NEWS
Friday, October 10, 2014
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Baroness Exposes Prevalence of Human Trafficking Charlotte Allen Special to The Hoya
Baroness Mary Goudie, a senior member of the House of Lords and the chair of the United Nations Women Leaders’ Council to Fight Human Trafficking, discussed the role that human trafficking plays in current society, and what sort of measures should be taken to reduce its prevalence in McGhee Library on Thursday afternoon in an event sponsored by the Georgetown Institutue for Women, Peace and Security. “Human trafficking is not just a women’s issue; it’s not a male issue; it’s not a children’s issue. It’s a huge issue that affects governments, civil society and businesses,” Goudie said. “So the whole of society is involved in human trafficking.” Global Politics and Security Chair of the Master of Science in Foreign Service program Mark Lagon accompanied Goudie in the half-hour lecture and question-and-answer session that followed. Lagon is an adjunct senior fellow for human rights at the Council on Foreign Relations and the former executive director and CEO of leading antihuman trafficking nonprofit Polaris Project. Lagon emphasized a need to redefine what people think of when they hear human trafficking. “Human trafficking is not about undocumented migrants,” he said.
“You never cross a border, and yet you are enslaved in what is the essence of human trafficking.” Goudie described human trafficking as a highly corrupt business. “Human trafficking is the biggest crime after weapons,” Goudie said. “The reason that weapons and human trafficking are the two biggest black market crime issues around the world is because they can be used more than once.” Both Lagon and Goudie stressed that human trafficking is not just about the sex trade, although that aspect receives the most publicity. Goudie elaborated on industries such as clothing, construction and agriculture that rely on bonded labor because the profit margins are minimal. “It’s an illicit industry and it’s all cash,” Goudie said. “The most distressing thing about human trafficking is the middle management by women around the world because people trust women.” Goudie stressed that human trafficking is a unique problem that should not be combined with other issues. “We shouldn’t muddle up human trafficking with refugees and asylum seekers, and there are some people who want to do this because it makes it easy,” Goudie said. According to Goudie, reform must encompass government regulation of human trafficking, the efficient distribution of funds put toward the
cause and support for victims. “It is getting bigger, it’s not getting better,” Goudie said. “The U.N. charter on human trafficking is okay, but not very strong.” Providing help for survivors and corporate action are key parts of managing the issue. “Shelter and medical care have to get funding,” Lagon said. “This is slavery, and we should be able to mobilize corporations to fight this.” The talk was primarily a call to action and a call to question the current situation. “There are only a few thousand prosecutions in the world each year, and impunity is going to allow human trafficking to continue,” Lagon said. Goudie spoke about the potential passing of a bill in Britain that would force companies to sign off on their supply chains, a crucial step in eliminating human trafficking. “[Human trafficking] should very much be a part of the dialogue at Georgetown. It is our moral responsibility,” Lagon added. Mayesha Alam, assistant director of the GWIPS helped to organize the lecture. “This was a wonderful opportunity to bring together not only Georgetown students, but experts in the field who are working either directly on human trafficking, or tangentially on larger issues,” Alam said.
NATASHA THOMSON/THE HOYA
Baroness Mary Goudie called for government regulation of human trafficking and support for its victims in McGhee Library on Thursday.
DCCouncilApprovesUberRegulations Laura Owsiany Hoya Staff Writer
DAN GANNON FOR THE HOYA
Professor Brian McCabe explained the effects of gentrification on D.C.’s demographics and neighborhoods in an event Tuesday.
