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she-is-ovarit · 4 months ago

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A Glance at Women's Oppression

Oppression may be measured by assessing socio-structural conditions. Males oppress female human beings on the axis of sex, and this pattern has been recognized across several disciplines of scientific research.

Violence Against Women

One in three women globally experience physical or sexual violence.

More than 1 in 4 women (26%) aged 15 years and older have suffered violence at the hands of their partners at least once since the age of 15.

The vast majority of substantial research on violence against women in the United States is now 20+ years old :)

As high as 64 - 84% of cases of sexual violence go unreported, so these estimates are low.

A male perpetrator was reported in 98% of cases of violence against both men and women.

58% of all women murdered in 2017 were killed by an intimate partner or a family member (source. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2018).

80% of women are victims or survivors of corrosive violence - aka "acid attacks". 60% of these attacks go unreported, most instigators of acid attacks are male, and there has been a 90% increase in these attacks in the last 10 years, with the UK being the country with the highest rate of acid attacks.

Worldwide 1 in 5 girls are married off usually to men twice their age or more.

Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner.

200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting.

71% of all human trafficking involves women and girls – mainly for sexual exploitation (source. UNODC, 2016).

The killing of women accused of sorcery/witchcraft is reported as a significant phenomenon in countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands.

Many women are killed specifically in "honor killings" - to defend the honor of a man.

200 million girls experience female genital mutilation.

National studies indicate indicate that as many as 4 million women are battered each year, but only about 48 percent of these cases are reported to the police.

Violence against women meets the requirements of widely accepted definitions of hate crimes, but crimes motivated by hatred of women are not included in most antibias crime legislation.

Medical Misogyny

The disregard of pain and illness by medical professionals

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of this, but: women are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed and discharged than men in the middle of having a heart attack. 70% of the people who experience chronic pain are female, but 80% of chronic pain studies have been conducted on males or male mice. Women also wait longer for a diagnosis and pain management than men.

Lack of research: the vast majority of scientific understanding and research on human beings conducted globally has been on males.

Period poverty and death due to misogynistic period shame (and I hope that this is obvious, but I am on Tumblr so I will emphasize that 100% of these deaths, illnesses, and disabilities are happening to female human beings.

Reproductive exploitation, discrimination, and control

Women across many countries have little to no access to abortions and other reproductive care, and are forced to carry their rapist's child.

Women are imprisoned for having abortions, and even people associated with helping them in any way to obtain an abortion experience legal consequences. Being impregnated through rape doesn't change this. In multiple states, rapists can sue their victims for parental custody. Women who are victims of stalkers and had children with them also are forced into allowing them visitation in the vast majority of cases.

Women also experience the brunt of forced sterilization and uniquely endure mortality rates from childbirth complications, in which often the infant's life is prioritized over the mother. Doctors may also refuse women and girls birth control, or subsequently deny women's requests to be sterilized.

Being forced to co-parent with their rapist.

Even if rape is proven, men can sue their victims for custody and may use children as a point of control over their victims and contact with their victims continuing psychological terror and causing trauma to children.

Over 3 million women experience pregnancies as a result of rape.

Men who donate sperm privately and through sperm banks experience no regulations and enforcement of how often they donate, resulting in some men producing thousands of offspring and others deceiving women on whose sperm they were impregnated with. Mothers of these children endure severe psychological trauma from this rape by deception in addition to themselves and their children navigating the psychological effects of avoiding potential incestuous relationships with the donor's other children.

Job Discrimination

In 38 countries, women can be fired for being pregnant.

From January 2017 through December 2019, 2.7 million workers age 20 and older were displaced from jobs they had held for at least 3 years; women accounted for 45 percent of those displaced.

While on leave, substantially fewer women than men

receive full pay (32 percent versus 55 percent), and more

receive no pay (41 percent versus 25 percent).

Women continue to experience occupational segregation in nontraditional jobs. In 2013, women composed 7.3 percent of all Craft Workers, while the participation rate for women in the Office and Clerical Worker category was considerably higher at 75.6 percent.

Despite the gains in employment made by women in the last 50 years, the annual median earnings of women working full time in 2013 was $39,157, compared with men at $50,033.

In 86 countries, women face some form of job restriction and 95 countries do not guarantee equal pay for equal work. 59 nations have no laws on the books addressing sexual harassment in the workplace, and 18 nations around the world allow husbands to legally prevent their wives from working.

Influence and resources:

Less than 15% of landholders worldwide are women, despite most women in the global south working in agriculture (source. Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015; World Bank, 2019).

