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Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Published reports & articles [continued] gvnet.com/humantrafficking/USA.htm |
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ARCHIVES [Part 1 of 4] CAUTION: The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in the Heroes who fight human trafficking Diane Dimond,
Stillwater News Press, 13 November 2020 [Long
URL] [accessed 14 November 2020] Over the last few
months, while many of us were preoccupied with politics and the pandemic,
U.S. Marshals bravely carried out a series of nationwide operations which
rescued hundreds of human trafficking victims in at least seven states. These
victimized women, runaway youngsters and children had been enslaved into a
dangerous and deadly lifestyle by criminals who used their captive’s bodies
to enrich themselves. Not only were
victims saved during these sweeps, their captors were arrested and charged with
multiple felonies that could mean years in prison. These raids, with names
like “Operation Not Forgotten” and “Operation Patriot” were carried out in
places you would think were relatively safe. The U.S. Marshals
Service, established in 1789, is the nation’s oldest federal law enforcement
agency. In 2015, the service was authorized to assist in locating and
recovering missing children. Today, the Marshals say its state-by-state
operations to cripple this modern-day slave trade are ongoing. DA charges Gilroy couple with human
trafficking, locking man in liquor store to work 7 days a week abc7news, 9 November 2020 abc7news.com/gilroy-human-trafficking-santa-clara-county-da-liquor-store/7809681/ [accessed 10 November2020] GILROY, Calif.
(KGO) -- A Gilroy husband and wife have been charged with human trafficking
for locking a man in a liquor store, where he worked 15-hour shifts, seven
days a week, slept in a storage room, bathed in a mop bucket, and was never
paid, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's office said. In a release, the
DA's office said Amarjit and Balwinder
Mann, both 66, are accused of threatening the victim with deportation if he
told the truth to law enforcement. Survivors of sex trafficking in South
Carolina share their stories of how trafficking happens Julie Calhoun, MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW),
MyFox8, 8 November 2020 [accessed 9 November 2020] Kat Wehunt’s trafficker was a relative who started sexually
abusing her as far back as she can remember. “At 14, this older relative sold
me for the first time,” said Wehunt, a survivor.
“He took me to this house and, sold me to three men that he owed something
to.” “From 14 to 17, I
was sold to pastors, doctors, lawyers, and police officers and people you
think would never buy sex from a child, were purchasing me,” Wehunt said. Two human
trafficking survivors shared their stories with News13 about how trafficking
can happen, the people they trusted, and why. Kat Wehunt’s trafficker was a relative who started sexually
abusing her as far back as she can remember. “At 14, this older relative sold
me for the first time,” said Wehunt, a survivor.
“He took me to this house and, sold me to three men that he owed something
to.” “From 14 to 17, I
was sold to pastors, doctors, lawyers, and police officers and people you
think would never buy sex from a child, were purchasing me,” Wehunt said. Victims often know
and trust their traffickers. According to the Polaris Project, the group that
runs the national hotline, the family is the second most common recruitment
tactic. “During the whole
time, I was getting doctor’s appointments and I was sitting in school and I
was going to the grocery store, standing, like, behind normal people and
nobody knew. Nobody had any idea that I was being trafficked,” said Wehunt. Allyson Cox Taylor speaks about human
trafficking Sarah Mitchell, The Trail Blazer (Morehead
State University), 9 November 2019 www.thetrailblazeronline.net/life_and_arts/article_01167fc6-031d-11ea-a0dc-6f405716b1b7.html [accessed 10 November 2019] The National Human Trafficking
Hotline has had over 34,000 reports in the United States over the last twelve
years ... Hotels receive human trafficking training The Grand Island Independent, 21 May 2019 [accessed 22 May 2019] All of the York
County hotels and motels agreed to provide training for their staff. The
Hotel/Motel Training and materials are provided by The Coalition on Human
Trafficking, Inc. of Omaha and Rotary District 5650. Members of the Task
Force and local Rotary Club are providing the training. The training program,
“Realize, Recognize and Respond”, teaches how to recognize situations of
trafficking and how to respond if a trafficking case is suspected. Florida man tells horrifying tales of child
sex slavery Heather Crawford, WTLV, JACKSONVILLE Fla,
10 Jan 2015 [accessed 30 January 2019] Human sex
trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States according
the Department of Justice, and it's happening right here on the First Coast.
