On 17th June the Federal Government announced changes to its Support for Victims of People Trafficking Program, to take effect as of 1 July. The government has radically reformed its policy with regards to victims of trafficking after years of campaigning by non-government organizations and advocacy groups.  Previously based on the victim’s usefulness to criminal proceedings, the system recognizes the complex needs and vulnerabilities of victims and their difficulties, however willing, in providing a “significant contribution” to a criminal investigation. The program is therefore afforded to all victims regardless of their instrumentality.  Taking a human rights-based approach, the new legislation removes the temporary visa entirely and bases permanent visa attainment on any “contribution” (including a police statement) and a risk of harm if returned home.  Furthermore, the reflection period has been increased to 45 days, with the possibility of extension to 90 days to provide an adequate period over which to seek assistance and make an informed choice about their future.

The Australian Federal Minister for Immigration and Citizenship summarized the legislative changes in a media release on 17 June:

• extending the initial stage of the Support for Victims of People Trafficking Program from 30 to 45 days, and making it available to identified victims irrespective of whether they are willing to assist police. This will provide all victims with an opportunity to recover and seek advice about their future options
• providing up to 90 days assistance for victims who are willing but not able to assist police, due to factors such as trauma. Where the victims do not hold a valid visa they can be granted a second Bridging F visa
• access to the Support for Victims of People Trafficking Program will be available to identified victims who hold any kind of valid visa so victims do not have to relinquish existing visas in order to receive support
• providing up to 20 days transitional support so victims assisting law enforcement can consider their future options, seek legal advice, arrange travel and find support networks after involvement  in the Support for Victims of People Trafficking Program
• removing the temporary visa stage in  the Witness Protection (Trafficking) visa process, and starting the process before the completion of a prosecution. This will reduce the pathway to a permanent visa for eligible victims by at least two years
• reducing the threshold for a Witness Protection (Trafficking) Certificate from having made a “significant contribution” to making “a contribution”
• enabling immediate family members who are outside Australia to be included in an application for a Witness Protection (Trafficking) visa.

This is amazing news and represents a monumental shift forward in the federal government’s policy for trafficking victims.  Indeed, this makes the Australian response an example of global good practice in addressing this issue.  More importantly, Australians can now wait expectantly for the practical implications of this legislation, in the hope that it will be better able to support victims of human trafficking.

For further information see:

Restrictions eased for sex trafficking victims

Overhaul of human trafficking visas ‘will help victims’

Watson’s Atlas Map of Indian Territory (1886)

A startling 1 in 3 American Indian women will experience rape in her lifetime, according to the US Justice Department. Yet only federal attorneys can prosecute felonies like rape committed on tribal land – attorneys that are also responsible for terrorism and drug cases. The result: US attorneys decline to prosecute 75% of American Indian rape cases every year, according to NPR. Even if tribal authorities were able to prosecute rape cases, they would still only be able to prosecute members of federally recognized tribes. This poses a severe dilemma, since 86% of assailants are reported to be non-Indian. To address these issues, Congress is now attempting to strengthen the control of tribal authorities and increase the accountability of responsible federal agencies with the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009.

While tribes maintain sovereignty through tribal police departments and tribal judiciary systems, the federal government holds the purse strings, and federal law still preempts tribal law in civil rights and criminal jurisdiction. Tribal law enforcement officials can’t prosecute non-Indian offenders, and even if a crime is committed by an American Indian, they can’t prosecute felonies like rape. Underfunding has also led to inadequate tribal law enforcement; in 2007, the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation had only 5 Bureau of Indian Affairs officers patrolling an area the size of Connecticut.

This may change — if the new bill passes. Introduced by a bipartisan group of senators, the bill would increase the authority of  tribal police by allowing them to make arrests for all crimes committed on tribal land, and to transfer prisoners to the Bureau of Prisons where the tribal government reaches an agreement with the Bureau.  It would also increase the accountability of federal agencies by establishing an “Office of Indian Country Crime” dedicated to enforcing federal criminal law committed on tribal land, among other provisions.

The bill specifically addresses the epidemic of domestic violence and sexual assault in that it would require the Indian Health Service (IHS) to implement policies and procedures for victims, establish concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute sexual assaults at the request of a tribe, and require the development of victim training programs for law enforcement and IHS personnel. The bill may not be a panacea, but giving tribes the authority to arrest non-Indians for federal crimes such as rape is an essential step in the protection of American Indian women against sexual violence.

