By Rafael D. Frankel
OPINION
VIENNA, Austria--Though residual and burgeoning anti-semitism is
surely a factor in Europe´s pro-Palestinian bias in the current Mideast
War, it cannot be said that even a sizeable portion of Europeans harbor
genuinely anti-semitic attitudes.
In Germany, merley mentioning the holocausst brings a look of shame
upon peoples´ faces. And in France, site of the most recent wave of
anti-semitic attacks, voters strongly rejected Jean-Marie Le Pen, a man
who in their minds symbolizes the old attitudes of racism and anti-
semitism with his anti-immigrant policies and notorious remark about
the holocaust being but a "footnote" in history.
Why then the overwelming anti-Israeli media coverage and pressure from
the governments in Europe?
Despite their acknowledgement of the henious crimes millions of
Europeans took part in during the holocaust, they now see that chapter
in history closed. Consequently, they fail to grasp the inherent
insecurity complex into which the State of Israel was born, and from
which--due to the unceasing threat posed to Israel first by its Arab
neighbor states and now terrorists--it has yet to recover.
Yesterday, I attended Shabbat services in Budapest at the oldest
synagogue in Europe. Where churches and cathedrals stand every few
blocks on this continent as monuments not only to previous centuries,
but to previous millenia, this "relic" is a baby in comparison, built
during the U.S. Civil War. There were, of course, synagogues of radiant
splendor built across Europe during the last 2000 years, but after the
inquisition, progroms, the holocaust, and other acts of violence
against Jews which ocurred with regularity, that is the oldest.
Today, in Vienna, I wandered through the former orthodox Jewish
neighborhood where my grandfather grew up. It is now a neighborhood
like any other in Austria. There is a grocery store, a park, even a
strip club--and no Jews. Of the 200,000 that lived here in 1939, only
6,000 Jews now reside in Vienna, the majority of which do not even have
family roots here.
Despite his experiences with the Nazis, my grandfather never carried
with him any hatred toward Germans or his fellow countrymen, and he
raised his children and grandchildren to carry only love in our hearts.
Nevertheless, during the last week while traveling through Germany,
Hungary, and Austria, I have been overcome by confused emotion. With
every elderly person I see here, I cannot help wondering if they were
complicit in the crimes commited here against my family.
For Europeans, the holocaust may be ancient history, but for Jews and
Israelis--who are still victims of anti-semitic violence on a near-
daily basis--it happend only yesterday.
When the truth about the holocaust emerged from post-war Europe, one of
the common questions asked was: why didn´t the Jews fight back? Having
been mostly passive as we were threatened, shipped as cattle to
concentration camps, and eventually exterminated so recently, can
Europe seriously expect Israel to be passive again and excersie
restraint while Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian Authority support
terrorist organizations whose stated goal is no less than to drive every
Israeli Jew into the sea?
Indeed, having been the perpetrators of the worst anti-semitic crimes
in history, Europe has a special burden to bear in supporting the right
of Israel to live peacefully as a Jewish state. This does not mean acquiesing to an Israel which would completely deny the right of Palestinian self-determination. But it does mean the European governments need to tone down their rhetoric and acknowledge that Israel is currently engaged in yet another war for her survival, and temper their judgement accordingly.
For its part, the European media should realize that by making false
reports of massacres and tossing around terms like "genocide," they are
only inciting the anti-semitic tendencies their progenitors brought
to bear here; the results of which they have yet to come to terms with.
If my grandfather were alive today, he would be speaking out
passionately for the right of Palestinians to live with dignity and freedom on land under their own control. But he would be preaching with equal zeal against Europe´s short-term memory and her inability to this day to give the Jewish people and the State of Israel a fair shake.
©2002 Rafael D. Frankel
Sunday, May 05, 2002
Wednesday, December 12, 2001
Child trafficking takes new forms in Southeast Asia
Next week, Japan hosts a conference on sexually exploited children. Some say it ignores other problems.
By Rafael D. Frankel | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
BATTAMBANG, CAMBODIA - Head downcast, the boy peers nervously between strands of thick, black hair that fall in front of his eyes.
He won't give his name. He is reluctant even to sit at the table with an adult stranger. Trust does not come easily.
When he was 12, his parents in rural Cambodia sold him to a trafficker who forced him to beg on the streets of Bangkok, Thailand, and the resort town Pattaya. He lived with seven other children in one room. All were Cambodian. Some were as young as six.
"The trafficker told my parents he would send them $55 a month," the boy says. "But I would earn $18 or $25 every day or night I begged."
Over the next three years, the boy escaped twice and made his way home. But the trafficker found him, repurchased him, and took him back to Thailand. The second time, his parents sold his younger brother as well.
Finally, the boy, now 15, wound up at the Battambang Reception Center in Battambang, Cambodia. Since its founding three years ago, the center, on a pothole-ridden road 75 miles from the Thai border, has sheltered children who make it back to Cambodia. At first, most were teenage girls exploited in the vast and lucrative sex trade. But lately, aid workers say, they are also helping younger children, mostly boys, forced to beg or perform manual labor in Thailand.
"There are now many more reports of exploitation for labor, begging, and domestic work, not just prostitution as it was before," says Thetis Mangahas, regional adviser for the International Labor Organization's (IOM) international program for the elimination of child labor.
The Mekong region of Southeast Asia has seen rapid growth in the past five years of children trafficked from poorer countries - Cambodia, Laos, Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Vietnam - into relatively wealthy Thailand for purposes besides sex. And with the second world congress against commercial sexual exploitation of children set to begin Dec. 17 in Yokohama, Japan, some experts say a broader focus is needed.
"Child prostitution is dwarfing issues of child labor and begging, and these children are [also] in very hazardous situations and are being exploited," says Margie de Monchy, UNICEF's East Asia and Pacific regional adviser for child protection.