Some of the victims are young children forced to have sex dozens of times a
day. "It began
because I was a child desperate for affection. The relative who was a
predator took advantage of that., and basically
coerced me into trafficking using drugs and alcohol and threats of
violence," recounted Elam. Sexually abused
over and over again Elam says he was also coerced into child pornography. To
outsiders though, he says he appeared to be a normal child. He even attended
school. "I would be
pulled out of school at times and what they would do is they would set up a
list of clients and this would take place in hotels, in campers, in store rooms,
whatever location they chose we would be forced to go to.," said Elam.
"There was no depth of depravity these people had, so it was a very
lucrative business." The pedophiles
buying his services according to Elam were often trusted members of society. Four accused in slave-labor trafficking
ring on Ohio egg farm Amy R. Connolly, United Press International
UPI, Marion Ohio, 3 July 2015 [accessed 8 July 2015] Four people were
indicted Thursday in a slave-labor ring that smuggled Guatemalan teens and
adults into the United States and forced them to live in squalid conditions
while working at an Ohio egg farm. Federal
investigators said recruiters enlisted adults and teens in Guatemala, some as
young as 14, on the promise of good jobs in the United States and a good
education. The laborers were smuggled across the border to Marion, located
about 50 miles north of Columbus, where they lived in dilapidated trailers.
They were forced to work at a chicken farm where they spent 12 hours a day
cleaning coops, debeaking chickens and loading and
unloading crates of chickens. The indictment said the workers were threatened
with bodily harm if they refused work. Deliverance Art Jahnke, Bostonia, Winter-Spring 2015 www.bu.edu/today/2015/deliverance/ [accessed 11 May 2015] Why did the FBI
find so many victims of human trafficking in one heartland city? Because
that’s where they looked for them. Cynthia Cordes
led the search. The moment the
agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement pulled into the parking lot,
Filipinos on the hotel’s housekeeping staff began to imagine the worst. They
would be handcuffed. They would be questioned for hours. Their papers would
be found to be out of order. Ultimately, they would be deported and would
return home, where they would explain about the costs of visas and housing
and transportation, about the paychecks that after all the deductions barely
covered expenses. They would admit that they could never repay their uncles
and cousins who had given much of their savings to send them to the United
States. That’s how their
journey would end, they feared, with the entire village seeing the folly of
their journey, the futility of their dreams. Undocumented immigrantrs
held captive and tortured WOAI News 4 San Antonio, Dimmit County, 9
May 2014 www.kgns.tv/news/headlines/Undocumented-immigrants-held-captive-and-tortured-258619781.html [accessed 12 August 2014] www.topix.com/forum/city/carrizo-springs-tx/TPU55KNJQ2GFH1HOT/undocumented-immigrants-held-captive-and-tortured [accessed 24 February 2018] Law enforcement busted
a stash house just outside Carrizo Springs today that authorities say was
holding undocumented worker being held against their will and tortured. "They were
trying to make money, he said. "They were
trying to make money the illegal way." Once inside, he
says they found the victims and one of them couldn't walk. Boyd said he
believes at least six undocumented workers were held for ransom and tortured.
