The struggle against corruption is real when you are the one who has to bear witness.
International Anti-Corruption Day Observed by the Justice Department
The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training (OPDAT) and International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) helps foreign governments combat corruption. OPDAT provides expert assistance and case-based mentoring to foreign counterparts to help develop justice systems that can effectively combat corruption in furtherance of U.S. national security. ICITAP helps foreign governments combat corruption by building capacity of law enforcement institutions and other government entities to investigate misconduct and corruption and to implement internal controls that encourage professional conduct among government employees.
OPDAT’s Senior Counsel on Global Anticorruption provides specialized technical advice, training, and consultation to foreign prosecutors, judges, and investigators around the world. OPDAT’s anticorruption program assists counterparts from other jurisdictions in analyzing, investigating, and prosecuting corruption pursuant to international standards, including the UN Convention Against Corruption. OPDAT’s anticorruption program aids U.S. law enforcement efforts by strengthening international cooperation and promoting evidence sharing around the globe. Most recently, during the weeks of October 21 and 28, at the International Law Enforcement Academies in Botswana and Ghana, respectively, OPDAT led two anticorruption programs for prosecutors and judges.
In its bilateral programs, OPDAT’s Resident Legal Advisors, Intermittent Legal Advisors, and International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Advisors have also provided expert anticorruption assistance and case-based mentoring to foreign counterparts. Notable recent successes include:
In Indonesia, the OPDAT Indonesia-mentored Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) arrested the mayor of Indonesia’s third largest city, Medan, for allegedly receiving bribes of approximately $25,000. Medan’s public works chief, a protocol official, the mayor’s personal aide, and three businessmen were also arrested. According to the KPK, the mayor had used the funds to cover his family member’s travel expenses.
In Colombia, an OPDAT-mentored prosecutor helped secure the conviction of the former mayor of Bogotá on 34 fraud and corruption counts related to a public contracting scheme worth $63 million.
In El Salvador, a judge found that OPDAT-mentored prosecutors had submitted sufficient evidence for the former minister of health and 15 other defendants to be re-tried for defrauding the government of $2.7 million.
In Paraguay, an OPDAT-mentored organized crime prosecutor oversaw the takedown of a police protection and corruption scheme, filing charges against 21 police officers who were taken into custody for having collaborated with Brazilian transnational criminal organizations, including the Primer Comando Capital and the Comando Vermelho.
In Serbia, OPDAT supported legislative reforms and institutional capacity building that helped the Ministry of Justice establish four specialized anti-corruption prosecutorial, police, and judicial departments. Since their creation, OPDAT has trained and mentored prosecutors, investigators, and judges assigned to the new departments. The Republic Public Prosecutor’s Office, in close cooperation with Serbia’s Ministry of Interior and regulatory bodies, has secured hundreds of convictions successfully using a task-force model and proactive approach, as trained by OPDAT. In Nis, Serbia, the OPDAT-mentored anti-corruption prosecutorial department has recently garnered positive media attention for achieving significant convictions and having hundreds of ongoing investigations.
Building effective anticorruption investigative capacity depends on institutions having sound management practices and human resource systems. ICITAP helps host-country law enforcement institutions improve their ability to direct and train employees to follow new laws and procedures, to recruit and retain qualified personnel, and to manage them effectively through leadership, discipline, and merit-based incentives. ICITAP also promotes public education campaigns and transparency and assists in setting up units and training personnel to handle citizen complaints in a professional manner. In addition, ICITAP provides training in a range of investigative methods and skills, which are necessary to build a successful anticorruption case.
ICITAP’s team of forensic specialists design and guide critical assistance to foreign laboratories that supports counterparts’ efforts around the world to combat corruption, terrorism, and transnational criminal organizations. Funded primarily through agreements with the U.S. Department of State, ICITAP’s work supports the efforts of the international community and host-country partners to implement and comply with the United Nations Convention Against Corruption.
Day 2: How to save "The Poors" in bloodless warzones with Public Private Partnerships.
Day 3: How to maximize revenues through child welfare trust funds, Social Impact Bonds.
You people thought I spoke in jest when I said these people use predictive modeling crap to come up with revenue maximization schemes after they complete stealin' the children, land and votes. These are your new, Public Private Partnerships that are privately taking over our U.S. government because we are really, really dumb and greedy by allowing children to grow up in poverty. These are the people who come up with the fantastic innovations to help "The Poors" that they intentionally made poor by stealin'. Thank you for allow me to vent
World Bank Leadership meets to plot and scheme to make mo' $$$ off the changing times of "The Poors".
