Attorney Dick Atkins, the so-called “Houdini of Fast Escapes from Foreign Prisons,” has spent more than 28 years helping Americans get out of legal trouble abroad — helping to win freedom for over a thousand Americans held in foreign custody.

His services are sought by congressmen seeking help for detained constituents, travel insurance companies looking into high-stakes claims, people who call his hotline, which offers around-the-clock legal advice, and human rights organizations like Amnesty International who refer those seeking help for friends or loved ones in trouble abroad. Some of his clients are travelers to developing countries who have found themselves in jail after breaking laws they didn’t know existed.

Through his experience, Mr. Atkins has become proficient in describing the world’s most notorious and unexpected tourist traps, the worst prisons on Earth and how to avoid getting sent to them. Below is his advice should one become Locked up Abroad.  

SAUDI ARABIA

The view from behind bars:

• Bail is almost always denied.
• Use of torture is allegedly widespread.
• Access to legal counsel during interrogation and trial is not guaranteed.
• Penal code includes beheading and public flogging.

What will get you locked down:

• Using or possessing alcohol (zero tolerance).
• Breaking morality laws — including dress and head-covering codes for women — which are enforced by religious police.
• Possessing pornography.
• Engaging in homosexual acts.

Atkins’ advice:

• Remember that a confession may be the most practical way to prevent interrogation from escalating to actual torture — and give you time to seek legal representation.

INDIA

The view from behind bars:

• Inadequate food and medical care.
• Lengthy detention times before trial (without bail) are common.
• No prisoner transfer agreement exists between India and the United States.
• Americans can be targeted for extortion by the corrupt, underpaid police.

What will get you locked down:

• Disputes over business contracts can be settled by the criminal justice system.

Atkins’ advice:

• Discreet payments, or baksheesh, could get you out of trouble or get you better treatment.

MEXICO

The view from behind bars:

• The police have been accused of torturing U.S. citizens to extract confessions.
• Meals and medical care are often inadequate; in some cases, you may have to pay out of pocket for all your prison expenses.
• Conditions can be violent; an American was allegedly beaten to death in jail by inmates and a prison guard in 2000.
• Detention while waiting for a trial can last for weeks or longer.
• Inmates are sometimes targeted for extortion by underpaid prison guards and officials.

What will get you locked down:

• Possession of firearms and/or ammunition almost always results in jail time.
• Drivers involved in accidents in which someone is seriously hurt are automatically jailed — sometimes for months — pending determination of fault and payment of restitution.

Atkins’ advice:

• If you are jailed, make sure that your lawyer knows about the Prisoner Transfer Treaty and that everything possible is being done to get you transferred to an American prison.

PERU

The view from behind bars:

• Harsh prison conditions made worse by inmate violence or extreme altitude.
• Slow judicial processes mean long pretrial detention times.

What will get you locked down:

• Extremely harsh drug laws.

Atkins’ advice:

• Coca leaf preparations are traditionally used to counter the effects of altitude sickness by locals and tourists alike; avoid all other forms of coca.

THAILAND

The view from behind bars:

• Despite generally good treatment by prison officials, prisons are overcrowded, extremely humid and uncomfortable.
• Slow judicial processes can result in long pretrial detention times.

What will get you locked down:

• Drug-related offenses can be punished with a lifetime prison sentence or the death penalty.

• Many (mostly women) are duped into becoming drug mules when they agree to transport a package or suitcase out of the country in exchange for money or a free vacation.

Atkins’ advice:

• Despite the availability of cheap drugs, remember the consequences.

CHINA

The view from behind bars:

• Isolation:  It is extremely difficult to contact people who are in Chinese jails.  No prisoner transfer treaty exists between the United States and China.
• There is no independent monitoring of Chinese prison conditions.

What will get you locked down:

• The criminal justice system is used to enforce business contracts in a dispute.
• There are currently around 30 Americans jailed for business-related offenses in China.  (Many claim that they are in jail for refusing to pay bribes).

 Atkins’ advice:

• If you’re arrested in China?  Pray.

—

03/09 Reprinted from National Geographic Adventure Magazine / Source: www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0312/exclusive.html

With Permissions

Thank you Kare 11 Sunrise Show, and Media Relations, Inc., for the opportunity to protect and inform America’s next generation about safety risks before they go abroad.  There isn’t enough gratitude in those words!  Here’s a recap and links to some awesome tools to help our students ‘StaySafe’:

Get your ASAPP Checklist.  A Student Abroad Preparedness Plan Checklist includes more than 50 checkpoints to insure your abroad experiences fulfills its promises.  Please don’t leave America without it.