Women make up just 25% of parliamentarians worldwide (source. Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2019).

Between 1990 and 2019 women made up 2% of mediators, 5% of witnesses and signatories, and 8% of negotiators in major peace processes worldwide (source. Council of Foreign Relations, 2019).

Only 1% of aid supporting gender equality went to women’s rights organisations in 2016-2017, despite governments around the world committing an extra $1bn to gender equality initiatives globally (sources. Guardian, 2019, OECD, 2019).

130 million girls are denied the right to an education.

According to the largest study on the portrayal, participation and representation of women in the news media spanning 20 years and 114 countries, only 24 per cent of the persons heard, read about or seen in newspaper, television and radio news are women.

A glass ceiling also exists for women news reporters in newspaper bylines and newscast reports, with 37 per cent of stories reported by women as of 2015, showing no change over the course of a decade.

An analysis of popular films across 11 countries found, for example, that 31 per cent of all speaking characters were women and that only 23 per cent featured a female protagonist—a number that closely mirrored the percentage of women filmmakers (21 per cent)

#women's oppression #feminism #global feminism #women's rights #human rights #social justice #violence against women #patriarchy

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mariacallous · 1 month ago

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As digital scamming explodes in Southeast Asia, including so called “pig butchering” investment scams, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) issued a comprehensive report this week with a dire warning about the rapid growth of this criminal ecosystem. Many digital scams have traditionally relied on social engineering, or tricking victims into giving away their money willingly, rather than leaning on malware or other highly technical methods. But researchers have increasingly sounded the alarm that scammers are incorporating generative AI content and deepfakes to expand the scale and effectiveness of their operations. And the UN report offers the clearest evidence yet that these high tech tools are turning an already urgent situation into a crisis.

In addition to buying written scripts to use with potential victims or relying on templates for malicious websites, attackers have increasingly been leaning on generative AI platforms to create communication content in multiple languages and deepfake generators that can create photos or even video of nonexistent people to show victims and enhance verisimilitude. Scammers have also been expanding their use of tools that can drain a victim’s cryptocurrency wallets, have been manipulating transaction records to trick targets into sending cryptocurrency to the wrong places, and are compromising smart contracts to steal cryptocurrency. And in some cases, they’ve been purchasing Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet systems to help power their efforts.

“Agile criminal networks are integrating these new technologies faster than anticipated, driven by new online marketplaces and service providers which have supercharged the illicit service economy,” John Wojcik, a UNODC regional analyst, tells WIRED. “These developments have not only expanded the scope and efficiency of cyber-enabled fraud and cybercrime, but they have also lowered the barriers to entry for criminal networks that previously lacked the technical skills to exploit more sophisticated and profitable methods.”

For years, China-linked criminals have trafficked people into gigantic compounds in Southeast Asia, where they are often forced to run scams, held against their will, and beaten if they refuse instructions. Around 200,000 people, from at least 60 countries, have been trafficked to compounds largely in Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos over the last five years. However, as WIRED reporting has shown, these operations are spreading globally—with scamming infrastructure emerging in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and West Africa.

Most prominently, these organized crime operations have run pig butchering scams, where they build intimate relationships with victims before introducing an “investment opportunity” and asking for money. Criminal organizations may have conned people out of around $75 billion through pig butchering scams. Aside from pig butchering, according to the UN report, criminals across Southeast Asia are also running job scams, law enforcement impersonation, asset recovery scams, virtual kidnappings, sextortion, loan scams, business email compromise, and other illicit schemes. Criminal networks in the region earned up to $37 billion last year, UN officials estimate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, all of this revenue is allowing scammers to expand their operations and diversify, incorporating new infrastructure and technology into their systems in the hope of making them more efficient and brutally effective.

For example, scammers are often constrained by their language skills and ability to keep up conversations with potentially hundreds of victims at a time in numerous languages and dialects. However, generative AI developments within the last two years—including the launch of writing tools such as ChatGPT—are making it easier for criminals to break down language barriers and create the content needed for scamming.

The UN’s report says AI can be used for automating phishing attacks that ensnare victims, the creation of fake identities and online profiles, and the crafting of personalized scripts to trick victims while messaging them in different languages. “These developments have not only expanded the scope and efficiency of cyber-enabled fraud and cybercrime, but they have also lowered the barriers to entry for criminal networks that previously lacked the technical skills to exploit sophisticated and profitable methods,” the report says.