Someone had to do it.
Join us LIVE for the 2019 World Bank/IMF Annual meetings - October 16th-18th - this year’s Annual Meetings external program of events will focus on groundbreaking research and innovations that can create transformative benefits for the poor. The program of open events is around the broad theme of Building Strong, Inclusive Economies and Achieving Successful Country Outcomes.
To open the Annual Meetings to audiences around the World, we will live stream key events and interviews with exciting development experts. This year’s live stream will be daily continuous coverage starting on Wednesday October 14th through Friday October 16th. The popular, flagship Global Voices interview series will be interspersed through the programming with a total of about 15 live interviews during the week of the Meetings. Stay tuned for the Annual Meet
Malgoise is a trailblazer when it comes to the industry of trafficking tiny humans because she spearheaded the international reengineering the residuals of the peculiar industry by pushing child welfare propaganda to coincide with the launch of ASFA.
MS. MALGOSIA FITZMAURICEProfessor of Public International Law, Department of Law
Queen Mary University of London
Professor Malgosia Fitzmaurice holds a chair of public international law at Queen Mary
University of London. She specializes in international environmental law, whaling,
indigenous rights and the law of treaties, on all of these subjects she publishes
extensively. Her monograph on “Whaling and International Law” was published by
Cambridge University Press in December 2015. In 2001 she delivered The Hague
Academy of International lecture on “The International Protection of the Environment”.
Professor Fitzmaurice was invited several times as a Visiting Professor by numerous
universities, such as IMO International Maritime Law Institute in Malta (Nippon
Foundation Professor); UC Berkeley School of Law, University of Paris 1 PanthéonSorbonne, and University of Kobe, Japan.
Malgoise also has a Japanese Foster Care lab rat operation called the Nippon Foundation.
The Tooth Fairy is my favorite trafficking tiny humans revenue maximization project.
What is TOOTH FAIRY
project
?
The metal used for dental treatment and dentures is made of an alloy containing gold and palladium, and
it is an important fund to support children by collecting and recycling a lot.
The TOOTH FAIRY project is
being promoted by donating metal collected with the cooperation of patients by dentists who sympathize with this activity .
TRANSLATION: THE BODY PARTS INDUSTRY IS NOT JUST FOR ORGANIC MATTER ANYMORE
What is really odd is that I believe The Nippon Foundation may be one of those fake ass child welfare NGO, but, hey, what do I know?
I know nothing because I could not find any instrument of authority.
Professor of Public International Law the Department of Law, School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London with general responsibility for the teaching of public international law in the College at graduate and undergraduate level (at the undergraduate and post-graduate level international environmental law and post-graduate level the law of treaties). (from 1995) Main teaching interests are: the law of treaties; international environmental law The Nippon Foundation Part- time Visiting Professor of Marine Environmental Law at the International Maritime Institute in Malta, 2014-present Main areas of research interest: the law of treaties; international environmental law (protection of marine environment and biodiversity, whales; the environmental protection of the Baltic Sea); indigenous people’s rights. Other Current Positions Editor-in-Chief of a book series ‘Queen Mary Studies in International Law’ published by Martinus Nijhoff Publisher (Brill). Editor –in –Chief of International Community Law Review Member of the of the Commission on Environmental Law of the International Union for Conservation of Nature Member of the International Law Association Working Group on Treaty Interpretation External Examiner for International Law Subjects undergraduate and LLM: University College London (2012-2015); London School of Economics (2015-present) Past Employment 1981-1982 Researcher at TMC Asser Institute in the Hague , the Netherlands 1982-1986 Legal Assistant Iran –United States Claims Tribunal From 1989 to 1995, Senior Lecturer, and from 1994 Reader, in International Law in the Faculty of Law of the University of Amsterdam with responsibility for the advanced course in general international law, international environmental law and law of the sea. From 1992 to 1995, part time lecturer at King’s College, London taking the LLM Course in the law of treaties (1992/1993 and 1993/1994) and international environmental law (1993/1994 and 1994/1995). Grants received: Conference Grant of the Modern Law Review Commission of the European Union Grant on ecological crimes (a multi-stakeholders grant)
Rashida Tlaib has her anti-Israel priorities straight, but her message may be getting scrambled.
The Palestinian-American congresswoman is partnering with the oddly named Humpty Dumpty Institute for a congressional summer trip to the Israeli-occupied territories that will coincide with a similar junket held annually by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
In a “You’re Invited” flier, Tlaib asked fellow lawmakers to join her on the trip to “Occupied Territories in Palestine” for five days in mid-August, Jewish Insider reported.