See more links below the fold:

Summary of the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009 – US Senate Committee on Indian Affairs

Blog post: Combatting Violence Against Indigenous Women - Native Legal Update, Apr 2009

Pt 1: Rape Cases On Indian Lands Go Uninvestigated – NPR, July 2007

Pt 2: Legal Hurdles Stall Rape Cases on Native Lands – NPR, July 2007

Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA – Amnesty International, 2007

“Criminalization would have created more problems than solving them,” Rama Valayden, Attorney General and Minister of Justice and Human Rights of the Republic of Mauritius declared in the document. Mauritius, an African country, has rejected HIV-specific criminal laws for the very reasons outlined in the publication, yet many countries throughout the world, including the United States, continue to utilize laws that are, in effect, a barrier to an effective response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The New York Times reported the May 2008 conviction in Dallas of Willie Campbell, 42, a homeless, HIV-infected man who was charged with harassment with a deadly weapon after he spat on a police officer. He was charged with a 35-year sentence (including other related charges). “The man was punished not for what he did, but for the virus he carried,” said Justice Cameron, a justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals in South Africa. While this publication is a critical step in highlighting the dangers of HIV-specific criminal laws, until countries eliminate or amend their laws, infected individuals will continue to be prosecuted rather than empowered to seek treatment.

Download the full Open Society Institute document here

Read and hear coverage of this report from 89.3 KPCC, NPR Radio in Los Angeles!

Their call to action, Taming the Perfect Storm, is a unique, ambitious, and pragmatic example of “Health and Human Rights in Practice.” Beginning with the recognition that fundamental rights for individuals who are either homeless or at-risk for homelessness are not being fulfilled by the nation these residents call home, this collaborative report uses a human rights framework to its full advantage. The report moves from a broad understanding and comprehensive analysis of the problems faced by residents of South Los Angeles to specific recommendations to address the health – and human rights – needs of a vulnerable population.

The methods used in this report – analysis of interactions between local laws, economic policy, policing efforts, and other social determinants of health; extensive interviews and ethnography listening deeply to those in need; and clear recommendations based on a human rights approach – can be used by communities anywhere.

We hope you will read the full report (by clicking on the cover above), not only for what it specifically reveals but also for the methods and analytic approach used by the South Los Angeles Homelessness Prevention and Intervention Collaborative. This model can be used to understand and begin to address a wide range of problems, wherever human rights are a concern. As stated in the report, “Combining the treetops of international declarations and human rights law with grassroots advocacy and know-how, a South Los Angeles Human Rights Approach to Health can be transformative.”

We would like to draw particular attention to a novel advocacy tool, the South Los Angeles Declaration of Health and Human Rights. It is exciting to imagine human rights declarations coming from communities around the United States – indeed around the world – as they will come from South Los Angeles.

Rishi Manchanda, MD, MPH and Evan Lyon, MD

From the Executive Summary

This report is the product of a unique South Los Angeles-based coalition of health service providers, community health workers/promotoras, tenant organizers, and affordable housing and civil rights advocates. The complex problem of homelessness and poor health in South Los Angeles is shaped by key local housing, health and law enforcement policies and conditions, some of which we have identified in prior work and continue to address.

Service providers, organizers and advocates in our collaborative have all witnessed the deleterious health and human rights impact of a recent series of public ordinances and law enforcement initiatives in South Los Angeles and Skid Row which disproportionately and often unjustly affect extremely poor and homeless persons. These programs have combined with other powerful trends, including the scarcity of local permanent supportive and affordable housing, the displacement of homeless and low-income residents due to gentrification downtown and along the Figueroa Corridor, evictions and the foreclosure crisis, the closing of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, the historic underfunding of South Los Angeles community clinics by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, and the weakening of the local public health safety-net. Together, these forces have created a perfect storm for the homelessness and health crisis in South Los Angeles. Now, as the federal banking and credit crisis unfolds, South Los Angeles has become a bellwether for the nation, highlighting the fundamental challenges facing America’s increasingly stressed communities.

We conducted surveys of homeless individuals and service providers to document and define this perfect storm more clearly. Results from our work highlight the direct impact of damaging policies and trends on the health of homeless persons living in South Los Angeles.