"They used a stick to beat him in the knees," said Boyd. "They
cut his fingers with a box knife." Another victim told authorities his
kidnappers beat him with a hammer. The abuse didn't stop there. Boyd says a
female victim was repeatedly sexually assaulted for four days. Forced to have sex
with 60 men a day and tattooed with the name of their pimps: Human
trafficking victims tell of torture they suffered at hands of three brothers
who 'treated them like property' Ryan Gorman, MailOnline,
The Daily Mail, 8 February 2014 [accessed 8 Feb 2014] PHOTO CAPTION --
Poverty-stricken: Tenancingo is relatively free of
the drug gang violence that has ravaged a large part of Mexico, but sex
traffickers routinely kidnap young women Carmen was ferried
around the tri-state area and forced to have sex
with men in their homes and with seasonal workers in rural areas of
Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, she testified in court, according to
the paper. The depraved pimp forced
her to have sex with as many as 60 men in one day. ‘At the end of the day I was bleeding and
in great pain caused by these men,’ she recalled, adding that he would
savagely beat her if she wasn’t out earning money. Carmen hoped her tormentor would beat her
to death. I was upset because he
hadn't killed me and that I had to live another day of torture,’ she said. Carmen finally
escaped in 2010 but was locked in suicide ward at a city hospital to keep her
from killing herself, she said it’s the only time she had felt safe in
years. – HTUSAMX A Blight on the Nation: Slavery in Today's
America Ron Soodalter,
The Carnegie Council, April 27, 2009 www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000122 [accessed 8 January 2011] www.freetheslaves.net/a-blight-on-the-nation-slavery-in-todays-america/ [accessed 24 February 2018] Overwhelmingly, they
come on the promise of a better life, with the opportunity to work and
prosper in America. Many come in the hope of earning enough money to support
or send for their families. In order to afford the journey, they fork over
their life savings, and go into debt to people who make promises they have no
intention of keeping, and instead of opportunity, when they arrive they find
bondage. They can be found—or more accurately, not found—in all 50 states,
working as farmhands, domestics, sweatshop and factory laborers, gardeners,
restaurant and construction workers, and victims of sexual exploitation. These people do not
represent a class of poorly paid employees, working at jobs they might not
like. They exist specifically to work, they are unable to leave, and are
forced to live under the constant threat and reality of violence. By
definition, they are slaves. Today, we call it human trafficking, but make no
mistake: It is the slave trade. For 2 refugees, a nightmare in captivity Patricia Montemurri,
Free Press, Nov. 7, 2010 pqasb.pqarchiver.com/freep/access/2182299451.html?FMT=ABS&date=Nov+07%2C+2010 [partially accessed 26 August 2011 - access
restricted] globantihumantraffickwatch.blogspot.com/2010/11/freepcom.html [accessed 24 February 2018] Leave your family
in Kiev, Ukraine, and come to learn English and work as a waitress at a
seaside summer resort, they told the 19-year-old Katya, which is not her real
name. Instead, when Katya and a
friend accepted the offer and flew to the For nine months,
Katya and her friend, who spoke no English, lived in a Human Trafficking Class Action Case Filed
in Mississippi www.prweb.com/releases/2011/10/prweb8920562.htm [accessed 30 October 2011] Court documents
show these immigrant workers signed the loan agreements because they had been
given employment offers for work in the Tampa man is fifth suspect arrested in
human trafficking case Kameel Stanley & Jamal
Thalji, [access information unavailable] Police have
arrested a fifth man in connection with what authorities believe is the first
human trafficking ring in the area that involved local women as victims. The warrant details
how the ring lured one woman in with promises of financial help, then took
her captive, repeatedly raped and beat her, then prostituted her and other
women at a Pinellas County strip club. Helping those hurt by human trafficking CJaye, May 23, 2009 –
Source: legal-ledger.com/item.cfm?recID=11817 www.nowpublic.com/world/helping-those-hurt-human-trafficking [accessed 8 January 2011] [accessed 24 February 2018] Bukola Oriola came to Minnesota from Nigeria in 2005 to join the
man who was chosen to be her husband.