The trip is being funded and organized by the Humpty Dumpty Institute, an international non-governmental organization that purports to — you guessed it! — “put the pieces back together again.”
Humpty Dumpty says it was founded by disillusioned aid workers after the Rwanda genocide and claims it brokers “strategic public/private partnerships that provide sensible solutions to serious problems.”
“The principle is that once things fall apart you can’t put them back together again,” said Joe Merante, the group’s executive director, comparing Humpty Dumpty’s unusual name to the Robin Hood Foundation which takes donations from the wealthy to help the poor.
The group emphasizes that it never takes political stands and seeks to foster dialogue to help people see different sides of issues. It has led trips to dozens of foreign hot spots in recent years, including similar trips to the West Bank for congressional aides in 2017 and for lawmakers last year. record also includes efforts solve unconnected problems like child nutrition in the U.S., uncleared landmines in Sri Lanka and Vietnam, and the global fight to save “at-risk dogs and cats.”
Merante suggested that the agenda for the Tlaib trip would include Israeli voices too, although the main focus will be on “people-to-people" meetings with West Bank Palestinians. Several other lawmakers have expressed interest in joining the trip although none have confirmed.
Another sponsor is MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy.
“We hope people can listen to all sides of the issue,” Merante said.
Tlaib (D-Michigan) has been whipping up interest in the West Bank trip since her election along with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) as the first Muslim women members of Congress. She pleaded with Republicans and Democrats to join her to get a different perspective on the Mideast conflict from the Palestinian side.
Omar has stirred a hornet’s nest of criticism with remarks suggesting that supporters of Israel put their loyalty to the Jewish state ahead of America and that AIPAC uses power and money to squelch criticism of Israel and its 52-year occupation of Palestinian lands.
AIPAC hosts lawmakers on an annual summer trip to Israel, where they mostly meet with Israeli decisionmakers, including government and opposition figures, along with some Palestinians.
Will UNICEF continue to suck dry the national treasuries of the world's children's trusts or will the United States be facing an action of war crimes in the international courts?
Caryl Stern Finally, former UNICEF Chief Systemsuck
After more than a decade as president and CEO of UNICEF USA, Caryl Stern will be leaving her post next June, the nonprofit announced Wednesday.
Stern has been in her role since 2007. According to the organization, which is headquartered downtown, Stern has helped double its fundraising intake to $600 million during her 13 years at the helm. She said she was able to do so by restructuring and building up its management teams.
In addition, "we made a decision about 10 years ago that we would get louder and prouder," she said. The nonprofit went out into the community and conducted research about who donates. It then found ways for its "hundreds of thousands of $10 donors" to "do more than write a check," Stern said, such as writing letters to politicians.
UNICEF counts American Airlines, the Gates Foundation, Gucci and UPS among its corporate partners.
"Our board is deeply grateful to Caryl for her exemplary leadership, fearless commitment to delivering aid around the world and steadfast championing of children's rights," said Peter Lamm, chairman of UNICEF's board, in a statement announcing Stern's departure. "Caryl has done a terrific job and will be sorely missed."
Stern has given input about who should serve on the search committee for the next president and about the job description, but she does not plan to play a major role in the hiring process. She is still exploring her next steps.
"I keep referencing this as my Seinfeld moment," Stern told Crain's. "I wanted to go out while the show was still popular.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday unveiled a new Commission on Unalienable Rights, a panel he said is aimed at providing him with “an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy.”
The panel will be headed up by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush. Glendon is also a social conservative who has been a prominent anti-abortion voice, which could lend credence to the concerns among human rights activists that the commission is a ploy to undercut LGBTQ and women’s rights under the guise of religious liberty.
Can you get anymore obviously biased?
In remarks at the State Department on Monday, Pompeo noted that “words like ‘rights’ can be used by good or evil,” decrying how some have “hijacked” human rights rhetoric to be used for “dubious or malignant purposes.”
Glendon, in brief comments, echoed that, telling reporters that "basic human rights are misunderstood by many, manipulated by many, and ignored by the world’s worst human rights violators."
“Every once in a while we need to step back, and reflect seriously on where we are, where we’ve been and whether we’re headed in the right direction,” Pompeo said. He hailed former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s 1948 Declaration on Universal Human Rights as one of the foundational documents for the commission’s work, but noted that the panel would serve as advisers as opposed to policymakers.