Stephanie Baroud, a criminal intelligence analyst in Interpol’s human trafficking unit, says the impact of AI needs to be considered as part of a pig butchering scammer’s tactics going forward. Baroud, who spoke with WIRED in an interview before the publication of the UN report, says the criminal’s recruitment ads that lure people into being trafficked to scamming compounds used to be “very generic” and full of grammatical errors. However, AI is now making them appear more polished and compelling, Baroud says. “It is really making it easier to create a very realistic job offer,” she says. “Unfortunately, this will make it much more difficult to identify which is the real and which is the fake ads.”

Perhaps the biggest AI paradigm shift in such digital attacks comes from deepfakes. Scammers are increasingly using machine-learning systems to allow for real-time face-swapping. This technology, which has also been used by romance scammers in West Africa, allows criminals to change their appearance on calls with their victims, making them realistically appear to be a different person. The technology is allowing “one-click” face swaps and high-resolution video feeds, the UN’s report states. Such services are a game changer for scammers, because they allow attackers to “prove” to victims in photos or real-time video calls that they are who they claim to be.

Using these setups, however, can require stable internet connections, which can be harder to maintain within some regions where pig butchering compounds and other scamming have flourished. There has been a “notable” increase in cops seizing Starlink satellite dishes in recent months in Southeast Asia, the UN says—80 units were seized between April and June this year. In one such operation carried out in June, Thai police confiscated 58 Starlink devices. In another instance, law enforcement seized 10 Starlink devices and 4,998 preregistered SIM cards while criminals were in the process of moving their operations from Myanmar to Laos. Starlink did not immediately respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

“Obviously using real people has been working for them very well, but using the tech could be cheaper after they have the required computers” and connectivity, says Troy Gochenour, a volunteer with the Global Anti-Scam Organization (GASO), a US-based nonprofit that fights human-trafficking and cybercrime operations in Southeast Asia.

Gochenour’s research involves tracking trends on Chinese-language Telegram channels related to carrying out pig butchering scams. And he says that it is increasingly common to see people applying to be AI models for scam content.

In addition to AI services, attackers have increasingly leaned on other technical solutions as well. One tool that has been increasingly common in digital scamming is so-called “crypto drainers,” a type of malware that has particularly been deployed against victims in Southeast Asia. Drainers can be more or less technically sophisticated, but their common goal is to “drain” funds from a target’s cryptocurrency wallets and redirect the currency to wallets controlled by attackers. Rather than stealing the credentials to access the target wallet directly, drainers are typically designed to look like a legitimate service—either by impersonating an actual platform or creating a plausible brand. Once a victim has been tricked into connecting their wallet to the drainer, they are then manipulated into approving one or a few transactions that grant attackers unintended access to all the funds in the wallet.

Drainers can be used in many contexts and with many fronts. They can be a component of pig butchering investment scams, or promoted to potential victims through compromised social media accounts, phishing campaigns, and malvertizing. Researchers from the firm ScamSniffer, for example, published findings in December about sponsored social media and search engine ads linked to malicious websites that contained a cryptocurrency drainer. The campaign, which ran from March to December 2023 reportedly stole about $59 million from more than 63,000 victims around the world.

Far from the low-tech days of doing everything through social engineering by building a rapport with potential victims and crafting tricky emails and text messages, today’s scammers are taking a hybrid approach to make their operations as efficient and lucrative as possible, UN researchers say. And even if they aren’t developing sophisticated malware themselves in most cases, scammers are increasingly in the market to use these malicious tools, prompting malware authors to adapt or create hacking tools for scams like pig butchering.

Researchers say that scammers have been seen using infostealers and even remote access trojans that essentially create a backdoor in a victim’s system that can be utilized in other types of attacks. And scammers are also expanding their use of malicious smart contracts that appear to programmatically establish a certain agreed-upon transaction or set of transactions, but actually does much more. “Infostealer logs and underground data markets have also been critical to ongoing market expansion, with access to unprecedented amounts of sensitive data serving as a major catalyst,�� Wojcik, from the UNODC, says.

The changing tactics are significant as global law enforcement scrambles to deter digital scamming. But they are just one piece of the larger picture, which is increasingly urgent and bleak for forced laborers and victims of these crimes.

“It is now increasingly clear that a potentially irreversible displacement and spillover has taken place in which organized crime are able to pick, choose, and move value and jurisdictions as needed, with the resulting situation rapidly outpacing the capacity of governments to contain it,” UN officials wrote in the report. “Failure to address this ecosystem will have consequences for Southeast Asia and other regions.”

