By Erin Inada
Daily Bruin Contributor
Each year, an estimated 4 million people are trafficked
internationally for prostitution, servitude and forced labor, with
70,000 brought into the United States.
Women and children constitute 50,000 of them.
Mounting concern over the issue has led organizers of
UCLA’s second annual Daisy Day to focus its efforts on
putting an end to such solicitations. This year’s theme is
“A Campaign to End the Trafficking of Women.”
Sponsored by the Office of Residential Life, Intercultural
Programming Committee, UCLA Clothesline Project, the Undergraduate
Students Association Council External Vice President’s Office
and CalPIRG, more than 200 volunteers will pass out daisies
throughout campus today in honor of International Women’s
Rights Day.
Volunteers will also distribute information about dating
violence, health and ways to get involved in Amnesty
International’s letter writing campaigns.
“Trafficking of women has become a prominent issue lately,
especially with the signing of the first major legislation that
focuses on this problem,” said Noah Bookman, program
coordinator of Daisy Day.
On July 27, Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act of 2000 to protect women and punish those responsible for
trafficking. Prior to the act, perpetrators could not be charged
specifically for trafficking others.
“We did not get everything we wanted, but the act is a
definite positive action,” said Kathryn McMahon, director of
research and training for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and
Trafficking.
“Now that the bill has passed, it is up to the government
to provide the funds necessary to put it into action,” she
said.
McMahon said petitioning for funds is one way people can
alleviate the trafficking problem. Trafficking is not particular to
the U.S., and its causes are linked to international issues such as
globalization, war and the environment.
“The bottom line is that it is a problem that comes up
when people are displaced,” McMahon said. “It is a
global problem, a global issue and needs global
attention.”
A recent United Nations report ranked trafficking as the third
most profitable organized crime behind the sale of drugs and
guns.
According to Beth Lurch of the Women’s International
League for Peace and Freedom, lack of support for native small
businesses creates circumstances that foster trafficking.
“When the U.S. goes into other countries, we take the
land, we take the jobs and this leaves women in such a
position,” Lurch said.
“It is necessary to create local trade, self-sustaining
trade to replace the businesses taken away,” she said.
McMahon and Lurch will be on hand during a panel discussion in
the Rieber Fireside Lounge at 7 p.m. tonight. Speakers include
McMahon, UCLA Anthropology Professor Karen Brodkin and author Nancy
Hersage.