Guest Speaker Series lecture looks at impact of human trafficking on Ethiopians 
Abebaw Minaye Gezie lecturing on human trafficking |
Oct. 21, 2009 - The three poor, young Ethiopian women left their homeland to find work in the Gulf States, but instead found a life of abuse and fear.
Their fate is similar to one that thousands of other women are believed to fall prey to as well, Abebaw Minaye Gezie explained in a lecture Tuesday at the Indiana University School of Social Work.
Abebaw is a lecturer at Addis Ababa University and is a PhD student working on his doctorate degree in social work. His lecturer, “The dynamics of human trafficking: Lessons from three Ethiopian women returnees from the Gulf States,” was part of the Guest Speaker Series in International Social Development. The series is sponsored by the School of Social Work and the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the School of Liberal Arts and the IUPUI Center for Service and Learning.
In introducing Abebaw, Carmen Luca Sugawara, an Assistant Professor of Social Work, who helped organize the lecturer series, pointed out that trafficking is “often referred to as modern day slavery.” The most recent figures from the U.S. State Department estimate there are 27 million “slaves” worldwide and that no country, state or community is immune to this crime.
Abebaw estimated there are 130,000 Ethiopians in Gulf States, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Yemen, while others go to Italy, Israel, and South Africa.
The three women Abebaw talked to ranged in age from 22 to 25. They went to Gulf States to work as housekeepers but found themselves working long days, 16 to 18 hours, suffered sexual abuse or attempted sexual abuse, found themselves confined, suffered mental breakdowns and found agencies and embassies were unhelpful in helping them.
A lack of alternatives in their own country make people more willing to risk being a migrant worker rather than “starve in one’s own home country, Abebaw noted.” He pointed out one of the three women planned to return to the Gulf States despite what happened to her on her earlier trip.
The next lecture in the Guest Speaker Series will feature Dr. Darcy Ashman, a civil society networks expert who has dedicated more than 20 years to researching and working with civil society networks in developing countries worldwide. The lecture will be held at 12 p.m. Nov. 12th at the Lilly Auditorium in the IUPUI Library.
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