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rjzimmerman · 6 months ago

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Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

A new report from the United Nations’ Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has found that more than 4,000 wildlife species are targeted worldwide for illegal trade, and about 162 countries have active illegal wildlife trading.

According to the latest edition of the UNODC’s World Wildlife Crime Report, the third of its kind, more than 4,000 plant and animal species are illegally traded, often for medicinal, food, pet or ornamental purposes.

For example, shark fins, eels and pangolins are often sought out in bulk for consumption as food, the report noted, while rare reptiles and amphibians are in demand as pets. Further, some parts of species are in demand as ornamental goods, such as ivory from elephant tusks or horns of rhinoceroses.

The report found 1,652 mammal, bird, reptile and amphibian species that were seized by authorities from 2015 to 2021. Of those seized species, 40% were considered threatened or near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. The analysis revealed that seizures from illegal wildlife crimes totalled around 13 million items from 2015 to 2021 and weighed over 16,000 tons.

As part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, Goal 15 is aimed at protecting and restoring land-based ecosystems, and it includes targets to end wildlife trafficking of protected species. But the new UNODC report compared data to progress of Goal 15 and found that the world is not on track to meet this goal. According to the report, intercepted illegal wildlife trading as a proportion of all wildlife trade (including legal trade) increased from 2017 to 2021, even reaching its highest levels in 2020 and 2021.

“These estimates give no reason for confidence that SDG target 15.7 is on track to be met by 2030,” the report stated.

The report also outlined some of the major threats of the illegal wildlife trade, not just to the targeted species but to their entire ecosystems and humans as well.

“Wildlife crime inflicts untold harm upon nature, and it also jeopardizes livelihoods, public health, good governance and our planet’s ability to fight climate change,” Ghada Waly, executive director of the UNODC, told The Guardian.

#wildlife trafficking #illegal wildlife trade

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everythingkashmir · 2 years ago

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Hell in Paradise

By Faisul Yaseen

On a chilly December morning, something took over J, a young baker in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district as he went on a rampage, killing his mother and two others, and leaving his father and five others injured.

“He started attacking everyone ferociously like a bear. I don’t know what happened to him. It was as if he turned mad. He even attacked me and dragged his mother along and killed her too,” J’s father says, unable to come to the grips of the tragedy that has befallen the family.

As the cold winter paved way for the blooming spring, it was déjà vu.

This time another son went bizarre in north Kashmir’s Sopore area when he strangled his mother to death.

Rewind to the blazing autumn, and we see the same tragic events unfold in Kehribal village of Anantnag.

A son, along with his friend, tried to snatch money from his mother, resulting in an argument between the mother and the son.

Infuriated, the son beats and punches his mother forcefully, resulting in her fall inside the kitchen of their house.

With the help of his friend, the son brings a big stone and hits it on his mother’s head, leaving her dead.

The heartrending story is played over and again.

What toxicity is in the air?

All the three sons involved in the gruesome murder of their mothers are said to be involved in substance abuse.

Professor at the Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (IMHANS), Kashmir, Dr Arshad Hussain says that though substance abuse is associated with harm to self in most instances, in some circumstances it is associated with violence to others.

“Most of the research done in the field does conclude that substance use like alcohol and cannabis are associated with increased crime rates,” he says. “They are associated with aggression which doesn’t have a stop button as drugs cut the brakes in our frontal lobes which otherwise modulate our behaviours. Rising crime rates and accidents are indirect heinous costs of rising substance use.”

*****

Narcotics is the third largest business in the world with a turnover of 500 billion US dollars, and, according to the latest World Drug Report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), some 35 million people globally are suffering from drug use disorders.

In Kashmir too, drug addiction is becoming a rampant phenomenon, bringing other associated crimes along.

According to the ‘The National Survey on Extent and Pattern of Substance Use in India’, one million people in a population of 12.5 million in Jammu and Kashmir have fallen to the menace of drug addiction.

What lures people in Kashmir to substance abuse?

“Various factors,” says Prof Aneesa Shafi, Head of the Sociology Department of the University of Kashmir (KU).

“Our value system getting weak, global connectivity, media, restricted entertainment sources, peer pressure, easy access to drugs, and shrinking space for expression are some factors that push people to substance abuse,” she says.

Those indulging in drug addiction mention other factors too.

K, who is in his early twenties, says that in his teens, he used to be distressed due to the expectations of his parents of excelling at studies and would often remain confined to his room.

“To complicate matters, the girl I loved turned me down,” he says.

Unable to deal with rejection and failure to shine at studies, K was drowning in the pool of depression when a friend suggested trying cannabis.