The two had been introduced over the phone by a friend of the man’s,
and their families had agreed to a traditional marriage. Bukola
thought she was going to start a new chapter in her life in the But her life here
quickly became more of a nightmare, Bukola, 32,
explained in fluent English at a state Capitol news conference on
Thursday. During the next two years Bukola became a victim of human trafficking – at the
hands of the man she married. “I was alone in the
house. I cried to go out. I was always looking forward to Sunday to go to
church,” Bukola said. When she was pregnant, the man had her
confined to the house. After she gave birth, she was turned into the man’s
sex slave. When the man realized she could braid hair, he’d have her work in Pinellas deputies: 3 arrested in human trafficking
case Ray Reyes, The tbo.com/pinellas-county/pinellas-deputies--arrested-in-human-trafficking-case-90303 [accessed 8 January 2011] A waterfront home became
a prison for several women who were told they would be taken care of but were
instead forced into a life of prostitution, authorities say. The women also had to dance at clubs in
the Politics of the Plate: The Price of
Tomatoes Barry Estabrook,
Gourmet Magazine, March 2009 www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-the-price-of-tomatoes?currentPage=1 [accessed 8 January 2011] politicsoftheplate.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/tomatoes.pdf [accessed 24 February 2018] The beige stucco
house at 209 South Seventh Street is remarkable only because it is in better
repair than most Immokalee dwellings. For two and a half years, beginning in
April 2005, Mariano Lucas Domingo, along with several other men, was held as
a slave at that address. Lucas’s “room”
turned out to be the back of a box truck in the junk-strewn yard, shared with
two or three other workers. It lacked running water and a toilet,
… Everything had a price. Lucas was soon $300 in debt. After a month
of ten-hour workdays, he figured he should have paid that debt off. But when
Lucas—slightly built and standing less than five and a half feet
tall—inquired about the balance, Navarrete threatened to beat him should he
ever try to leave. Instead of providing an accounting, Navarrete took Lucas’s
paychecks, cashed them, and randomly doled out pocket money, $20 some weeks,
other weeks $50. Taking a day off
was not an option. If Lucas became ill or was too exhausted to work, he was
kicked in the head, beaten, and locked in the back of the truck. Other
members of Navarrete’s dozen-man crew were slashed with knives, tied to
posts, and shackled in chains. Trafficking victims try to remake lives Monica Rhor,
Associated Press AP, April 13, 2009 austin.twcnews.com/content/news/237679/trafficking-victims-try-to-remake-lives [accessed 12 August 2014] nwasianweekly.com/2009/04/trafficking-victims-try-to-remake-lives/ [accessed 24 February 2018] Like dozens of
other workers from Vietnam and China, Tiep Ngo had
been lured to the Daewoosa clothing factory in American
Samoa by hollow promises of good pay. She left behind her child, her husband
and her parents and paid $5,000 for her job contract, only to be starved,
beaten and cheated of wages. For
nearly two years, Ngo labored in the stifling, overcrowded factory,
subsisting on meager portions of rice and cabbage and longing for her family.
How Jonathan Abel, www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article984066.ece [accessed 9 January 2011] new.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120304/out/out4.html [accessed 24 February 2018] [scroll down to ENSLAVED
Guatemalan] She came from Guatemala, a woman in her early 20s smuggled into the
United States for what she thought was a housekeeping job. The journey from her small town to the “Rape Trees” Frame Arizona-Mexico Border:
Grim Reminders of Human Trafficking ChattahBox, March 15, 2009 chattahbox.com/us/2009/03/15/%E2%80%9Crape-trees%E2%80%9D-frame-arizona-mexico-border-grim-reminders-of-human-trafficking/ [accessed 9 January 2011] A recent report
from the Cronkite News Service, a student-run news service of These “rape trees”
are becoming more common along the Arizona border counties of Pima and
Cochise, as coyotes and drug cartel members find human trafficking more
lucrative than drug smuggling. Horror of teen sex slavery not foreign woe;
it's here Alan Johnson, The www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/01/25/traffic.ART_ART_01-25-09_B1_VFCLSF9.html?sid=101 [accessed 9 January 2011] www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2009/01/25/traffic.ART_ART_01-25-09_B1_VFCLSF9.html [accessed 29 June 2017] – LIMITED ACCESS Minutes after
getting a call, "I can't
describe to you the feeling of terror. No child should ever have to know that
kind of fear. I didn't know what I was going to have to endure that night,
for how long, or if I was going to come back home." What started
innocently with Dancer in human trafficking case fears
family will be dishonored www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2009/01/16/human_trafficking_lilburn.html [accessed 9 January 2011] www.allvoices.com/news/2273624/s/27000880-dancer-in-human-trafficking-case-fears-family-will-be-dishonored [accessed 4 September 2012] Shirke is one of six