Workshop Tackles DC Demographics Deirdre Collins Special to The Hoya
The Georgetown Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service held a workshop on demographics in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. The workshop, entitled “Demographics in D.C.” took place in WhiteGravenor Hall. Approximately 100 students from various Georgetown organizations attended, including members of D.C. Schools Project, D.C. Reads, the Georgetown University Program on Justice and Peace and the Center for Social Justice Advisory Board for Student Organizations. Guest speaker professor Brian McCabe from Georgetown’s department of sociology and representatives of One D.C. Quitel Andrews and Clare Cook spoke about changing demographics in Washington, D.C., and the surrounding metropolitan area as well as the gentrification of neighborhoods in D.C. McCabe began by explaining the demographic shifts in D.C., or more specifically, how the black population is no longer a majority. The city’s population, which today is approximately 600,000 people, greatly declined in the 1980s and 1990s. This decline stemmed from the amendment of the Fair Housing Act in 1988, which granted blacks equal housing rights and allowed them to leave the city and live in the suburbs, following the exodus of the white population to the suburbs in the 1950s. “In the time you’ve all been in college, the number of black residents in Washington, D.C., has greatly fallen,” McCabe said. “They no longer make up the majority of residents in Washington, D.C., like they once did. These are trends you see in all American cities.” Student tutors in D.C. Reads and D.C. Schools Project who attended the event work with D.C.’s immigrant community and underprivileged students in Wards 7 and 8 in D.C. McCabe explained that these wards are still primarily black, while Wards 1 and 2 are predominantly white. “[D.C. is] very far from being a postracial city,” McCabe said. “D.C. continues to be one of the most segregated
cities in the US.” McCabe presented neighborhood gentrification to the audience by displaying an old image of a market located on 7th and O streets NW. The old supermarket, which was once anterior to an affordable apartment complex, now stands next to a luxury apartment development known as Jefferson MarketPlace. The redevelopment of this building displaced longtime residents, contributing to D.C.’s problems with an excess of high-end housing and a lack of affordable housing. “Historically, Shaw was the pre-eminent African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C., and this gentrification raises the questions of what it means to displace the poor or the homeless for these kinds of developments,” McCabe said. Cook and Andrews, who work with One D.C. to organize neighborhood equity, agreed that affordable housing is becoming increasingly difficult to find in Washington, D.C., as more neighborhoods gentrify. Cook explained that as policies change, demographics and neighborhood cultures change as well. Developers seek to “attract different groups” to existing neighborhoods and grant little power to current residents in these decisions. Cook expressed that although tenants are often given the right to return to live in their buildings after renovation, the new rent is often too expensive for them to afford. Emily Brown (COL ’17) attended the event and said that she enjoyed learning more about D.C.’s racial culture. “I attended the event because I work in the CSJ and wanted to learn about issues that impact the communities I work with through D.C. Reads,” Brown said. “It’s important to understand issues like gentrification because it’s something you see in basically every part of the city, and if you’re not aware of it you’ll be unable to understand subtle tensions in the neighborhoods undergoing that kind of change. I need to understand this kind of larger social justice issue in order to understand the Ward 7 neighborhoods we work with.”
The D.C. Council will consider legislation to regulate ridesharing services such as UberX, Sidecar and Lyft. The bill, proposed by Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and co-sponsored by Councilmember David Gross (IAt Large) after the matter was put on hold in May, received initial approval last week and is pending a final vote. The legislation would require UberX, Sidecar and Lyft to provide a minimum of $1 million insurance for accidents occurring from the time a driver accepts a call until the passenger exits the vehicle. The companies would also be required to submit 1 percent of their gross receipts for trips that begin in the District to the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. The legislation also calls for yearly inspections of UberX, Sidecar and Lyft cars and would reduce twice-yearly inspection requirements for cabs to a matching standard of annual inspections. Drivers for ride-sharing services would also be required to agree to criminal background checks and be barred from accepting street hails. Uber responded positively to the legislation and noted that it already complied with many of the regulations. “The bottom line is Uber has set a new standard for safety and quality,” Uber spokesperson Taylor Bennett wrote in an email to The Hoya. “Our industry-leading background checks, $1 [million]