“It gave me a high,” he says. “I was hooked.”

Within sometime, K began trying other drugs like heroin that completely derailed his life.

Soon, he was a school dropout.

*****

The substance abuse in pop culture too has impacted the lives of youth.

With easy access to Over The Top (OTT) media platforms on their mobile phones, some substance abusers say that popular Hollywood movies like ‘Train Spotting’, ‘Pulp Fiction’, and ‘The Basketball Diaries’ and TV shows like ‘Narcos’ and ‘Breaking Bad’ influenced them in doing drugs.

Others say they were swayed by the mention of intoxication in poetry like Allama Iqbal’s couplet, ‘Mai ḳhana-e-Europe ke dastur nirale hain; laate hain surur avval dete hain sharab aḳhir’ or Bashir Badr’s, ‘Na tum hosh main ho na ham hosh main hain; chalo maikade main vahin baat hogi’.

Yet others say they started doing drugs for the exploration of creative processes, something that has been in discourse for long.

Thomas De Quincey’s ‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’ published in 1821 had first romanticised the link between intoxicants and artists’ careers in songs, novels, and films.

Head of the Psychiatry Department at Government Medical College (GMC), Srinagar, Dr Muhammad Maqbool Dar is of the opinion that unregulated media and social media were playing the main role in pushing youth to substance abuse.

“Youth get influenced by what keeps coming on the media and social media over and over,” he says. “More than the influence of drugs in pushing them toward crimes, copycat homicides and copycat suicides are a bigger concern.”

*****

Though the phenomenon of drug addiction in Kashmir has witnessed a surge in recent years, Kashmir has long had its tryst with substance abuse.

Seeing faith healers and traditional musicians in a state of high has been socially acceptable since long.

In their book ‘Dimensions of Drug Abuse in Kashmir: A Study of Anantnag District - A Sociological Perspective’, Shahzad Wani and Pirzada M Amin write that drug abuse has been prevalent in Kashmir society for a long time and functioned as an institution in the form of ‘Takayas’.

‘Takayas’ used to be the havens of cannabis consuming addicts in Kashmir that used to have such social acceptance that people would even send them a share from their feasts.

By the 1990s, the menace of substance abuse had started taking root in Kashmir.

In 1993, Dr Mushtaq A Margoob and Dr K S Dutta set the alarm bells ringing in their report ‘Drug abuse in Kashmir – Experience from a Psychiatric Diseases Hospital’ published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry.

Their report stated that the menace was “touching new heights”, the situation would eventually become “explosive”, and “urgent steps” needed to be taken to curb it before it was too late.

Noted Kashmiri poet, writer, and satirist Zareef Ahmad Zareef blames the political leadership for failing to control the menace of drug addiction in the region.

Giving the example of Mao Zedong, Chinese communist revolutionary leader and founder of the People's Republic of China, Zareef says Zedong eradicated both consumption and production of opium in China during the 1950s.

Under Zedong, 10 million addicts were forced into compulsory treatment, dealers were executed, and new crops planted in opium-producing areas.

*****

The situation regarding substance abuse has gone so bad now that a recent study done by the Psychiatry Department of GMC, Srinagar revealed that Kashmir had surpassed Punjab in drug abuse cases and was currently positioned at number two among top drug abuser regions in India not far behind Northeast.

According to the study, a whopping 33,000 syringes are used to inject heroin by drug abusers in Kashmir every day.

The worrying sign is that most drug abusers are in the age group of 17 to 33 years and unemployed.

The study says that on an average, a single drug abuser spends Rs 88,183 every month on substance abuse.

The COVID-19 pandemic also complicated the matters.

According to doctors, the substance abuse among the addicts increased during the pandemic because of boredom due to lockdown.

With the ‘dark web’, tech-savvy youth have easy access to illicit drugs.

*****

As youth continue to fall into the rabbit hole of substance abuse, calls for awareness and rehabilitation are growing shriller.

A study ‘Drug Addiction Causes and Awareness among people of Pulwama District of Jammu and Kashmir State’ by Tahira Sidiq, Bilal Ahmad Bhat, Nusrat, and Feroz Ahmad Wani in the Saudi Journal of Biomedical Research says that 94.17 percent respondents they surveyed were not aware of the process of drug de-addiction.

The study urges society elders and religious leaders to come forward and support people who want to eliminate drug abuse from J&K.

*****

As drug abusers frequently feel alone and alienated, religion plays a role in providing spiritual assistance and builds their capacity to overcome this problem.

The holy Quran has several references against intoxication.

