and support  to women who have been trafficked into prostitution.  It now has 54 bed spaces in houses across the UK.

Since its inception POPPY has helped 500 women with telephone help given to a further 700/800.  She admitted that this was the tip of the iceberg

The POPPY outreach serviceOutreach_Service.php(based in Sheffield and London) works to improve the safety and wellbeing of women from all over the UK who have been trafficked and who are in need of short term support and advocacy.

POPPY research and development provides education, training and lobbying to raise awareness about trafficking and exiting prostitution. This area of POPPY’s work is funded by London Councils.

·                    Maggie Baxter

Maggie introduced the short film ‘Two Little Girls’ directed by Ruth Beni and which had recently been produced for WOMANKIND, who work to secure women’s rights and make their voices heard, initially to be used in Albania  through distribution to schools, community groups, woman’s organisations and churches.  The animated film follows the stories of two young women who are cruelly deceived by loved ones and are trafficked into prostitution against their will. The film was made in consultation with five Albanian women who were trafficked into the UK, and who shared their experiences with the film-makers.

Their stories reflect the two most common ways Eastern European women and girls are tricked and lured from their homes by people they know and trust.

This is another film on this harrowing subject and to maximise the film’s impact it starts with a fairytale feel but ends in stark monochrome reality to emphasise its serious message.

·                    Poonam Joshi

Poonam concentrated on various UK policy aspects of trafficking and human rights related topics.  She said that there were still barriers to victim protection:  legal protection; period of reflection; criminalisation of the victim.

On 14 May 2009 the UK Government’s Home Affairs Committee would be publishing its report ‘The Trade in Human Beings: Human Trafficking in the UK’ and although the report was embargoed until then she said that one of the isues addressed and of great concern for Amnesty was the one of ‘no recourse to public funds’.  This means that some women come to the UK on temporary work permits, student visas or spousal visas and are not entitled to certain state benefits, including housing benefit and income support.  However, it is these benefits that womean must be able to claim for to get a place in a refuge.  They will merely be turned away. 

·                    Q and A Session

This session followed the presentations, where areas addressed were:

-             the possibility of criminalisation of men who have sex with trafficked women (as in Sweden                            and other Nordic countries)

-             trafficking is a US$12billion business (more than drugs)

-             Amnesty does not have a policy on prostitution

-             no numbers are available for trafficked women in the UK

-             those trafficked into the UK are mostly now from Africa and Asia and not Eastern Europe

-             number of traffickers convicted is minimal

-             trafficking is likely to increase with ‘the recession’ 

·                    Overall impression of the evening

It was a a very interesting and informative event.  It made you think that the whole subject of trafficking is so vast that there are even more questions to ask than before and issues to address.  It leaves you with a helpless feeling of where to start.     

Joyce Boorman and Barbara Watts

SI Epsom and District

16 May 2009

Thanks to an article in the Epsom Guardian and a great deal of work by members in publicising the event, the response from the public was very positive.  We were given wheelchairs, walking sticks, pairs of crutches, zimmer frames and a walker to be given to ‘Wheels for the World’.  This local charity will then send them to Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight, where they will be refurbished and then sent to identified recipients in Africa and Eastern European countries.

If you are reading this and have unused equipment buried away in the back of the garage, please contact us through this site and we will arrange to collect it.

Dear Friends 

As President of Soroptimist International of Epsom and District, I am delighted to be able to invite you to share in our 50^th Anniversary celebrations. 

Since the club was chartered in 1959, there have been many fine examples of how our members have made a difference to the lives of women and children locally and overseas.

We have set up innovative projects, lobbied local and central governments and raised many thousands of pounds to support worthwhile causes. 

We have also enjoyed a rich and varied social programme, made wonderful friends and enjoyed ourselves into the bargain! 

I know that I speak for SI Epsom and District Club Members when I say that welcoming old and new friends from home or overseas at any of our 50^th Anniversary events will make this coming year’s celebrations even more meaningful. 

I sincerely hope that you will be able to join us at some time during the coming twelve months.

Yours in friendship

         Sally

Sunday 17th May - Service of Celebration at St. Barnabas Church, Ranmore  3.00 pm Retiring Collection in aid of Project SIerra.  

Saturday 20th June - Celebration Dinner  - The Queen’s Stand, Epsom Racecourse     

Enjoying the Celebration Dinner …. President Sally, SIGBI President Elect* - Jackie Mosedale and The Mayor of Epsom & Ewell, Cllr. Jan Mason and her Consort Alan Mason and President Sally giving Jackie Mosedale the Club’s donation to Project SIerra

*(Our congratulations and very best wishes to Jackie, now that she is President) 

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Saturday 7th November - Charities’ Fair at Ashtead Peace Memorial Hall in aid of ‘Project SIerra’ andthe Club’s ‘Educational Support Fund for Young Women Carers’

Although we haven’t yet arrived at a final figure for the takings for the day, we know that the various charities that were represented, Project SIerra andour Educational Fund will benefit from at least £600 between them.  We were delighted with the generous support from SI Reigate.  WOW bags were a real WOW too.

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‘Women and Their Art’ - Art Exhibition 22nd - 27th March 2010

10.00 - 4.00 daily at Bourne Hall, Spring Street, Ewell KT17 1UF   

‘Women and Their Art’ will be a celebration of women’s creativity. The exhibition will raise funds for our Educational Support Fund for Young Carers and East Surrey Domestic Abuse Service.   We hope that many different visual arts will be represented. The venue is extremely popular with local artists and visitors alike. Bourne Hall has recently been refurbished with excellent wall space for up to 100 pictures.  Comfortable seating and excellent access, plus being able to enjoy a cup of tea, coffee or a snack whilst admiring the art on display, has made it a favourite meeting place for many. 

There will be a charge of £10.00 for the 1st exhibit, £7.50 for the next and £5.00 for any others.  However, no commission will be deducted from any items sold.

The following notes cover other practicalities of the event: 

Artwork should be delivered during the week beginning March 8^th to enable cataloguing to take place. Our team will be hanging and displaying the artwork at Bourne Hall from 9.00am on Monday March 22^nd.  If you wish to help, please let us know. 

Pictures must be ready to hang and artwork mounted so that they it can be easily shown.  Please contact us about requirements for showing other items such as pottery and sculpture. 

Labels for you to stick on the back of your artwork will be sent on receipt of your cheque.  They will ensure that items and artists are not confused.  Please print your name, the title of the artwork, the medium used and the price.  If the artwork is not for sale, please make this very clear. 

ALL ARTWORK MUST BE COLLECTED FROM BOURNE HALL AFTER 2.30pm ON SATURDAY MARCH 27^TH AND NO LATER THAN 3.30pm.  Money collected from the sale of artwork should also be collected at this time, unless other arrangements have been made.  (We will suggest that sold items are collected by the purchaser at this time as well.  If they are unable to do so, they will of course take them at the time of the sale.) 

Every effort will be made to ensure that artwork is kept safe and stewards will be on duty most of the time.  But items are exhibited at their owners risk and SI Epsom & District can take no responsibility for damage or loss that is outside their control. Please insure items separately if you have any worries about their safety.

If you would like to participate, please contact us through this website and we will send you the necessary forms and any other information that you might need. We look forward to hearing from you!

Thank you