Can Anyone Stop the Illegal Pet Trade?

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International authorities have finally begun cracking down on the illegal trade in exotic pets, a $20 billion a year industry that wreaks havoc on local ecosystems while posing a huge health threat to animals and humans alike. Last July, INTERPOL teamed up with the World Customs Organization in a coordinated global bust of animal traffickers across the globe, arresting over 600 suspected traffickers while rescuing thousands of trafficked animals, from snakes, turtles, and birds to bears and lions.

Similar busts were carried out in 2017 and 2018 but the latest sting operation, dubbed “Operation Thunderball,” was the largest and most successful to date.

The traffic in exotic pets is only one part of the $200 billion wildlife trade industry, most of it legal. Nations in Africa and Southeast Asia especially sell animals raised in captivity to zoos and as well as animal skins to wholesalers (e.g. leather) and body parts o scientific laboratories. An international treaty signed in 1973, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is supposed to monitor and regulate the trade through diplomatic coordination and intelligence sharing.

But few countries have enough inspectors available to provide effective enforcement at points of entry. On-site monitoring is so lax that many traffickers can operate with virtual impunity. And in recent years, the wildlife trade has begun flourishing online, in a regulatory gray area, making regulation even more difficult.

That means even the legal wildlife trade often exceeds established limits while the illegal trade is barely noticed unless a special global-wide effort is made to go after trafficking rings based on months of intelligence gathered from local sources, including former traffickers turned informants.

Unlike the legal trade, most illegally trafficked animals aren’t bred in captivity but are simply captured in the wild and then shipped clandestinely — usually to the United States, Europe and Asia where the biggest consumer markets are.

There are several serious problems associated with the illegal wildlife trade. One is that the vast majority of the animals trafficked (as many as 80%, depending on the species) die in transit, largely because of the cruel ways they are shipped, ostensibly to avoid detection. Many animals are drugged and stuffed in suitcases for hours and even days with no food or water and little if any air to breathe.

Another is that the purchasers are usually impulse buyers who have no idea how to care for their new pet, especially as it grows beyond its original size. In a majority of cases, owners end up dumping their exotic purchases into the outdoors where they often survive to become an “invasive species” that mates with other wildlife and disrupts local eco-systems.

One of the most notorious examples is the Burmese python, which has come to dominate large swaths of the Florida Everglades, displacing other reptiles. Florida authorities are engaged in a massive effort to capture the pythons and repopulate the area with its “natural” predators. Exotic pets can also pose a major health hazard to humans because of the germs and diseases they carry. In a few highly publicized cases, dozens of people have fallen ill and died due to illnesses traced to illegally-obtained exotic pets.

The range of animals being captured for the illegal pet trade is truly phenomenal. It includes dozens of reptile and amphibian species as well as lions, bears, monkeys, exotic anteaters known as pangolins, and birds, especially parrots. It also includes a plethora of prized plant species as well as animal skins and ivory tusks, primarily from elephants.

Can the illegal trade in wildlife really be stopped when the demand is so high and ever-growing? It’s already become one of the world’s most lucrative illegal businesses, constituting the third-largest illicit trade globally, second only to illegal drugs and firearms. And the three forms of illegal trade tend to overlap because they often rely on the same transshipment points and trade routes as well as illegal financing mechanisms. One in-depth investigation has revealed the distinct patterns that characterize the illegal pet trade. For example, Asia’s illicit wildlife market – based largely in Japan but increasingly in China – is fueled by animals originating in East, Central and Southern Africa. By contrast, consumers in Europe and the United States typically receive their pets from South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

As with illegal drugs, there is also a wide range of participants or stakeholders in the trade, including poachers and farmers, tourism guides, and local government officials on the take. The more the illegal trade becomes interwoven into the daily economies of poor and dependent nations, reinforced by bribes and government corruption, the harder it is to root out.

The latest global bust, like the previous two, was meant to send a signal to traffickers. In fact, these operations have barely made a dent in their operations – at least so far.

Even when caught, few traffickers serve time in prison for their crimes. Often they receive a hefty fine, which they pay, before simply turning around and resuming their lucrative operations.