Chapter 2 (Al-Baqarah), Verse 219 states: “They ask you about wine and games of chance. Say: ‘In both these there is great evil, even though there is some benefit for people, but their evil is greater than their benefit.’”

Chapter 4 (An Nisa) Verse 43 states: “Believers! Do not draw near to the Prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying nor while you are defiled - save when you are travelling - until you have washed yourselves.”

Chapter 5 (Al-Maidah), Verses 90-91 state: “O believers! Intoxicants, gambling, idols, and drawing lots for decisions are all evil of Satan’s handiwork. So shun them so you may be successful. Satan’s plan is to stir up hostility and hatred between you with intoxicants and gambling and to prevent you from remembering Allah and praying. Will you not then abstain?”

There is also mention against intoxication in the Hadith.

Al-Bukhari (4087) and Muslim (1733) narrated that Abu Musa said: “The Prophet (SAW) sent Muadh ibn Jabal and me to Yemen, and I said: O Messenger of Allah, there is a drink that is made in our land and is called al-Mizr, which is made from barley, and another drink called al-Bit, which is made from honey. He said: “Every intoxicant is haram.”

Al-Bukhari (4343) and Muslim (3032) narrated that Ibn Umar said: “I heard Umar say from the minbar of the Messenger of Allah (SAW): “O people, the prohibition of khamr was revealed when khamr was made from five things: grapes, dates, honey, wheat and barley. Khamr is whatever befogs the mind.”

*****

Kashmir lacks proper facilities for rehabilitating drug users and lack of knowledge regarding drug addiction, detoxification, and rehabilitation.

The governmental agencies, educational institutions, NGOs, and other social work organisations need to scale up their awareness programmes.

As some substance abusers die of overdose while some commit suicide when they become hopeless, parent and care knowledge also needs to improve.

Professor in the Department of Psychiatry IMHANS, Kashmir, Dr Yasir Rather says there are Addiction Treatment Facilities (ATFs) in all district hospitals of J&K.

“However, there is also a need for long-term rehabilitation centers that would provide comprehensive treatment – a combination of medical, psychological, and social services to help individuals overcome their addiction and regain control of their lives,” he says.

Though the crackdown of law-enforcing agencies’ against drug traffickers has been welcomed, people are also suspicious at times.

When former Punjab chief minister Captain Amrinder Singh spoke about the drug menace in 2018, he told Hindustan Times, “One new source of drugs is Kashmir despite so much security.”

However, SSP J&K Anti-Narcotic Task Force (ANTF) Vinay Kumar says that policing related to narcotics and awareness was getting better.

“Every year, we used to register around 22 to 23 cases under the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act, 1988, however, in the year 2022 we registered 235 cases under PITNDPSA,” he says.

Kumar feels that as Police are getting teeth to seize the financial assets and properties of the repeated offender, the results on the ground are getting better.

Stressing that while the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had informed the Lok Sabha that 4.6 percent of J&K population was involved in substance abuse, he says that according to IMHANS, Srinagar, only 2.5 percent of Kashmir population was involved.

Kumar says that the first priority of the Police Department was to take action against those working on the inside of the organisation for drug smugglers.

“Cases have been registered against BSF officials, CRPF officials, and Police officials. Five to six Police officials were chargesheeted in a single case,” he says.

While dealing strongly with drug traffickers is a welcome development, there is a need to treat substance abuse as a disease and drug addicts as diseased, rather than criminals.

*****

L, a youth who has been sober for the past 2 years after being a chronic addict for over 5 years says he owes his recovery to his parents and medics who treated him.

“If my parents wouldn't have been understanding, I would never have been able to come out of this abyss,” L says. “If I could fight addiction, anyone can.”

Greater Kashmir

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bloody-sarcasm-central · 2 months ago

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I love you all but this is a misconception, the majority of people trafficked are trafficked in their own countries.

I know, sounds counterintuitive, but have you thought that it’s all about money and that moving people across borders when they don’t want to is freaking expensive? Yeah. I love you all but not everything is about post colonialism - not that it isn’t important, but don’t let that blind you! Exploited labour is like 18% of human trafficking, the rest is sexual exploitation. At home. Managed by the same people you buy weed from, btw, more money for them. Just saying 🤷🏻‍♀️

Human trafficking in real life: primarily people from poor countries being taken into rich countries to act as exploited labor

Human trafficking in fiction: "Boss, we've kidnapped our five hundredth white woman from the suburbs today. That's our quota, so we're ready for the underground slave auction. Oh, and fire up the darkweb livestream for the pit battles between everyone we don't sell."