American students abroad are often cash-strapped and under-insured.  Save money and Fly for Good!  Fly for Good is a strategic partner and proud sponsor of ClearCause.  Every time you book a flight with Fly for Good you get personal assistance and their ‘lowest possible’ airfare. Make sure to mention that you heard about Fly for Good from ClearCause and we’ll get a donation to help students StaySafe! To request a quote please contact Linda Furry.  Use the money you save to buy trip insurance with StuCard and Volunteer Card…

TravelGuard underwrites the insurance for StuCard and Volun+eer Card.  We are working together on a pick list of insurance offerings to offer the best possible coverage while you are in a foreign country.  Until then, please be aware that you may need more insurance than StuCard provides.  StuCard offers insurance to repatriate you if necessary, emergency medical insurance, protects your stuff and offers a toll-free international help line with a translator to assist you when needed.  ClearCause Founder Sheryl Hill relied on this insurance personally when she fell on a sharp in Chile.  The best news, these guys are in our backyard in Burnsville, MN.  We can knock on their door and work together to advocate for you. ClearCause receives a donation when you buy your StuCard from this link.  Thank YOU!

Most SMART PHONES can be unlocked by your carrier before you go abroad.  This is a very good idea because it is possible to buy a sim card for most phones that will work in the foreign country for much less than roaming rates.  Many unfortunate things happen to students when they commute from their housing to find WiFi hotspot areas so that they can do homework or engage in social media.  Novatel Wireless makes many intelligent wireless solutions for mobile broadband that almost every major carrier  resells.  If possible, get a mobile hotspot so you have affordable Internet wherever you are. It’s a small price to pay for the convenience and safety, especially when a carrier serves the area you are in.

People die every year from hotel and housing fires around the globe.  FlareSafe is an awesome portable device you can use for years.  A high intensity flashlight, siren and smoke alarm. Pack one in your backpack and use it for coach surfing or those stays in low cost hospices where fire safety may not be on the top of their pick lists.  Check your dorm room to be sure fire safety alarms, extinguishers and escapes are available.  Then use your FlareSafe as a backup.  Have a story to share – contact us!

Most parents want their kids to have safe locks abroad and at college.  Especially because you can’t be guaranteed who has access to  your room or  how flimsy the lock is. You can never be too safe.  The Add-a-Lock installs quickly and easily without any tools. It probably won’t prevent a pick ax from knocking down your door, it will provide added security.  Insure your stuff! Keep registration numbers and pictures of your stuff on www.dropbox.com so you can claim it.

Door Stop Alarm p

• lace this device underneath a door to prevent it from being opened.  An o
• ptional 120 decibal alarm will trigger when someone attempts to enter. When the door begins to press on the door stop, it pushes a lever down which triggers the alarm!

Its great for securing students in a dorm room, apartment or home.  Costs less than $10 generally.

Never ceases to amaze us how often stuff gets stolen.  Students would never leave hundreds of dollars on the dresser but their cameras, smart phones and personal computers are.  Put your small devices in a safe.  Lock your laptop to a nonmovable object with a PC Cable.  You can get one for about $20 generally. Passwords should be protected and personal information should not be available on your devices.

Long flights, train and bus rides make a weary traveler.  It’s so easy for someone to lift your backpack and all ‘your stuff’ with it while you are crashed out sleeping on a long commute.  While its not foolproof, PacSafe is an affordable option that deters thieves from taking your backpack or luggage easily.  It has an adjustable high-tensile stainless steel locking device designed to cover and protect bags from tampering, pilfering and theft. Suitcases, backbacks, dive bags – they come in many sizes. Shop around for the best price.

The Personal Water Filter “LifeStraw” is small and convenient.  It removes 99.9% of waterborne bacteria and waterborne protozoan parasites.  It’s a small tube with specialized filters inside. Place one end in unfiltered water  a glass, water bottle, river, or puddle!) and suck resulting clean water up through the top. Anyone who can use a drinking straw can easily use a LifeStraw.

Most of these products are readily available on Amazon or other Internet shopping sites.

We rely on community support to fund ClearCause and advance safe global youth travel.

According to an article in Doane Line, May 12, 2013 published by ‘Beat Reporting Class’.  The reporting class was doing an audit of public records on Doane’s campus and within the communities of Crete and Wilber to determine compliance with state and federal law.  They reported Doane Safety Office failed, breaking both state and federal laws by failing to provide an ‘incident report’ without question.

