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International Summit Against Human trafficking, July 2023, Washington DC USA Senate.

By Rosi Orozco
ARLINGTON, Virginia, Sep 6 2023 (IPS)

In the years when Mexico did not have a general law against human trafficking, there existed an evil man known as “El Osito” (“The Little Bear”). His alias could mislead those who heard of his criminal record: he was a ruthless pimp, devoid of any trace of kindness in his body, who claimed to collect kidnapped women to exploit their bodies.

“El Osito,” whose real name was Noe Quetzal-Mendez, did not operate alone. Despite having not completed primary education and struggling with reading and writing, he built and established a path of pain between Mexico and the United States. This route began in his hometown of Tenancingo, Tlaxcala, and ended in New York City, United States.

Along these more than 4,000 kilometers, his victims suffered physical, emotional, and sexual violence within safe houses controlled by his criminal organization.

On the Mexican side, “El Osito” paid dirty police officers, human traffickers, and members of the Sinaloa Cartel who provided him with protection and aided in crossing hundreds of victims through Tijuana. He had eyes and ears on the country’s roads and cruelly punished any escape attempts.

On the other side of the border, he had corrupt authorities and a long list of clients eagerly waiting for the teenagers and women he brought to the United States to be raped in exchange for coins.

Areli was one of his victims. Deceived, kidnapped, trafficked, sexually exploited for the benefit of “El Osito’s” criminal organization. She is one of the few Mexican women who survived his reign of terror and has the courage to tell how this man, who was once one of the FBI’s most-wanted criminals, operated.

July 28Th 2023, Washington DC USA Senate.

Legislative panel

Mexican Senator Nancy De La Sierra Arambúro

Congresswomen: Cynthia Lopez Castro, Juanita Guerra Mena, Olimpia Tamara Giron Hernandez, Rosi Orozco Activist.

Her testimony not only calls us to be ashamed of the past but also to reflect on the present and plan for a future without human trafficking: on both sides of the border, we all failed.

Areli never imagined that life without “El Osito” could be as difficult as being in captivity. Once she escaped from his criminal organization, she did not find the necessary support in her own country, such as specialized shelters or emotional support. Her safety in Mexico was not guaranteed either, so she had to seek asylum in the United States out of fear of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Today, she lives in a secret location. Gradually, her wounds are beginning to heal thanks to family members who have taken her in and have not hesitated to lend a helping hand. Despite all the accumulated suffering, Areli is one of the luckier cases because two more survivors of another binational human trafficking gang, Los Melendez, are abandoned by the United States government and need help as victims of this transnational crime.

These other two young women are experiencing a painful reality firsthand: neither in Mexico nor in the United States is there sufficient support from both governments for the victims of this crime that enslaves 50 million people worldwide and generates around 150 billion dollars annually for organized crime.

In the absence of action from the political class, it falls to civil society to step forward and take on a debt with the most vulnerable people on both sides of the border.

That is why on July 27th, a new binational center against human exploitation began, one of the most important agreements of the International Summit Against Human Trafficking 2023 held in Washington D.C.

This historic center is funded by the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and benefits from the expertise of American and Mexican legislators, leaders, activists, specialists, and journalists, who will be guided by the testimonies and knowledge of survivors of this crime.

Among its most urgent tasks are raising awareness in educational institutions, preventing the crime within families, creating new laws, promoting a culture of reporting, decriminalizing victims, and ensuring that exploitative clients are held accountable by the law as active members of human trafficking networks.

In Mexico, ten brave mayors, such as Adrián Rubalcava and Fernando Flores, will spearhead efforts to teach more authorities how to combat these dark businesses. Their experience in fighting this crime will be crucial to ensuring the success of this mission on Mexican soil, led by Nallely Gutiérrez Gijon, president of the Association of Municipalities of Mexico.

This new center joins forces with the movie “Sound of Freedom,” produced by Eduardo Verástegui and starring Jim Caviezel and Mira Sorvino, who have surprised the world by getting involved in this fight beyond just a story about the courage to stand up against human trafficking. Now, it’s time to move from the excitement of the movie theater to taking action in real life.

These are times for the braves. The globalization of organized crime forces us to think about how to safeguard our families beyond the borders of both countries and political rhetoric.

This new center welcomes all people from all backgrounds, colors, and ideas who want to act under a single premise that contains an irrevocable truth: in no country in the world should a victim be abandoned by civil society.

We dare to dream of a world where no human can be for sale.

Rosi Orozco is Activist and Founder Unidos Vs Trata.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Written by Laurence Amand-Eeckhout (1st edition).

On 14 July 2022, the European Commission tabled a proposal to update and expand EU legislation on blood, tissues and cells. The aim is to establish high standards of quality and safety for substances of human origin (SoHOs) intended for human application, to improve the protection of donors, recipients, and offspring born from medically assisted reproduction, and to ensure that the legislation can respond to future challenges. To improve harmonisation, ensuring a uniform level of protection across the EU and simplifying cross-border exchange and access of SoHO therapies, the Commission is proposing to repeal the existing directives and replace them with a single regulation that will be equally applicable in all Member States.

In Parliament, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), is responsible for the file. It adopted its report on the proposal on 18 July 2023.