Of the homeless persons we surveyed in South Los Angeles:

• Only 28% indicated that they had a usual source of medical care.
• 38% reported having a mental health condition.
• Nearly half (46%) reported a need for dental care in the past year. However, 59% of those who needed dental care did not receive it.
• 32% of those who reported receiving medical care at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital within the past two years indicated that the hospital’s closure decreased their ability to get medical care.
• An astonishing 42% of those who rented in the last five years became homeless because they were unable to afford a rent increase.
• Nearly 3 in 10 homeless individuals have experienced an eviction (27%).
• 1 out of every 3 (34%) homeless individuals reported having had an interaction with law enforcement in the past year.

This report from the South Los Angeles Homelessness Prevention and Intervention Collaborative (HPIC):

• Develops a common language to understand the health impact of current trends in housing availability, displacement, law enforcement policy, and health services in South Los Angeles
• Provides important evidence of the health needs and experiences of homeless individuals and service providers in South Los Angeles based on original community-based participatory research
• Offers a human rights approach to health to equip advocates, service providers, policymakers, and media to better address poor health and homelessness in South Los Angeles
• Offers specific recommendations to improve health and homelessness in South Los Angeles

(Note: For a description of the specific policy recommendations contained in the report, please click here or on the cover image above.)

From Solutions, concluding “Taming the Perfect Storm”

The perfect storm of homelessness and poor health in South Los Angeles requires a powerful human right to health approach that can engender the broad-based support and political will necessary to implement long overdue, desperately needed solutions. Using this rights-based framework, we highlight key policy changes, outlined below, that target each major element of the perfect storm. These changes must occur if health and human rights are to be protected in South Los Angeles.

Shift the Policy Debate and Generate Political Will to Tame the Perfect Storm in South Los Angeles

Outlining policy prescriptives alone is not sufficient for the pressing task of preserving and restoring a healthy community in South Los Angeles. If we hope to leverage our voices to implement these policies effectively and equitably, our collective approach to homelessness and poor health in South Los Angeles will require a catalyst to shift the policy debate.

Adopt a Human Rights Approach to Health

As our community of service providers, advocates, policymakers and patients begins to understand the determinants of health and homelessness outlined in this report, the human rights approach to health described in this report offers a powerful method to turn awareness into political will and take specific, much-needed action. Combining the treetops of international declarations and human rights law with grassroots advocacy and know-how, a South Los Angeles Human Rights Approach to Health can be transformative. Such an approach demands that stakeholders shatter stereotyped, dehumanizing views of poor and homeless persons and unproductive and unhealthy silo-based approaches and, in their place, construct sound health, housing and law enforcement policies that respect our shared rights and responsibilities.

Share and use a common language

Innovative and powerful strategies to accelerate current efforts to tame the perfect storm of homelessness and poor health in South Los Angeles are required. Our collaborative believes that the first step of any local strategy involves the building of a common language among varied South Los Angeles constituents. As outlined earlier in our report, providers, patients, policymakers, and advocates can begin by using the vocabulary of “social determinants of health” to address the economic and social conditions which determine health in South Los Angeles.

The South Los Angeles Declaration of Health and Human Rights

We propose that one of the first grassroots advocacy efforts of the Human Rights to Health Approach be the development of the South Los Angeles Declaration of Health and Human Rights. Loosely adapted from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we envision that the South Los Angeles version will be developed in a participatory process, informed by patient and client experiences and endorsed by local service providers, advocates, and policymakers. This process will help build a broad coalition to address homelessness and health in South Los Angeles and generate needed fresh political will, media attention, and broader support.

Conclusion

In the nation as a whole, persistent widespread homelessness and the health care crisis offer compelling evidence of a collective disregard for human rights. Few places exhibit the ill effects of this disregard like South Los Angeles. Conversely, no other community stands to benefit as much from a community-based human rights approach to health. With a firm understanding of the links between critical determinants of health like housing, public and community health resources, and law enforcement policy, we commit to build the political will and skills needed to tame this perfect storm of homelessness and poor health. In short, we commit to reclaim and redefine our community guided by the practical application of fundamental human rights principles. As an important stage of community dialogue on the right to health, housing, and security begins, we welcome all constructive comments and critiques of this report.