While Pompeo was vague in laying out what exactly the panel will do, emphasizing its focus on “principles” over “policy,” he praised its members as those he hoped would facilitate "one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 universal declaration."
The commission will be made up of 10 members who represent a range of religious backgrounds. Many are religious scholars, with at least one other joining Glendon in having been appointed to represent the Vatican on social issues in the past. One, Hamza Yusuf, is one of the founders of the first Muslim liberal arts college in America. Another, Christopher Tollefsen, specializes in moral philosophy, natural law ethics, practical ethics and bioethics.
Pompeo indicated that the panel could also be used in part to rein in overzealous invocations of human rights, suggesting the group “revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to say or claim that something is in fact a human right?”
“How do we know — or how do we determine — whether that claim ... is it true and therefore ought it to be honored? How can there be human rights rights we possess, not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity belong to us?” he asked. “Is it in fact true, as our Declaration of Independence asserts, that as human beings we — all of us, every member of our human family — are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights?”
In an op-ed published Monday morning in the Wall Street Journal, the secretary expressed hope that the group would “reorient” institutions like the UN “back to their original missions.”
“Many have embraced and even accelerated the proliferation of rights claims—and all but abandoned serious efforts to protect fundamental freedoms,” he wrote, complaining that “human-rights advocacy has lost its bearings and become more of an industry than a moral compass.”
Reactions to the new panel were split on Monday. In a statement cheering Pompeo‘s formation of the commission, Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Christian group Family Research Council, said that the panel would be useful in light of governments like Cuba, China and Iran who the group said "have wormed their way onto 'human rights commissions' in their search for international legitimacy."
"Other special interest groups have sought to expand the definition of a 'human right' to include virtually anything. If everything is a human right then the term begins to have little meaning," he said.
In addition, Perkins added, the commission would further promote religious liberty abroad, which he hailed as the "foundation for all other human rights."
Amnesty International, meanwhile, accused Pompeo of using the panel to politicize human rights and pointed to the Trump administration’s rollback of rights for LGBTQ citizens.
"If this administration truly wanted to support people's rights, it would use the global framework that's already in place. Instead, it wants to undermine rights for individuals, as well as the responsibilities of governments," said Joanne Lin, the group’s national director of advocacy and government affairs. "This approach only encourages other countries to adopt a disregard for basic human rights standards and risks weakening international, as well as regional frameworks, placing the rights of millions of people around the world in jeopardy."
And at least one religious group said it was viewing the commission’s formation with skepticism. Rori Kramer, director of government affairs for the American Jewish World Service, criticized Pompeo for employing what she called a “narrow view of religion as a means to undermine the ecumenical belief of respecting the dignity of every person.”
Kramer argued that Pompeo “clearly illustrated” the panel “will be used to question the very notion that basic human rights are inherent in all individuals.”
A pair of congressional Democrats also ripped the commission.
House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel said in a statement Monday that the new panel amounted to an end-run around established structures within the department, and touted an amendment in a House spending bill passed last month that would block funding for "this bizarre effort."
He claimed that the group Pompeo had selected would "give preference to discriminatory ideologies that would narrow protections for women, including on reproductive rights; for members of the LGBTQI community; and for other minority groups," and he hit the secretary for providing little information regarding plans for the commission.
And Sen. Bob Menendez, the top ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, called Pompeo's claims that human rights had been manipulated "absurd" and asserted the new commission would only weaken human rights.
"President Trump’s personal affection for gross human rights violators has stained America’s moral fabric," he said, pointing to the president's praise for leaders such as North Korea's Kim Jong Un and the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte. "No Trump Administration commission can erase that."
Washington D.C., Jul 8, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, will head a new human rights advisory body to the U.S. State Department, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday.
“It’s a sad commentary on our times that more than 70 years after the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, gross violations continue throughout the world,” Secretary Pompeo stated at a July 8 press conference announcing the new Commission on Unalienable Human Rights.
Pompeo said that “the time is right for an informed review of American human rights in foreign policy,” and that Glendon was “the perfect person to chair this effort” and chair the new commission.
Glendon, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See in 2008-09, is a Harvard Law professor with expertise in international human rights.
She was named to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences by Pope St. John Paul II in 1994, led a delegation of the Holy See to the fourth U.N. Women’s Conference in Beijing in 1995, and served as head of the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences from 2004-14. In 2018, she resigned as a memeber of the Board of Superintendence, which oversees the IOR, commonly known as the Vatican Bank.