The Clery Act and the Nebraska Open Records Law both require colleges and universities to provide public records concerning campus and community-based incidents upon request without question.  The article reported that safety administrator Michael Dixon, “.. demanded an email request for the documents before safety would comply. An email was sent as requested, and following another visit to the Safety Office an email reply containing the information was sent a week later.”  

In April, 2013 twelve (12) students filed a federal complaint against Swathmore College for violating Clery Act according to an article in the Daily Gazette. Specifically, the complaint addresses a lack of safety and security reporting on sexual assaults on campus.   The article reports, “In their complaint, Ferguson and Brinn bring six allegations of misconduct against the college:
1. Discouraging students from reporting crime to local law enforcement and from going through formal judiciary proceedings
2. Persistently underreporting incidents of sexual battery, sexual assault, and rape in the Annual Clery Security Report
3. Persistently underreporting incidents of sexual battery, sexual assault, and rape in the daily crime log
4. Failing to issue timely reports of incidents of sexual battery, sexual assault, and rape
5. Failing to publicly report potential sanctions for sexual battery, sexual assault, and rape
6. Intimidating, discriminating, and retaliating against sexual assault and rape survivors and their advocates

Their complaint will be reviewed by the Department of Education and may be granted an investigation in as soon as two weeks.”

Failure to comply with the Clery Act means Doane & Swathmore Colleges risk losing federal financial aid and could mean a $35,000 fine.  Sadly, similar laws to mandate transparency on student travel and study abroad programs DO NOT exist.  Please use your VOICE!  Write to state and federal policy to ask for oversight, guidelines, qualifications and transparency.

The Clery Act for Security on Campus – was set in place after Jeanne Cleary was brutally raped, sodomized, strangled with a wire cord, bitten, and mutilated with a broken bottle in her third floor door room.  Security on Campus mandates that every campus publish their “Clery Incident Report” and make it available upon request.  Every student and parent should read this report before enrolling.  Similar reports should be mandated before going abroad.

Rape, sexual assault and unwanted touching are under reported.  If you need help contact RAINN – Rape and Incent National Network - the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization.

We rely on your generosity to advance Safe Global Youth Travel.  Please GIVE NOW.

We know so many mothers whose Mother’s Day will never be the same because their child died a preventable death on a program abroad that should have been the opportunity of a lifetime. Safety Matters.

We rely on your generosity to advance Safe Global Youth Travel.

Please Give Now.  Thank You.

by Guest Blogger Nicola Losik

Fifteen year old Cara Munn had no idea that her life was about to change forever when she went to China on a school-supervised trip in the summer of 2007. While overseas, Munn was bitten by a tick and later diagnosed with tick-borne encephalitis. Her private school, Hotchkiss School of Lakeville, Connecticut, did not enforce necessary safety methods.  They let their students walk through a wooded area in China known to be infested with ticks carrying encephalitis as well as other insect-transmitted diseases. Munn now has significant brain damage and is unable to speak. Her life is forever changed.

The Bridgeport Federal Jury ruled in favor of Munn awarding $41.7 million in response to a personal injury lawsuit Munn’s family brought against Hotchkiss School. Hotchkiss School is planning to appeal, as attorneys represent tick-borne encephalitis is a rare disease and the school should not be responsible for warning students or requiring protective measures.

“We care deeply about all our students,” the school said in a statement. “We make every effort to protect them . . .  We put great care and thought into planning and administering off-campus programs and we extend the same care to students on these trips as to students on campus.”

Yet others feel differently. “Hotchkiss failed to take basic safety precautions to protect the minor children in its care,” Munn’s attorney Antonio Ponvert III said.  “I hope that this case will help alert all schools who sponsor overseas trips for minors that they need to check the CDC for disease risks in the areas where they will be traveling, and that they must advise children in their care to use repellant and wear proper clothing when necessary. Cara’s injuries were easily preventable.”

Sources:

Klimas, Liz. “Student Wins $41. 7 Million Settlement for Disease She Contracted on School Trip.” The Blaze 29 Mar. 2013: n. pag. Web. 3 May 2013

Image ABC News, “Woman Who Contracted Encephalitis on School Trip Awarded $41.7M.” ABC News  pag. Web 29 March 29 2013 (Courtesy of Munn Family)

• 100,000 Passport to India
• 100,000 Passport to Latin America
• 100,000 Passport to China
• And more…

Our kids can become trapped in over-promised, under-qualified and under-performed student programs. They are raped and killed on student programs and no one is doing anything about it.  The programs investigate themselves!