Versions

• September 2023: Standards of quality and safety for substances of human origin intended for human application (1st edition)

Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on standards of quality and safety for substances of human origin intended for human application and repealing Directives 2002/98/EC and 2004/23/ECCommittee responsible:Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI)COM(2022) 338
14.7.2022Rapporteur:Nathalie Colin-Oesterlé (EPP, France)2022/0216 (COD)Shadow rapporteurs:Nicolás González Casares (S&D, Spain)
Andreas Glueck (Renew, Germany)
Tilly Metz (Greens/EFA, Luxembourg)
Joanna Kopcińska (ECR, Poland)
Kateřina Konečná (The Left, Czechia)Ordinary legislative procedure
(COD) (Parliament and Council
on equal footing – formerly ‘co-decision’)Next steps expected: Vote on report in plenary

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sep 6 2023 (IPS)

After decades of resistance by rich nations, African governments successfully pushed for the United Nations to lead on international tax cooperation. All developing countries and fair-minded governments must rally behind this initiative.

UN leadership
The official UN Secretary-General’s Report (SGR) was mandated by a UN General Assembly resolution, unusually adopted by consensus in late 2022.

All countries must now work to ensure progress on financing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate justice after major setbacks due to the pandemic, war and illegal sanctions.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Rich countries had blocked an earlier tax cooperation initiative at the Addis Ababa Financing for Development (FfD) summit in mid-2015. With grossly inadequate funding, the SDGs were condemned to a still birth.

The SGR on options to strengthen international tax cooperation is, arguably, the most important recent proposal – remarkably, from a beleaguered and much ignored UN – to enhance FfD for SDG progress.

It proposes three options: a multilateral tax convention, an international tax cooperation framework convention, and an international tax cooperation framework. The first two would be legally binding, while the third would be voluntary in nature.

Eurodad proposal
In response, the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) has made a proposal – supported by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ) – noting: “It is time for governments to deliver … [and] … cooperate internationally to put an end to tax havens and ensure that tax systems become fair and effective.

“International tax dodging is costing public budgets hundreds of billions of Euros in lost tax income every year, and we need an urgent, ambitious and truly international response to stop this devastating problem.

“We believe the right instrument for the job is a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation and we call on all governments to support this option…

“For the last half century, the OECD has been leading the international decision-making on international tax rules and the result is an international tax system that is deeply ineffective, complex and full of loopholes, as well as biased in the interest of richer countries and tax havens.

“Furthermore, the OECD process has never been international. Developing countries have not been able to participate on an equal footing, and the negotiations have been deeply opaque and closed to the public.

“We need international tax negotiations to be transparent, fair and lead by a body where all countries participate as equals. The UN is the only place that can deliver that.”

A big step forward?
Strengthening international tax cooperation is expected to be the major issue at the one-day UN High-level FfD Dialogue on 20 September 2023.

A UN resolution on international tax cooperation – for General Assembly debate after September 2023 – should plan a UN-led inter-governmental process. After all, developing such solutions is a key purpose of the multilateral UN.

The Africa Group at the UN had appealed for a Convention on Tax in 2019, to help curb illicit financial outflows. After all, such tax-related flows are international problems, requiring multilateral solutions.

International tax cooperation should be inclusive, effective and fair. The EURODAD-GATJ proposals deserve consideration by all Member States negotiating a UN tax convention. The outcome should include:
• Create an inclusive international tax body. The Convention should create international tax governance arrangements, using a Conference of Parties (CoP) approach, with all countries participating as equals. Currently, international tax rules are decided in various bodies where developing countries never participate as equals.
• Enable an incremental approach to achieve other intergovernmental agreements. The outcome should be a framework convention, with basic structures, commitments and agreements enabling further updating and improvements later.
• Incorporate developing countries’ interests, concerns and needs to achieve tax justice. The Convention should address developing countries’ interests, concerns and needs, replacing current tax standards and rules favouring wealthier nations.
• Enhance international coherence. The Convention should develop a coherent system for all nations, including developing countries. It should eventually replace the plethora of existing bilateral and plurilateral tax treaties and agreements with a coherent overall framework. This should improve effectiveness and cut tax dodging.
• Strengthen international efforts against illicit financial flows, especially involving tax avoidance and evasion, with simpler, more coherent and straightforward rules and standards to improve transparency and cooperation among governments.
• Eliminate transfer pricing. The Convention should eliminate transfer pricing by replacing existing rules enabling such abusive practices.
• Tax transnational corporations globally. Transnational corporations’ consolidated profits should be taxed on a global basis. Tax revenue should be distributed among governments with a minimum effective corporate income tax rate based on a fair and principled agreed formula recognizing developing countries’ contributions as producers.
• End coerced acceptance of biased dispute resolution processes. The Convention should not require countries to accept biased processes, such as binding arbitration, favouring those who can afford costly legal resources. Effective dispute prevention would reduce the need for dispute resolution. Alternative mechanisms for resolving disputes could also be negotiated – using inclusive and transparent decision-making processes – under the Convention.
• Enhance sustainable development and justice. The Convention should promote progressive taxation at national and international levels. It should ensure improved international tax governance supports government commitments and duties, especially relating to the UN Charter and Sustainable Development Goals.
• Improve government accountability. The Convention should ensure transparent and participatory tax decision-making, with governments held accountable to national publics.
• Ensure transparency. The Eurodad proposal emphasizes the ‘ABC of tax transparency’, i.e., Automatic Information Exchange, Beneficial Ownership Transparency, and Country-by-Country reporting.

Actual progress will not come easily, especially after the strong-arm tactics – used by the G-7 group of the biggest rich economies and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – to impose its tax proposals at the expense of developing countries.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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