D i s c o v e r y
Children rescued from human trafficking learn sewing and knitting so that they have skills to support themselves. The W&L group visited the facility, and after a tour the children sang them a song.
Buccina and Sherrill conducted interviews with administraare struggling with the enforcement of the law, and the country tors at an aid organization that has rescued 250 children from has a long row to hoe in overcoming the cultural and social barrihuman-trafficking situations in the last four years. The children ers to enforcement.” are now learning sewing and knitting so that they have skills to One interview in particular brought this challenge into stark support themselves. relief. The subject was herself a human rights lawyer, educated “During the interviews, were heard singing throughout the in the law and fighting on a daily basis for the women and chilbuilding, and afterward we were given a tour of the facility,” dren of Tanzania. But even she admitted that if she became a said Sherrill. “We were introduced to the children and they sang victim of sexual assault, she would be extremely reluctant to us a song, and it was at that point that what we were doing took report the crime to police. on a greater purpose.” Perhaps the most galvanizing experience for the students Now, the students have the difficult task of synthesizing all was witnessing the pervasive poverty in the country. Though the information they gathered into a human rights report docupolitically stable since becoming an independent republic in menting the enforcement problems and causes and detailing 1964, Tanzania was left destitute following decades of poorly Tanzania’s obligations under international human rights law. It implemented socialist policy, and it is now heavily dependent will also suggest changes to the law and make recommendations on foreign aid. to police, prosecutors and judges on how to properly investigate This poverty has contributed directly to the failed enforceand adjudicate cases involving sexual violence. The report will ment of the law. The poorly paid police force is susceptible to be mass-produced at the School of Law and then delivered bribery, and because victims are rarely compensated by the court to the School’s partners at WLAC for lobbying the Tanzanian system when they do go forward with a complaint, many victims parliament and community education efforts. or their families elect to take payment from the offender’s famFor many of the students, direct involvement with interily in exchange for not reporting the crime. Similarly, as Buccina national human rights may end when the class is over, but notes, human traffickers, when they don’t simply steal children, Bond believes the experience are able to take advantage of nevertheless will inform their poor families looking for a careers regardless of the area better life for their children. of law they practice. “Life in the villages is “It’s disorienting to be hard, and when a relative or dropped into a foreign legal some other agent from the system so different from our city promises to provide a own and figure out how it child with an education or works,” she said. “But in that a good job, families often disorientation, so much learnagree,” said Buccina. “But ing happens. This kind of too often that child ends up experience gives them new being forced into prostituperspective on our own legal tion or simply becomes a Watching human suffering from half a world away can be frustrating. Six law students in a new system and the power of domestic slave.” international law class are getting the rare law to create social change. Despite the bleakness chance to do something about it. From l. to r.: They will be better lawyers of the current situation, Dennis Maxwell ’10L, Cristina Buccina ’10L, Shannon Sherrill ’10L, John LaMont ’10L, Lena because of it.” there have been successes. Golze Desmond ’10L and Ya Marie Cham ’10L.
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