Do the math, if one percent (1%) of these students die; ten percent (10%)?  One death is one too many.  We need 100,000 STRONG signatures to get President Barack Obama’s attention.  Please sign now! Click on the title:

 WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:

Stop Soliciting Our Kids With 100,000 Strong Until We Have Oversight, Protections, Policy, Sanctions & Transparency!

Millions of American students are being encouraged to study abroad on President Obama’s 100,000 strong initiatives and other middle, high school and college level programs.

No laws protect them!

There is no federal oversight, no qualifications, no standards, no sanctions against poor performers, or transparent reporting on a program’s safety record!

Programs, including universities who receive our tax dollars, refuse to speak to parents whose child is hurt or killed overseas. Parents are forced to sue to get information.

Programs investigate themselves. We have NO recourse when our kids are raped, abused, scammed or killed.

WE NEED LAWS NOW to protect our kids!

Stephanie Slattery enrolled in a Antioch Education Abroad (AEA) for Mali, while attending  Eastern Michigan University. She was subsequently raped for not understanding ‘cultural differences’ and expatriated to Paris for medical attention. An article in On Point, Woman Blames Study Abroad Program for Rape in Mali, has a compelling argument that programs have a duty to protect students from “foreseeable, reasonable dangers.”

AEA’s “negligent failure to warn of cultural difference directly and proximately caused physical harm … and severe, permanent emotional damage, pain and suffering to Plaintiff,” the article quotes the lawsuit.

A more recent story by Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed, Sexual Assault and Study Abroad, December 2012, discusses a more recent study published by Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy with mind-boggling statistics.  Ms. Redden reports, “Sixty of the respondents (27.5 percent) reported at least one experience of unwanted touching while abroad, 13 (6 percent) reported an attempted sexual assault (anal, oral or vaginal), and 10 (4.6 percent) reported rape.”

Matthew Kimble, an associate professor of psychology at Middlebury College and co-author, William F. Flack Jr., of Bucknell University are citing parallels of rape of female college students on American campuses to study abroad.  It’ a whole different world when American students are raped in a foreign country. “Despite the limitations, there is evidence to suggest that, in this sample, studying abroad in certain regions puts female students at risk for unwanted sexual experiences,” quotes Ms. Redden’s article.  

Mr. Whalen, Forum on Education Abroad, frequently quotes an outdated ‘voluntary’ incident data report.  He goes further explaining its a well-established practice in study abroad to have response protocols in place and to conduct pre-departure and orientation sessions covering health and safety topics.

To date, the  majority of study abroad programs do not have qualified health and safety directors with rape crisis skill sets.  One has to wonder what defines ‘well-established’ practice and whose watch-dogging those practices.

Representative Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), “What concerns me is that there may be a sizable gap between the best and the worst run study abroad programs.  That gap is likely to increase if there is a headlong rush to expand student abroad activities by institutions that are not prepared to do so. I fear that they may be tempted to cut corners or to send students to potentially dangerous areas without taking the necessary precautions.”

Twelve years later, not much has changed in federal or state protections.  Rep. Pete Hoekstra’s concerns may be even more pertinent today. Failure to warn? Should programs even be sending students to high risk, high rape crisis areas?

If you’re a female college student, or parent of one, please become familiar with http://www.oneinfourusa.org/

Safety is NOT an Accident!

University of New Hampshire’s interim dean of the College of Health and Human Services, Neil B. Vroman, cancelled the June program because of emergency medical procedures that placed students and the institute in unacceptable risk.

Professor Pamela Broido’s appointment was subsequently not renewed.  She is quoted as saying, “I am 911 down there.”  In Nicaragua, the destination of the program, emergency services are 118.

Despite the University of New Hampshire’s sanction, Ms. Broido intends to chaperone University of New Hampshire students to Nicaragua without University support.  That’s like running over a stop sign.  Without that support, students and parents should get involved, do in depth research to find out about all aspects of the program’s implementation, safety of housing, trips, emergency assistance and response, emergency communication, transportation safety, special issues related to the area such as volcanic fumes and scorpion bites, and a history of all past health and safety issues to determine whether to continue to participate.

In the article, Ms. Broido said her concerns were heightened when a student was bitten by a scorpion and in another instance five students were having respiratory distress and shared an inhaler.  (The article actually says bitten but scorpions sting not bite.)

Ms. Broido sought the advice of Amy Coombs, a nurse practitioner who prescribed an EpiPen, Vistaril, Cipro for diarrhea, and an albuterol inhaler.  Ms. Coombs is credited with stating, “The Good Samaritan Law provides legal protections to people who administer emergency first aid.”  Once feet leave American soil American law has no jurisdiciton.  Nicaragua is a guilty until proven innocent country.  Faculty and students warrant health insurance, medical evacuation and potentially ‘ransom insurance’ to protect them.