Glendon also served as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 2012 until 2016, appointed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
During Monday’s press conference, Glendon thanked Pompeo “for giving a priority to human rights at this moment when basic human rights are being misunderstood by many, manipulated by many, and ignored by the world’s worst human rights violators.”
The commission, according to Secretary Pompeo, will be an advisory body made up of human rights experts, philosophers and others from across the political spectrum, with the core mission of advancing “our nation’s founding principles and the principles of 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
In addition to Glendon, commission members include Notre Dame Law professor Paolo Carozza; Katrina Lantos Swett, former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; and philosopher Christopher Tollefsen.
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Secretary Pompeo noted current confusion between “inalienable” rights and those granted by governments, and how contemporary discourse has confused the two with people “appealing to contrived rights for political advantage.”
“Human-rights advocacy has lost its bearings and become more of an industry than a moral compass,” he wrote, adding that institutions like the United Nations, tasked with upholding fundamental human rights, have contributed to the confusion.
Pompeo added on Monday that the commission members “will provide the intellectual grist for what I hope will be one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 Declaration.”
“I hope that the commission will revisit the most basic of questions: What does it mean to say or claim that something is, in fact, a human right? How do we know or how do we determine whether that claim that this or that is a human right, is it true, and therefore, ought it to be honored?” Pompeo said.
“How can there be human rights, rights we possess not as privileges we are granted or even earn, but simply by virtue of our humanity belong to us? Is it, in fact, true, as our Declaration of Independence asserts, that as human beings, we – all of us, every member of our human family – are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights?”
For the 19th year in a row, the U.S. State Department has put out its human trafficking report, where it only gets worse because the only thing offered to stop it is to set up more private contracts to fund more privatized Social Impact Bond operations to further its operations of forced migration.
§ I n the United States, traffickers prey upon children in the foster care system. Recent reports have consistently indicated that a large number of victims of child sex trafficking were at one time in the foster care system.
Federal law enforcement authorities eventually found Miguel during an operation; however, Miguel experienced further traumatization, bullying, and discrimination after he entered the state foster care system. Today, Miguel is a licensed behavioral psychologist in the United States.
Not one damn mention of the ills of domestic foster care in the report.
It did not talk about anything of parental rights, nothing about citizenship, termination of parental rights, state custody or guardianship, nothing about transfer of legal custody or guardianship.
Nothing about U.S. commercial adoption of children and not a peep about the children's trust.
Absolute silence on re-homing markets after adoption.
Nothing about manufactured poverty, forced migration and flat out public corruption.
Nothing about the identities or the Medicaid fraud.
Nothing about redistricting operations by foreign corporations for the purposes of gerrymandering to interfere in elections, because if you do not live there, you cannot vote there.
Nothing about the real estate investment schemes of the children's trusts were mentioned, but I am pretty sure this may have something to do with the fact that Kansas is the Corporate Shape Shifting Warehouse for every state of this great union to file up under the UCC ship manifest of the National Children's Trust, coming out of Detroit, of course.
Oh, lest I forget to mention that Pence just heralded the christian proclamation in the expansion of that Faith Based Funding, where Brownback, Kansas' favorite former governor, is now over all the U.S.AID Foreign Faith Based Funding.
This was another cover up propaganda report to prop up another national 2 by 4 underneath their raggedy ass logic of "give us more money to expand the trafficking tiny humans networks so we can make more money to ask for more money."
Pompeo is playing dirty because this is contrary to Trump's Executive Orders on ending modern day human slavery and trafficking.
This is a counter coup because Bethany Christian is ready and able to hit the ground running, with World Bank funding behind them, to start those Public Private Partnerships in infrastructure development.
Heck, even the reparations crap being re-engineered to fit into the bleachbitted history of HR 40 for the purposes of economic development, a running theme in all the congressional Bills being introduced because TARP money ran out.
Just saying.
This is about the residuals of the peculiar industry because slavery was never abolished, it just went high tech and changed the name to child welfare.
It is still legal to procure and purvey children, yet Pompeo made no mention of U.S. chattel laws being a priority.
Since taking office in 2017, the Trump administration has claimed that its human rights agenda centers on human trafficking. “My Administration continues to work to drive out the darkness human traffickers cast upon our world,” President Donald Trump wrote in a 2017 executive order declaring January 2018 National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. In a Washington Postop-ed, Ivanka Trump echoed her father’s claims that human trafficking was one of the government’s top priorities. “President Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist movement gave America a unique inheritance: a principled commitment to fight slavery in all its pernicious forms,” she wrote. “This administration is continuing the fight to end modern slavery and using every tool at its disposal to achieve that critical goal.”