entertainers that were allegedly recruited from India with promises of
profits - tips - from their dancing at the bar and restaurant, only to be
paid slave wages and have every movement carefully guarded once they arrived
in Georgia on Nov. 20. Shirke is worried the arrest of her bosses will shame her
parents and brother in The doors to the
five-bedroom house where the entertainers lived in Lilburn were always
dead-bolted from the inside by guards who stayed in the sparsely furnished
house with them, Shirke said. She said the girls,
who did not have the key to the door, were not permitted to go anywhere
without an escort. The eight
performers had signed a contract before they left Forced labor operation busted Freeman Klopott,
The Examiner, 11/24/08 washingtonexaminer.com/article/104581#.UEZQFSJ62So [accessed 4 September 2012] MAN ALLEGEDLY
CONFISCATED THE WOMEN’S PASSPORTS AND THREATENED TO KILL THEIR FAMILIES IF
THEY LEFT For the past seven years,
federal authorities say, a Peruvian Nanny Exploited In Shocking ICE
Case KTVU News, www.ktvu.com/news/18012707/detail.html [accessed 9 January 2011] Agent Welsh and ICE
officials won't speak specifically about Dann's case, but the complaint
alleges that in July 2006, Dann brought Zoraida
Pena-Canal from Dann allegedly
confiscated Pena's passport and visa and physically and verbally abused the
nanny, threatening her with deportation if she talked to outsiders. The complaint
alleges Dann smashed Pena's radio and a television set, to prevent her from
listening to Spanish language programs that would, quote "put ideas in
her head." Investigators say Dann
told Pena: "When you come to the www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2008/October/08-crt-920.html [accessed 9 January 2011] Evidence presented
at trial demonstrated that The evidence
established that Paris "purchased" two of the victims from a
co-defendant, Brian Forbes, who previously pleaded guilty to five counts of
sex trafficking and was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his role in
recruiting and exploiting minors and vulnerable young women into
prostitution, as well as using beatings, rapes, drug withdrawal, threats and
unlawful restraint, to compel them to perform commercial sex acts. - htcp LAGON: Modern-day slavery Ambassador Mark P. Lagon,
Director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking
in Persons, The Washington Times, October 6, 2008 www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/06/modern-day-slavery/?page=1 [accessed 9 January 2011] A millionaire
perfume maker in Imprisoned in the American Nightmare Ronnie Garrett, OFFICER.com, September 2008 www.officer.com/print/Law-Enforcement-Technology/Imprisoned-in-the-American-Nightmare/1$43295 [accessed 9 January 2011] www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-186284529.html [accessed 9 January 2011] Like many before her,
she immigrated to the United States filled with promise that she too would be
part of the American dream. "When
I arrived into the But her dreams
vanished as she found herself living a nightmare — trapped in a house all
day, barred from speaking to anyone, and expected to work grueling hours
until she collapsed into bed at night.
"When I'd complain, they'd threaten me … and I feel so sad …
because when I was in my own country I used to work, I made friends,"
she says. "Now I come here, I'm locked in the house, not talking to
anyone, not going anywhere …" Human trafficking victim speaks out in
Aiken NBC News, Augusta,-September-15-2008 www.nbcaugusta.com/news/southcarolina/28434359.html [access date unavailable] advance.uconn.edu/2006/061113/06111305.htm [accessed 24 February 2018] Micheline Slattery
talked about how at just five she was forced into slavery in her native
Haiti. At 14, she was sold for $2,500
and brought to the "It is really
tough when you have been programmed to believe you are worthless," she
said. "I was like, there had to be something different, something better
than what I was living. I decided I wasn't going to stay there anymore and
ran away." Now Slattery is a
nurse and when she can, she tells her story.
"I want the world to know that slavery is not history, it still
exists," she said. Brothers Plead Guilty to Enslaving
Farmworkers in www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2008/September/08-crt-770.html [accessed 9 January 2011] All five defendants
pleaded guilty to harboring undocumented foreign nationals for private
financial gain and identify theft. In addition, Cesar and Geovanni Navarrete
pleaded guilty to beating, threatening, restraining and locking workers in
trucks to force them to work for them as agricultural laborers. Cesar
Navarrete also pleaded guilty to re-entering the The defendants were
accused of paying the workers minimal wages, driving them into debt, while simultaneously
threatening physical harm if the workers left their employment before their
debts had been repaid to the family. [more] All
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