#politics #writing #human trafficking #misconceptions #sorry I had a glass of wine

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endingviolenceagainstwomenday · 2 days ago

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International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 2024 - Press Conference.

Press conference by UN Women Deputy Executive Director Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda; along with Delphine Schantz, Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) New York Office; and Kalliopi Mingeirou, Chief of the Ending Violence against Women Section, UN Women, on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (November 25th). They also present the report "Femicides in 2023: Global estimates of intimate partner/family member femicides".

Watch the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women - Press Conference!

#violence against girls #intimate partner violence #press conference #United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime #25 november #un women #gender based violence.#domestic violence #domestic violence shelters #feminicide #Ending Violence against Women Section

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thestarlense · 2 days ago

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140 Women Killed Every Day Worldwide, Report Reveals

Global Femicide Crisis: 140 Women Killed Every Day, UN Report Shows A recent United Nations report reveals a shocking global trend: at least 140 women and girls lose their lives every day due to violence at the hands of someone they know, including intimate partners or close family members. The report, released on November 25, 2024, by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),…

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fightagainstorganizedcrimeday · 14 days ago

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First Observance of the International Day for the Prevention of and Fight Against all Forms of Transnational Organized Crime.

In light of General-Assembly Resolution 78/267, UNODC is organizing this High-Level Event to commemorate the first International Day for the Prevention of and Fight Against all Forms of Transnational Organized Crime, on 15 November 2024.

Broadcasting UN Entity: UNITED NATIONS OFFICE IN VIENNA - UNOV.

Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME - UNODC.

Watch the High-level Event to Commemorate the first International Day for the Prevention of and Fight against All Forms of Transnational Organized Crime!

#International Day for the Prevention of and Fight Against all Forms of Transnational Organized Crime #organized crime #state parties #untoc #TOC day #capacity building #unodc #member states #stakeholders #private sector #high level event #academics #civil society organizations #15 November

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theankoletimes · 14 days ago

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Uganda Police Launches Nationwide Toll Free Call Center

(Kampala) – The Uganda Police Force (UPF) has received a state of the- art Public Interaction Center at the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID) Headquarters. This new call center was established through a partnership with the Government of the Netherlands and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), aiming to enhance the UPF’s communication with citizens and improve response…

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traffickinginstitute · 18 days ago

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Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery: Alarming Statistics and Insights

The Scope of Human Trafficking: Global and Regional Statistics

Recent statistics show that human trafficking affects virtually every corner of the world, with both developing and developed nations implicated in its networks. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), an estimated 49.6 million people were victims of human trafficking and forced labor in 2021, with 27.6 million of those in situations of forced labor and the rest in forced marriages or other exploitative conditions. This staggering figure reflects a 25% increase in victims over the past five years, a surge attributed to worsening socio-economic conditions, conflict, and forced migration.

Human trafficking slavery statistics reveal that Southeast Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe are hotbeds for trafficking, yet North America and Western Europe also experience significant cases, primarily through labor exploitation and sex trafficking. Victims are often lured by false job offers, promises of education, or the chance to escape poverty and conflict, only to find themselves trapped and subjected to severe exploitation. Women and children are disproportionately impacted, with one in five victims being under the age of 18, and women representing over 70% of all human trafficking victims globally.

Forms of Human Trafficking

Human trafficking manifests in various forms, each with unique statistics and challenges. The most common forms include:

Forced Labor: Victims of forced labor are often exploited in sectors like agriculture, construction, domestic work, and manufacturing. Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable, as they may lack legal protections in their host countries. In 2021, around 24.9 million people were estimated to be in forced labor situations globally, making it the most common form of trafficking.

Sex Trafficking: Victims of sex trafficking are coerced, often violently, into commercial sexual exploitation. Women and girls make up the majority of these victims. A United Nations report found that sex trafficking is especially prevalent in regions with large tourism industries and in conflict zones, where law enforcement may be limited or compromised.

Forced Marriage: Forced marriage, sometimes overlooked in human trafficking report , is a form of modern slavery that primarily affects women and girls, with around 22 million victims globally. Cultural pressures and economic hardships drive this form of trafficking, often trapping women in lifelong servitude without personal freedom.

Child Exploitation: Trafficking of children for labor, sexual exploitation, and even organ harvesting is a particularly harrowing facet of human trafficking. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), children represent nearly a third of all trafficking victims, a number that has risen in recent years due to regional conflicts and displacement.