But when it comes to identifying the reality of trafficking inside the United States and fighting it, these claims are contradicted by many of the administration’s policies and much of its rhetoric. In many key ways, the Trump administration’s approach to trafficking in the United States has made matters worse for the most vulnerable communities. Anti-trafficking experts now worry that the government, by failing to recognize its failings, could do lasting damage to what has traditionally been considered the country’s top human rights report, the latest edition of which was released Thursday.
The State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report is a collaboration between a designated office in Washington and local U.S. embassies that evaluates government responses to trafficking around the world. It provides a detailed narrative and assigns a tier ranking to governments. (Tier 1 is the highest and Tier 3 the lowest, possibly incurring sanctions.) Over the years, the TIP Report has been seen to surpass the International Religious Freedom Report and the general human rights report in impact and authority. “It’s the power of comparison that the report provides that is so effective,” said Judith Kelley, a professor at Duke University and the author of Scorecard Diplomacy: Grading States to Influence Their Reputation and Behavior. “Local embassies really enforce policies leading up to its publication.”
The report has been published since 2001, after the Trafficking Victims Prevention Act (TVPA) was passed by Congress in 2000 and became the gold standard of anti-trafficking legislation. The United States started ranking itself during President Barack Obama’s administration to lend more credibility to the report. “Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton said rightfully if we’re going to point the finger around the world, we need to point at ourselves, too,” said Alison Friedman, then the TIP office deputy director. The office consulted with nongovernmental organizations and legislators; assessed funding, victim services, and law enforcement response; and analyzed methods of data collection and prevention. In the end, the United States received a Tier 1 ranking, and it has never since been downgraded.
This year’s report has just been published. Like years prior, it contains some rankings that are sure to make headlines. Denmark, Germany, and Italy have been downgraded to Tier 2 countries, while Saudi Arabia, in spite of protests from experts and news reports (and in spite of a Tier 3 ranking), was left off the report’s list of countries that exploit child soldiers. The Philippines maintained its controversial Tier 1 ranking.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the United States received a Tier 1 ranking in this year’s report. But there is ample evidence that, like Italy and Germany, the country should have been downgraded. Over the past six months, I have closely reported on the impact that the Trump administration has had on trafficking in the United States. Some of the policy changes appear small—minor tweaks to grant funding or longer wait times for visa applications—and are often weighed against more positive steps, like an increase in general funding for victims services. But, taken together, these seemingly small changes amount to a systematic dismantling of services for America’s most vulnerable communities, particularly noncitizen victims.
The TIP Report, for example, traditionally highlights LGBTQ individuals as highly vulnerable to trafficking, but the Trump administration has removed various legal protections for the LGBTQ community, particularly for transgender individuals. Rachel Lloyd, the founder of New York’s Girls Educational & Mentoring Services, worries particularly about the administration’s scaling back of protections against discrimination in housing and health care, the lack of which can often produce trafficking victims. “Forty percent of the girls we serve are LGBTQ,” Lloyd said. “They are feeling unsafe.”
Many victims of trafficking are forced to commit crimes related to their trafficking situation, like prostitution. Because of that, clearing records is crucial to a trafficking victim’s recovery. “It’s one of our most requested services,” said Yvette Butler, who until recently was the director of policy and strategic partnerships at the Washington-based Amara Legal Center. “We want people to become productive members of society.” While Congress has increased funding to victims services, Trump’s Justice Department has eliminated grants that used to fund vacaturs, expungements, and sealing of criminal records.
The administration touts prosecutions as victories against trafficking, but in fiscal year 2018 federal investigations in the Justice Department decreased significantly, from 783 to 657, as did the number of defendants charged with human trafficking. In spite of repeated calls from NGOs and advocates, highlighted in multiple TIP Reports, for the government to focus on the equally urgent problem of labor trafficking in the United States, of those federal prosecutions 213 were for sex trafficking while only 17 were for labor trafficking.
Where the administration fails most profoundly is in its treatment of noncitizen victims of trafficking. Across the world, migrants are the most vulnerable to being trafficked, and the TIP Report highlights a government’s response to migrants. This year, Denmark, for instance, was downgraded to Tier 2 in part for its lack of protection for migrants. “The government continued to focus on the undocumented status of some foreign victims rather than screening for indicators of trafficking,” it reads. It points out that Denmark was failing to provide sufficient “incentives for victims to cooperate in investigations, such as residence permits.” Italy and Qatar, both Tier 2 countries, were cited for lack of protections for undocumented and migrant workers.