One student, Stephanie Hill, still intends to go.  She went last year and called it the opportunity of a lifetime. She is quoted as saying “It breaks our hearts, because after this semester other students won’t get this experience.”  Tyler Hill, ClearCause founders 16 year old son, died a preventable death on a People to People trip to Japan.  Mt.Fuji is also a volcano.  These programs can be life changing in many ways.  Tyler Hill, his family, and those of many other students who died abroad will never get a second chance.  University of New Hampshire students will, once protective measures are carefully thought out and implemented.

ClearCause adviser Dr. Gary Rhodes is also quoted, “I deal on a semi-regular basis with the parents of students who have died on study abroad programs. I think they would suggest that the university is doing the right thing on erring on the side of the safety of the students.”

Yes.  We agree.  Study Applauds!

In 2012, ClearCause Foundation consigned a luxury trip for two to the 2013 Grammy’s from WinspireMe for its inaugural benefit, Around the World Safely.

Premier nonprofit auctioneer, Karen Sorbo, sold the experience to a ClearCause director willing to invest $8,000 on the experience for our cause – Safe Global Youth Travel.

The ‘no-risk’ tickets were made available by WinspireMe, a subsidiary of Winspire. WinspireMe has been around for awhile, offering many risk-free auction items like golf excursions, sporting events, wine tours and  tickets to the Grammy’s. According to Jeff Weber, Executive Vice President at WinspireMe, they have helped thousands of nonprofits raise more than $17,000,000.

So when CCF Executive Director, Sheryl Hill, spoke with a WinspireMe agent in California she was informed that if the tickets did not sell, ClearCause would not incur costs.  She agreed to offer Grammy tickets on consignment at $6,000.  ClearCause received a $2,000 donation, the donor received an opportunity of a lifetime.  Everyone was  happy.

Until the Grammy’s . . .

ClearCause generous bid winners showed up dressed to the hilt for the experience of a lifetime, their tickets in hand.  They were pulled aside among the elite and told they could not get in.  All the anticipation, excitement and preparation halted in preventable embarrassment. A little less than half of WinspireMe’s Grammy ‘winners’ did not get what they paid for.

To WinspireMe’s credit they were quick to respond with sincere apologies, “We are so sorry.” “We are sick to our stomachs about this.”  ”This has never happened to us before.”  ”We’ll make this right.”  They have agreed to refund money and offered the consolation of a spa day to ClearCause bid winners.

Apparently, an attorney who serves on the Grammy’s board supplied the tickets to WinspireMe. The Grammy’s obviously knew that they weren’t going to let ‘some’ WinspireMe ticket holders in.  The Grammy’s could have alerted WinspireMe to that fact to avoid embarrassment of philanthropic ticket holders at the door.  They didn’t.

ClearCause was asked if they would use WinspireMe again in the future.  We will.  The greatest test of an organizations character is how they respond when things go bad.  WinspireMe – thus far, has taken the fiasco and offered remunerations to nonprofit supporters.  We don’t have a pulse on what WinspireMe will offer nonprofits whose donors did not get what they paid for.

WinspireMe was wounded by Grammy Award deliberate actions.  Generous donors will be more hesitant to bid on auction items like these. Sadly, this hurts nonprofits.

Maury Glover, reporter with FOX 9 News, was Master of Ceremonies for ClearCause Foundation’s inaugural event in 2012.  Chagrined that the Grammy’s would turn away generous philanthropic people, he reported the story on February 11, Minnesota Philanthropists Turned Away at Grammy Awards.

5163-2 2013 GRAMMYS Music awards BRONZE+PARTY 3nt coach 03-23-12

There really isn’t enough gratitude in the words:  Thank You!  

Thank you OOH for GOOD for collaborating with Circle Graphics and ClearChannel to create a platform that helps ClearCause uses OOH for GOD to inform and protect America’s students about the inherent risks of student travel, exchange and study abroad opportunities in two ad campaigns, Study Afraud and Exotic Youth Travel.

Social media is great, but there is something about the lasting effect of signage on billboards, at bus stops and in airports.  OOH for GOOD signage has staying power.  ClearCause inform the public that safety means the world to youth and students going abroad.

OOH for Good partnered with ClearCause to place billboards and signage across America.  You may have seen our Study Afraud and Exotic Youth Travel campaigns on billboards from California to Maryland.

We are so very Grateful!