Recent Trends and Human Trafficking Reports

Human trafficking reports reveal troubling trends that underscore the need for a multifaceted approach to combating this crisis. A 2022 report from the UNODC highlights a rise in online exploitation, where traffickers increasingly use digital platforms to recruit, exploit, and control their victims. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the vulnerability of millions as unemployment, school closures, and restricted movement left people more susceptible to traffickers.

Moreover, human trafficking reports suggest that organized crime networks are expanding, making it difficult for law enforcement to keep up with the scale of operations. Traffickers have capitalized on crises in countries experiencing conflict or economic instability, particularly targeting displaced populations who lack security and legal protection.

Combating Human Trafficking: Global Efforts and Future Challenges

Governments and organizations worldwide have made strides in combating human trafficking. Efforts include stricter legislation, victim support programs, and international cooperation to dismantle trafficking networks. The United States' Trafficking Victims Protection Act, for instance, has strengthened laws against trafficking and increased support for victims. Meanwhile, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play a crucial role by providing rescue services, rehabilitation programs, and raising awareness to help prevent trafficking.

Despite these efforts, challenges remain. Human trafficking slavery statistics indicate that enforcement and victim support are inconsistent across regions, with resources limited in many countries. Moreover, the clandestine nature of trafficking makes it difficult to assess the full scale of the problem, as countless cases go unreported each year.

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timesofinnovation · 20 days ago

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Criminal networks in Southeast Asia are increasingly exploiting Telegram for large-scale illicit activities, as highlighted in a recent United Nations report. This encrypted messaging platform, valued for its privacy and ease of use, serves as a marketplace for trading hacked data, including credit card details and passwords, across sprawling, poorly moderated channels. This alarming trend reflects a significant shift in how organized crime operates in the digital age. The UN report paints a concerning picture of the operations conducted on Telegram. Users can find unlicensed cryptocurrency exchanges that facilitate money laundering activities, enabling criminals to convert stolen digital assets into legitimate funds without drawing attention. The report notes that vendors on Telegram are not only actively selling fraud tools, such as deepfake software and data-stealing malware, but they are also robustly innovating their methods of operation. A striking example included a vendor who reportedly claimed to move millions in stolen cryptocurrency daily. Southeast Asia has emerged as a pivotal hub for these activities, where criminal groups are targeting victims on a global scale, generating an estimated revenue of up to $36.5 billion annually from such illicit operations. Telegram's popularity has skyrocketed due in part to its encryption capabilities, allowing users to communicate without fear of surveillance. However, this same feature has inadvertently provided a safe haven for criminals. The rapid expansion of online crime syndicates highlights the troubling consequences of inadequate moderation on the platform, which has become a breeding ground for various forms of cybercrime. The controversy surrounding Telegram reached new heights when its founder, Pavel Durov, was arrested in Paris for allegedly allowing criminal activities on the platform. After his release on bail, Durov stated intentions to cooperate with law enforcement agencies by sharing users’ information when legally requested. He also announced plans to remove certain features that are exploited for illegal purposes. This move signifies a growing awareness of the need for platforms like Telegram to take more responsibility for the content shared on their networks. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warns that the widespread use of Telegram for underground markets places consumer data at an alarming risk. The report emphasizes that criminals are not just exploiting traditional internet mechanisms but are also leveraging advanced technologies like artificial intelligence to enhance their operations. This sophisticated approach allows them to target a broader range of victims across the globe, intensifying concerns for cybersecurity at a personal and institutional level. Beyond the mere facilitation of crime, the implications of this report extend to discussions about privacy, data protection, and the role of technology companies in safeguarding user information. The challenge for law enforcement is significant, as the anonymity promised by platforms like Telegram complicates investigations into criminal activities. This has led to heightened scrutiny on how these companies manage user data and their obligations to prevent illegal activities. While many users appreciate the privacy that apps like Telegram provide, the risk of such platforms being used for criminal enterprises cannot be overlooked. It raises critical questions about ethical responsibility among technology companies and the need for more robust regulatory frameworks to safeguard users while respecting their right to privacy. Lawmakers and stakeholders in the tech industry must now seek a balance between fostering innovation and protecting consumers from the dangers posed by the misuse of technology. In conclusion, the findings in the UN report underscore the urgent need for collective action among governments, tech companies, and law enforcement agencies to address the growing threat of cybercrime facilitated by platforms like Telegram.

As organized crime continues to adapt to the digital landscape, proactive measures that prioritize user safety and ethical technology use must be implemented.

#News #TelegramCybercrimeUNReportDataProtectionDigitalSecurity

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