The Howard Kieth Hall in the article is the same bad guy who arrested me and denied services. That info about him is confidential so why is he admitting it? And what does it have to do with social workers in Jeff Co. five hours away taking kids without warrants. My congressman have done nothing for me. And since craft is involved, I would guess they wouldn't touch it.
Honestly, I think this needs to come up at Crafts hearing for nomination to the UN.
From small-town Kentucky to the UN: Can Trump nominee Kelly Craft surprise the skeptics?
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Kentucky social workers are failing to have courts properly scrutinize and approve the drastic step of taking some children from their homes, relying instead on blank removal orders with pre-signed judges' signatures, which is illegal according to several attorneys and judges.
The allegations, which involve cases of purported parental abuse or neglect, have prompted numerous complaints to judges and state officials.
They revolve specifically around the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services workers using pre-signed emergency custody court orders to remove children on weekends and after the courthouse has closed for the day.
They revolve specifically around the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services workers using pre-signed emergency custody court orders to remove children on weekends and after the courthouse has closed for the day.
While there is debate over whether the actions violate Kentucky law, state and local officials acknowledged to WDRB News that the practices aren’t ideal – and, on Friday, the cabinet abolished them. Workers now must send an order to the judge to see and electronically sign.
Previously, copies of the blank orders with signatures from Jefferson District Court judges were left at the Home of the Innocents on Market Street and filled in by cabinet workers – giving them the power to remove children without a judge reviewing the allegations written on the order or filling out other necessary documentation.
"The system that is currently set up allows for the social workers to call an on-call judge on the phone and then fill out the order themselves, a blank order with a judge’s signature on it," attorney Karen Faulkner said in an interview before the March 15 policy change. "Children are being illegally taken from their home without judges’ proper authority."
In some cases, attorneys and some judges claim cabinet workers have used blank copies of the pre-signed child removal orders to take kids from their parents, only later filling in the allegations and other items on the order. The judges and attorneys for the parents don't see the orders until a hearing three days after the child has been removed.
At least one local district judge, Julie Kaelin, said she has refused to follow the practice, saying it is violating the law.
According to state law: "In no event shall a child be removed pursuant to KRS 620.060 only on a verbal order."
Another district judge questioned the legality of the pre-signed orders and confirmed that "blank orders" with only a photocopied signature have been used to remove children.
"That is a gross miscarriage of justice that should not happen," said the judge, who asked to remain anonymous because she was not authorized to speak about the issue. "That’s on the cabinet."
In addition, cabinet workers have allegedly called judges after hours and told them about the need to remove one child from a home, but then used multiple copies of pre-signed emergency custody orders to take more than one juvenile.
Chief Jefferson District Court Judge Anne Haynie acknowledged that she believed this has occurred at least once, saying "a cabinet worker did something they shouldn’t have."
However, she denied that cabinet workers or judges are violating the law by using the pre-signed orders and phoning on-call judges to get authorization to remove a child.
"Jefferson County judges are in full compliance with the law and full compliance with the rules," Haynie said. She argues that when the law says no child shall be removed on a "verbal order," it doesn’t mean a social worker has to talk with a judge in person.
"It just means they have to have some form of an order," she said. "That’s all verbal means. I know there are some lawyers that believe that means in person, but that does not mean in person."
High-profile defense attorney Thomas Clay said he is currently consulting with a family that had three children removed from a home – including a 6-year-old and 3-year-old -- even though a cabinet worker only mentioned to a judge the need to remove one child.
The cabinet worker allegedly filled out three pre-signed forms to remove all of the children.
"It certainly raises issues of whether the rights of parents are being violated," Clay said. "One of the most important decisions the system makes is whether to remove children from a parent."
Cabinet spokesman Doug Hogan said his agency has been following the procedures requested by Jefferson District Court judges, in part to "avoid the necessity of social workers going to judges' homes to secure their signatures."
In an email, Hogan said it has been "suggested" that stamps or photocopies of judges' signatures may be "inadequate" for the emergency custody orders and the system is being changed.
As of March 15, Hogan said, the judges, cabinet and state implemented a new method to allow workers to send an order to the judge to see and electronically sign.
Asked if the cabinet has been breaking the law the way the process has been working, Hogan said "NO" in an email.
Hogan did not respond to a follow-up question about allegations of workers using blank pre-signed orders or taking multiple children without judicial authorization.
Haynie said there are multiple safeguards in place to ensure the process of removing a child after court hours is done correctly.