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Extrajudicial Killings and Racism, a Global Pandemic

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ISRAEL - Currently, the streets of many American cities are filled with crowds of people armed with signs, protesting the violent death of George Floyd, a black man, who was killed by white, former police officer Derek Chauvin. But the increased public speculation on systemic racism and discrimination is not unique to America; instead, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement is present in nations worldwide, including Israel—the “Holy Land,” known for its claimed acceptance of all people regardless of race or faith.

Ethiopian Protesters Confront Israeli Police Over Death of Unarmed Teenager, Photo Flickr

On June 30, 2019, in the Israeli town of Haifa, 18-year-old Solomon Teka decided to spend some time at a neighborhood park. While there, he got into a small fight with a few other teenagers. A nearby off-duty police officer attempted to break up the fight after identifying himself. According to the officer, this caused the men to turn violent against him, and fearing for his life, and he aimed a warning shot. The bullet hit Solomon Teka, who later died in medical care. 

Teka was an Ethiopian Jew, a dark-skinned ethnic minority in a majority white country. The Ethiopian Jews have long endured systemic racism in Israel. Many of them are either migrants or descendants of refugees from the nearby countries of Ethiopia and Sudan, flocking to the Holy Land in search of religious freedom. However, their dreams are soon shattered as they continue to suffer from ingrained racism. Ethiopian Jews have the highest poverty rate in Israel and continue to be searched, tried, and arrested at a much higher frequency than any other community. They are often treated as second class citizens. Solomon Teka’s death was the last straw—thousands of protesters took to the streets, calling for a stop to the excessive use of police force against Ethiopian Jews. 

The protests blocked many major Israeli roads, halting commuting traffic from nearby cities. In Tel Aviv, protesters shut down the Ayalon Highway. While the Tel Aviv protests continued to be mostly peaceful, other cities were plagued with violence, as people burned tires, vandalized buildings, and fought with the police. 

Both sides of the violent riots suffered greatly—over a hundred protesters were arrested, and a similar number of police officers were injured. The police turned to tear gas and increased force in retaliation to rioters who threw stones and gas bombs at them. Through all of this, the Ethiopian Jews’ message remained clear: they were tired of the institutionalized racism that was ingrained in both the country of Israel and its police forces. These past protests and those of today’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations are eerily similar—presenting the possibility that action against racism has been futile so far. 

At one point in the protests, things seemed to take a turn for the better. In an attempt to answer the Ethiopian Jews’ pleas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated a ministerial committee on the integration of Israeli citizens of Ethiopian origin. However, this action was increasingly hard to implement, as the majority of the targeted citizens were low-income citizens and did not have access to the Prime Minister’s committee. 

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan agreed that action against the country’s deep-rooted racism was necessary. Rivlin issued the following statement:

“This is not a civil war. It is a shared struggle of brothers and sisters for their shared home and their shared future. I ask all of us to act responsibly and with moderation. My home is your home. Let us continue to stand together like a wall against violence, any form of violence, and to fight together for our shared home.”

However, both figures shared the sentiment that violent protests would be met with the requisite police force and whatever means necessary to quell the riots. 

Authorities initially arrested the suspected police officer on charges of possible manslaughter. But they soon released him into house arrest, causing protests to rise once more. Charges against him were reduced to involuntary manslaughter, which is used in the case that the accused acts dangerously with clear violent intent, although not with the purpose of killing. The maximum sentence for involuntary manslaughter is 12 years, but Israeli courts usually only issue one or two years.

A few days after the charge, legal counsel began entertaining the idea of reducing it to negligent homicide, which has even fewer consequences. The officer was not also fired from the force, despite the call to do so by Tebeka, an organization that defends the rights of Ethiopian Jews in Israel. 

In a statement taken by the L.A. Times, Teka’s family lawyer asked for “the truth to be uncovered, and justice served.” He also mentioned that the “police and the State Prosecutor’s Office, in their public statements, show a tendency to attribute reduced responsibility to a police officer who killed our beloved in his prime,” alluding to the racism permeating Israel’s legal forces. 

While the Teka family continues to fight for an appeal following the officer’s reduced charges, the Black Lives Matter movement in Israel has flared up once again due to the death of George Floyd in America. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the U.S. diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv, holding signs emblazoned with the words “Black Lives Matter,” “George Floyd,” and “Solomon Teka.” Because every name that is added to the list of racism-related deaths is a reminder that we, as a global community, are still far from equality for all.

