It was a Fellowship Meeting and there were a lot of jokes. I think that the President should abstain from telling jokes completely. Mark Franklin gave his apologies and we missed his endless supply.
This Week
It's good to have one of our prospective members talk to us before he has been inducted! Philip Frankel is the former head of the department of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and is now a policy and development consultant specializing in organisational transformation. He has worked extensively with local, regional and central government in South Africa, including the presidential office under Mandela and his successor. His latest book is "Long Walk to Nowhere - Human Trafficking in Post Mandela South Africa".....and that's what he is going to talk to us about.
Human trafficking is a global crime affecting countless victims around the world. Yet its actual scope remains a mystery. The methodologies used to arrive at estimates about its nature and extent have been widely criticised as lacking in scientific rigour.
In South Africa, claims by anti-trafficking campaigners and NGOs include that 30,000 children are trafficked into the country annually as part of the sex trade. The same figure has been used by the Department of Home Affairs to justify recently introduced visa regulations aimed at combating child trafficking.
But this number has been discredited as “exaggerated and unsubstantiated”.
Human trafficking has become a focus of attention in the country following the introduction of the onerous and controversial visa requirements. In addition, a new act aimed at preventing trafficking is expected to be operational in the next few weeks. It defines trafficking to include the recruitment, transportation, sale or harbour of people by means of force, deceit, the abuse of vulnerability and the abuse of power for exploitation.
A statistical dilemma
But the absence of reliable statistics means that there is no clarity on just how big the problem is.
Inflated guesstimates continue to be used by those trying to stop the crime. But they create a credibility dilemma, detract from a constructive conversation and frustrate efforts to understand the multi-layered realities of the problem.
Notwithstanding the lack of reliable numbers, the problem is prevalent in South Africa. The number of cases being reported suggests it is on the increase. The situation may in fact be far more chronic and severe than we know.
It is well documented that South Africa is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking.
Philip's ongoing research draws on the experiences of role-players in counter-human trafficking. These include all the responding agencies including civil society, survivors and ex-perpetrators.
Preliminary themes highlight multiple accounts of undocumented cases, direct and indirect complicity by political elites and bureaucratic officials, the paucity of border controls, corruption and a culture of impunity.
This toxic concoction makes human trafficking an attractive business with high returns and low risk. For example, trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation is the most documented type of trafficking, locally and internationally. Yet none of the international syndicates dominating the sex trade have ever been successfully prosecuted in South Africa.
New Englanders, Nigeria clubs aid Boko Haram refugees
By Marty Peak Helman, District 7780 Foundation Chair
Children in a refugee camp in eastern Nigeria.
The American University of Nigeria (AUN) was co-founded by Rotarian Felix Obadan in 2000, and 12 years later, when Felix was governor of Rotary’s District 9125, which covers a large portion of Nigeria, he chartered the Rotary Club of Yola-AUN on campus. Their strong influence on campus makes it not surprising that many University professors and senior staff are Rotary members, and that the University prides itself on its work toward peace, entrepreneurship, and economic development as well as its strong academics.
The University’s mission is to graduate students prepared to take on the challenges in Nigeria and throughout West Africa – challenges of climate change, development, and peace building. And peace is not an abstract concept at the university. After all, it is located in Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, in the region where Boko Haram is most powerful. In fact, those few dozen Chibok schoolgirls who escaped from being kidnapped by Boko Haram are now safely living at the University, where they are receiving social services and education.
Boko Haram has brought me to the American University of Nigeria as well. I am here as part of a team from Rotary’s District 7780 in New England to meet with the two Rotary clubs in Yola, and to visit Rotary projects including a camp for internally displaced families in flight from Boko Haram. It is our intention to see what we can do in terms of a global grant to help them.
Putting together a global grant will not be easy. The needs of the people living at the camp are immediate, and it is hard to think in terms of long-term sustainability. Food, for example, is a continuing problem. The men are agricultural workers and are eager to get back to working the soil, but even if they could rent land near to the camp, it’s hard for them to think ahead to next year’s crop. One non-governmental organization gave the men seed for planting, we are told, but because their children are hungry, the seed was promptly cooked and eaten.
The families at the camps – who are there because they have fled their villages for their lives – are living testimony of the need for us, their neighbors, to strive for peace.
Meanwhile, while they wait for political change, the women weave craft items to sell out of the plastic bags that litter the sides of the road, and the children – many of whom have been out of school for several years while their families have been on the run – attend a government school near the camp.
Still, I find myself very optimistic about being able to craft a global grant to help these families. After all, the Yola clubs know the camps intimately, and have both the contacts and the resources to understand what will work best. Our Districts – 9125 in Nigeria and 7780 in New England – have worked together for over a decade, with National Immunization Days, a Group Study Exchange, and both matching and global grants to our credit.
This is what Rotary is all about – developing relationships that span the globe and make possible long-term humanitarian change. And the families at the camps – who are there because they have fled their villages for their lives – are living testimony of the need for us, their neighbors, to strive for peace.
By Marty Peak Helman, District 7780 Foundation Chair
Children in a refugee camp in eastern Nigeria.
The American University of Nigeria (AUN) was co-founded by Rotarian Felix Obadan in 2000, and 12 years later, when Felix was governor of Rotary’s District 9125, which covers a large portion of Nigeria, he chartered the Rotary Club of Yola-AUN on campus. Their strong influence on campus makes it not surprising that many University professors and senior staff are Rotary members, and that the University prides itself on its work toward peace, entrepreneurship, and economic development as well as its strong academics.
The University’s mission is to graduate students prepared to take on the challenges in Nigeria and throughout West Africa – challenges of climate change, development, and peace building. And peace is not an abstract concept at the university. After all, it is located in Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, in the region where Boko Haram is most powerful. In fact, those few dozen Chibok schoolgirls who escaped from being kidnapped by Boko Haram are now safely living at the University, where they are receiving social services and education.
Boko Haram has brought me to the American University of Nigeria as well. I am here as part of a team from Rotary’s District 7780 in New England to meet with the two Rotary clubs in Yola, and to visit Rotary projects including a camp for internally displaced families in flight from Boko Haram. It is our intention to see what we can do in terms of a global grant to help them.
Putting together a global grant will not be easy. The needs of the people living at the camp are immediate, and it is hard to think in terms of long-term sustainability. Food, for example, is a continuing problem. The men are agricultural workers and are eager to get back to working the soil, but even if they could rent land near to the camp, it’s hard for them to think ahead to next year’s crop. One non-governmental organization gave the men seed for planting, we are told, but because their children are hungry, the seed was promptly cooked and eaten.
The families at the camps – who are there because they have fled their villages for their lives – are living testimony of the need for us, their neighbors, to strive for peace.
Meanwhile, while they wait for political change, the women weave craft items to sell out of the plastic bags that litter the sides of the road, and the children – many of whom have been out of school for several years while their families have been on the run – attend a government school near the camp.
Still, I find myself very optimistic about being able to craft a global grant to help these families. After all, the Yola clubs know the camps intimately, and have both the contacts and the resources to understand what will work best. Our Districts – 9125 in Nigeria and 7780 in New England – have worked together for over a decade, with National Immunization Days, a Group Study Exchange, and both matching and global grants to our credit.
This is what Rotary is all about – developing relationships that span the globe and make possible long-term humanitarian change. And the families at the camps – who are there because they have fled their villages for their lives – are living testimony of the need for us, their neighbors, to strive for peace.
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