She said a Home of the Innocents employee is "present with the law enforcement officer and/or cabinet worker" when the call is made to an on-call judge "and most importantly we tape record everything" so attorneys for the parents can go back and listen to what was said and whether there were any issues with what information was presented to the judge.
As for the pre-signed orders themselves, Haynie said while it is not illegal, "it's probably not the best procedure and we are looking at it."
'Signatures should be sacred'
Some judges and attorneys have compared the practice to a police officer filling out a search warrant that had been pre-signed by a judge.
"Police officers can't sign their own search warrants; they can't create their own search warrants," said attorney Sarah Clay, who is appointed to represent parents in abuse and neglect cases. Clay is Thomas’s Clay's niece. "A judge has to approve it. And a judge reads the affidavit and reads the search warrant before they sign it."
Clay said judges are required to review the cabinet worker's affidavit and make several specific findings and check boxes on the form before signing an order to remove a child, including finding there is an immediate danger, that reasonable efforts have been made to not remove the child, and there is no less restrictive alternative, given how traumatic removal is.
But the on-call district judges are often only hearing a brief synopsis of the issue before approving the order.
"The judge whose signature is on the order has never seen the order," said Sarah Clay. "Our concern, which we have reason to believe has occurred, is that workers can take the blank signed orders … and just fill it out to say whatever they want."
Former judge and current Pike County Attorney Howard Keith Hall agrees with the comparison of a police officer using a pre-signed search warrant.
In 1994, when Hall was a Pike County District Court judge, he was publicly reprimanded by the state Judicial Retirement and Removal Commission for pre-signing a warrant for a sheriff's deputy.
Hall had talked to the deputy on the phone while driving to Lexington and approved the warrant, leaving behind a pre-signed order.
The commission ruled that even though Hall knew the details of the search warrant, allowing the use of a pre-signed order violated state Supreme Court rules. Hall was charged with judicial misconduct and the commission would have suspended him for 30 days had he not retired, according to the order.
The order said Hall violated a "grave judicial duty under the (Constitution) requiring the intervention of a neutral judge to protect individuals and to prevent law enforcement officers from conducting unlawful searches."
When told of the situation with the cabinet and judges in Louisville, Hall said it was the same sort of issue.
"You don't sign your damn name until something is completely filled out," he said. "Those signatures should be sacred. I learned that the hard way."
Haynie, however, said the comparison with law enforcement search warrants is flawed. She again pointed out that the calls between social workers and the on-call judges are recorded.
"We built in a safeguard," she said of the recordings. "You can pull the tape, listen to exactly what the judge was told, listen to which children were involved, how many, where, etc."
Attorney Faulkner said that recording phone calls is a good practice, but appointed attorneys for parents in family court don't get to see the orders until there is a hearing three days later, and by then children already may have suffered traumatic damage.
"There are rules, and there are rules for a reason," she said. "My belief is the rules require a social worker go talk to a judge in person."
Family Court issue
Another concern is that district court judges are not familiar with the process of removing kids and don’t have the necessary expertise, as it is a family court issue.
To remove a child during the day, a cabinet appears in front of a family court judge and swears to tell the truth. The judge then reviews the written affidavit of the worker that spells out the alleged abuse and reason for removal of a child or multiple kids and signs the orders if the request for removal is granted.
If removal is ordered, the judge checks through a series of boxes indicating reasonable efforts were made to prevent the child's removal, the child is in imminent danger and other necessary questions.
But after the court closes at 4:30 and on weekends, the responsibility to approve the emergency orders to remove children falls to an on-call district court judge. Social workers call judges from the Home of the Innocents and, depending on which judge is on call, picks a pre-signed form with that judge's signature and fills it in.
Asked why family court judges aren’t hearing the cases after hours, Haynie said, "I think that's a good question. I don’t have an answer for that. That is the question."
She said district judges don’t typically interact with the cabinet or know the workers like a family court judge.
"We don’t have jurisdiction over these cases, so why are we doing this?" she asked. "They are not issues we ultimately hear. So they are not players or issues or families that we are familiar with."
Chief Family Court Judge Tara Haggerty did not return a phone message seeking comment.
Charles Gardner Geyh, who teaches judicial conduct at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law said in an interview that while he is unsure of the legality of what has occurred in Louisville, there is certainly a "perception problem" with pre-signed orders.
"There is a perception problem with judges signing off on things and then later confirming them after the fact," he said. "The concern I have is multiplied if there are aspects to the forms that are supposed to be completed by the judge.
"I think it is a little troubling when the rights of the parents of child are being essentially short circuited."