"There is the sense that some of these other forms of trafficking are being lost. But if we don't take a specific focus, then it's hard to get things done on an international level," says Ms. de Monchy, who is working on some of the legal issues to be addressed at next week's congress.
Exact figures, even reasonable estimates, of children trafficked are nearly impossible to calculate, according to the numerous nongovernmental and state-run organizations in this region.
Still, a report released Friday by UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, as part of the Yokohama conference, said 30-35 percent of sex workers in the Mekong are between ages 12 and 17.
Another recent study, by the UN-affiliated Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), found there are 1 million child victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation alone in the Mekong region. "And if you' re talking about trafficking for nonsexual purposes, there's just no figures available, because they can be in places where they're very hard to find," says Laura Skolnik, ESCAP's social affairs officer.
Smuggling children into Thailand is not difficult. At the Cambodian border town of Poipet, thousands of people cross over and under a chaotic bridge each day. With hundreds of children working at the border pushing carts, selling flowers, and begging, police on both sides pay little attention to who crosses.
Corruption and insufficient resources can mean that even traffickers who are caught, are rarely punished. "There's a problem of corruption and lack of law enforcement in the countries throughout the region, because [the traffickers] act like a network of organized crime, transnational crime, with complexity and influence and money involved," says Thailand Senior State Attorney Piyatida Jermhansa. "Even though we have the laws, it's kind of a failure because there are only one or two cases [of traffickers] indicted to the court."
Meanwhile, at the Battambang Center, the boy awaits a decision on his permanent relocation. It's not clear if he will be sent home a third time.
"There are some situations where [the children] can be reunited with their family. But often, the family needs support in terms of their own sustainable survival," says Linda Manning, technical advisor to the shelter for the International Organization for Migration.
"Some [children] who have been repatriated wind up back on the streets of Bangkok before the social worker who took them gets there."
©2001 The Christian Science Monitor
By Rafael D. Frankel | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
BATTAMBANG, CAMBODIA - Head downcast, the boy peers nervously between strands of thick, black hair that fall in front of his eyes.
He won't give his name. He is reluctant even to sit at the table with an adult stranger. Trust does not come easily.
When he was 12, his parents in rural Cambodia sold him to a trafficker who forced him to beg on the streets of Bangkok, Thailand, and the resort town Pattaya. He lived with seven other children in one room. All were Cambodian. Some were as young as six.
"The trafficker told my parents he would send them $55 a month," the boy says. "But I would earn $18 or $25 every day or night I begged."
Over the next three years, the boy escaped twice and made his way home. But the trafficker found him, repurchased him, and took him back to Thailand. The second time, his parents sold his younger brother as well.
Finally, the boy, now 15, wound up at the Battambang Reception Center in Battambang, Cambodia. Since its founding three years ago, the center, on a pothole-ridden road 75 miles from the Thai border, has sheltered children who make it back to Cambodia. At first, most were teenage girls exploited in the vast and lucrative sex trade. But lately, aid workers say, they are also helping younger children, mostly boys, forced to beg or perform manual labor in Thailand.
"There are now many more reports of exploitation for labor, begging, and domestic work, not just prostitution as it was before," says Thetis Mangahas, regional adviser for the International Labor Organization's (IOM) international program for the elimination of child labor.
The Mekong region of Southeast Asia has seen rapid growth in the past five years of children trafficked from poorer countries - Cambodia, Laos, Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Vietnam - into relatively wealthy Thailand for purposes besides sex. And with the second world congress against commercial sexual exploitation of children set to begin Dec. 17 in Yokohama, Japan, some experts say a broader focus is needed.
"Child prostitution is dwarfing issues of child labor and begging, and these children are [also] in very hazardous situations and are being exploited," says Margie de Monchy, UNICEF's East Asia and Pacific regional adviser for child protection.
"There is the sense that some of these other forms of trafficking are being lost. But if we don't take a specific focus, then it's hard to get things done on an international level," says Ms. de Monchy, who is working on some of the legal issues to be addressed at next week's congress.
Exact figures, even reasonable estimates, of children trafficked are nearly impossible to calculate, according to the numerous nongovernmental and state-run organizations in this region.
Still, a report released Friday by UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, as part of the Yokohama conference, said 30-35 percent of sex workers in the Mekong are between ages 12 and 17.
Another recent study, by the UN-affiliated Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), found there are 1 million child victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation alone in the Mekong region. "And if you' re talking about trafficking for nonsexual purposes, there's just no figures available, because they can be in places where they're very hard to find," says Laura Skolnik, ESCAP's social affairs officer.
Smuggling children into Thailand is not difficult. At the Cambodian border town of Poipet, thousands of people cross over and under a chaotic bridge each day. With hundreds of children working at the border pushing carts, selling flowers, and begging, police on both sides pay little attention to who crosses.
Corruption and insufficient resources can mean that even traffickers who are caught, are rarely punished. "There's a problem of corruption and lack of law enforcement in the countries throughout the region, because [the traffickers] act like a network of organized crime, transnational crime, with complexity and influence and money involved," says Thailand Senior State Attorney Piyatida Jermhansa. "Even though we have the laws, it's kind of a failure because there are only one or two cases [of traffickers] indicted to the court."
Meanwhile, at the Battambang Center, the boy awaits a decision on his permanent relocation. It's not clear if he will be sent home a third time.
"There are some situations where [the children] can be reunited with their family. But often, the family needs support in terms of their own sustainable survival," says Linda Manning, technical advisor to the shelter for the International Organization for Migration.
"Some [children] who have been repatriated wind up back on the streets of Bangkok before the social worker who took them gets there."
©2001 The Christian Science Monitor