commercial liability insurance, and an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability built into the app, make Uber the safest and most reliable ride on the road.” D.C. Taxicab Commission Chairman Ron Linton said that the legislation, by legitimizing the services of Uber, did not go far enough in establishing restrictions on the ride-sharing services. “I believe the legislation would create a situation that anyone who uses the service being established endangers their personal safety and puts themselves at risk for consumer fraud. DCTC will fulfill our responsibility to rigorously enforce against illegal street hails,” Linton wrote in an email. Digital dispatch services have become increasingly popular in Washington, D.C., creating competition for cab drivers and the DCTC. Cab drivers, who have called for limited hours for Uber drivers, protested Wednesday by blocking traffic and honking horns between 14th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue. “You don’t have a level playing field. You have Uber and other companies coming into this market policing themselves,” Councilmember Jim Graham (DWard 1), who opposes the legislation, said to WUSA9 reporters during the protest. Bennett disagreed with the criticism, claiming that Uber simply provides an innovative service for D.C.’s population. “We believe that adding an additional option like Uber to
the transportation ecosystem creates a larger pie — it doesn’t limit the slice of the pie for current players. More choice in a city’s transportation ecosystem is better for everyone, including riders and drivers,” Bennett wrote. Cheh agreed that the rise of Uber and similar companies was not directly comparable to the existing taxi services. “They are entirely different models and require different regimes of regulation. That’s what seems to be lost in part of this debate,” Cheh told WUSA9. Rachel Chun (MSB ’16) frequently uses Uber and noted that for college students, convenience remains the priority when choosing between taking a taxi cab or an Uber. “We [college students] are not paying as much and our waiting time for the Uber cars are definitely less than cabs, and they’re nicer, better quality of service. As a college student, I would like to take more advantage of it than worry about the competition,” she said. Contrary to Linton’s concerns about safety, Jisoo Kim (COL ’16) said she feels safer using Uber rather than traditional taxicabs. “I actually feel safer with Uber than with random [taxicab] drivers ... because it’s a company booked through online, I think Uber now has a reputation where if they do something wrong … their reputation will suffer,” she said. “There are a lot of taxi companies out there, some of them are reliable, some are not.”
Activists Fight for Gun Rights Lucy Prout
Special to The Hoya
The pro-gun coalition has geared up for a fight against the emergency legislation passed by the D.C. Council in response to the overturn of the ban on handguns. In July, the U.S. District Court struck down the ban on conceal-and-carry weapons in Washington, D.C., in Palmer v. District of Columbia, permitting civilians to bear arms beyond the boundaries of their homes. In response, the D.C. Council passed joint legislation called the License to Carry a Pistol Emergency Amendment Act of 2014 on Sept. 23 to prevent the carrying of firearms in government buildings, schools, alcohol vendors and public transportation. The legislation also placed stringent requirements on the licensing process, only extending the licenses to people with a justifiable reason to fear for their safety. On Oct. 2, pro-gun advocates filed a motion before District Judge Frederick Scullin, who issued the original ruling, to stop D.C. from implementing this bill. Plaintiff attorney Alan Gura argued that the legislation does not comply with constitutional standards and is prepared for a lengthy litigation. “It is still in act with outright prohibition. The D.C. Council doesn’t understand that this is a right the people have, and
that means when responsible, law-abiding people wish to exercise their right, they must be allowed to do so,” Gura said. While Gura agreed that the city can regulate the carrying of handguns, he asserted that the restrictions in the bill make it virtually impossible for civilians to exercise their Second
“It treats the carrying of handguns as a special privilege that the police can decide when the mood strikes.” alan gura Plaintiff Attorney
Amendment right and actually obtain a license. “It treats the carrying of handguns as a special privilege that the police can decide when the mood strikes, and that’s not the way we handle constitutional rights in America,” Gura said. D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who collaborated with Mayor Vincent Gray and Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) to propose the legislation, agreed that the flat ban on carrying weapons was unconstitutional but believed that the new law complied with the Second Amendment and would
withstand the legal challenge. “Even if the judge that ruled on our concealed carry ban handles this appeal and rules in favor of the plaintiffs, there’s a strong sense out there that we could be successful on appeal to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. We feel good about the emergency law that we have put into place in light of laws that have been upheld in other Circuit courts,” Mendelson wrote in an email to The Hoya. Georgetown University College Democrats Vice Chair Betsy Johnson (COL ’16) agreed that the restrictions were acceptable. “I would agree that it is definitely constitutional — people are still allowed to have guns in their homes, which falls under the Second Amendment. However, D.C. is also a special situation because of its proximity to the government, so the limitations placed by the bill are reasonable,” Johnson said. The plaintiffs, however, are preparing for a long legal battle. “The right to speak freely, the right to vote, the right to be free of unreasonable intrusions — you don’t need to prove that you deserve these rights; they are undeniable rights. The same should be with guns,” Gura said. “This litigation will continue until the city accepts the basic reality, which is that the people must and will enjoy real, meaningful, practical rights under the Second Amendment.”