*A Note of Importance: As a South Asian-American, I acknowledge that I can never truly understand the day-to-day struggles that people of African descent endure. However, as a human being, I fully support and stand by the BLM Movement; furthermore, as a writer, it is my responsibility to use the given platform to objectively detail the following situation as I see fit, allowing readers to interpret my work as they wish. ~ Sayuni Dharmasena

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Gender Based Violence, a Covid Lockdown Nightmare

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The COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the world in so many ways. While the world learns to adapt to a new normal, it is still ignoring one crucial group, and this passivity has led to what some are calling, “a shadow pandemic.” While globally, other types of crimes decreased during the Coronavirus lockdowns, there has been, unfortunately, a commensurate increase in domestic violence cases.

Source: Pixabay

Source: Pixabay

During this era of quarantine, women and children have been most at risk of death because of an inability to escape or reach out for help. Anecdotally, there have been reports of abusers threatening to lock victims out of their homes with the claim that they will be exposed to and contract the deadly Coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Fear and intimidation are the hallmarks of abusers, who ‘weaponize’ lies and manipulation to keep their victims quiet.

Statistical figures on the number of domestic abuse cases that occur annually are difficult to compile because the victims are often ashamed to report it. Abusers depend upon their victims’ feelings of complicity and responsibility for their abuse. All of which contribute to the difficulty in gather data about the number of domestic violence cases pre-coronavirus lockdown. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, here in the United States, the organization reported receiving an average of 1,800 to 2,000 contacts a day from March through April of 2020.

According to UN Women, “It is estimated that 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or sexual violence by a non-partner (not including sexual harassment) at some point in their lives. However, some national studies show that up to 70 percent of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime. Evidence shows that women who have experienced physical or sexual intimate partner violence report higher rates of depression, having an abortion, and acquiring HIV, compared to women who have not.”

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a global epidemic. Female genital mutilation (FMG), child marriages, and rape fall under its rubric. There has been an observable correlation between pandemic health emergencies and increased gender-based violence. In a July 2015 Oxfam International report on the impact of Ebola, “22.9 percent of respondents reported that cases of GBV were still happening even during the Ebola crisis. Respondents in urban areas were more likely (32 percent) to acknowledge the existence of GBV than those in rural areas (24 percent). Different forms of GBV took place, including domestic violence, sexual abuse, rape, etc. …The assessment found that 52.6 percent of respondents recognized that women and girls had been bearing a greater burden in the household since the Ebola outbreak began.”

These conditions that exacerbated domestic abuse and GBV seemed confined to Africa are now being seen in the United States and Europe since the spread of coronavirus. A variety of factors contribute to the increase in violence: primarily victims confinement in government-mandated isolation with their abusers, additional household stress, and those who were ready to reach out for help can no longer do so safely. The National Domestic Violence website has a pop-up warning for individuals seeking help “Safety Alert: Computer use can be monitored and is impossible to completely clear.” This effort is a means to encourage continued engagement but provides them with protection from controlling, tech-savvy abusers.

Women and girls have also borne the caretaking duties during this pandemic, and in countries with more deeply rooted patriarchal societies, access to help is impossible. These women lack access to phones and computers, and often the family and community tightly control their movements.  In this new world where governments are making decisions about what elements of society are essential and nonessential, many services like shelters, reproductive health clinics, and counseling are relegated to the latter. Throughout the Continent, law enforcement resources are enforcing strict city and country lockdowns. Like their U.S. and European counterparts, they are less concerned with responding to domestic violence calls unless there is evidence of clear and present danger and a probable life or death situation.

During this global pandemic, victims of GBV need our help, and it is incumbent upon society to be more vigilant and diligent in supporting them during these challenging times. We must no longer turn a blind eye or expect other people or organizations to help. As citizens, it is our responsibility and social contract to support women who may be experiencing domestic and gender-based violence without judgment.

Find discrete ways to check on friends and family who you suspect might be in trouble. If necessary, help them with cover stories and code words so that they can become survivors instead of victims. If feasible, please donate to women’s shelters because they are best equipped to help women and children safely escape dangerous situations. In these times of economic hardship, these organizations are in dire need of private and public support. Every dollar counts, and if you are in a position to help please do so.  

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