Human Trafficking in [USA Street Children in [USA] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [USA] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the first ten years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2009
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that 50,000
people are trafficked into or transited through the U.S.A. annually as sex
slaves, domestics, garment, and agricultural slaves. The United States is a destination country for thousands
of men, women, and children trafficked largely from Mexico and East Asia, as
well as countries in South Asia, Central America, Africa, and Europe, for the
purposes of sexual and labor exploitation. Three-quarters of all foreign
adult victims identified during the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 were victims of
trafficking for forced labor. Some trafficking victims, responding to
fraudulent offers of employment in the United States, migrate
willingly—legally and illegally—and are subsequently subjected to conditions
of involuntary servitude or debt bondage at work sites or in commercial sex.
An unknown number of American citizens and legal residents are trafficked
within the country, primarily for sexual servitude. The U.S. Government (USG) in 2008 continued to advance the
goal of eradicating human trafficking in the United States. This coordinated
effort includes several federal agencies and approximately $23 million in FY
2008 for domestic programs to boost anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts,
identify and protect victims of trafficking, and raise awareness of
trafficking as a means of preventing new incidents. – Adapted from U.S.
State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 [more] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been culled
from the web to illuminate the situation in the *** FEATURED
ARTICLES *** Hotline
Launched To Report Human Trafficking - 866-347-2423 Gov't Effort to Stem Human Trafficking Helps Very Few But what the ads don't mention is, in order to take advantage of these benefits, victims must first agree to cooperate in the criminal Investigations of their abusers. This is not a viable option for most. Those who cooperate may face retaliation from their exploiters or risk harm to their loved ones in their homelands. For example, a Thai domestic worker who has agreed to testify against her abuser may want to bring her two children from Thailand to safety before the abuser is released from jail. He often threatened to have them killed if she were to ever seek help. Victims who come forward must also go through the arduous task of proving themselves survivors of "a severe form of trafficking." And they must demonstrate they would face extreme hardship if returned to their home country. Feds
charge three Kansas City-area companies with labor trafficking kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2009/05/25/daily15.html
“This RICO indictment alleges an
extensive and profitable criminal enterprise in which hundreds of illegal
aliens were employed at hotels and other businesses across the country,”
Whitworth said in the release. “The defendants allegedly used false
information to acquire fraudulent work visas for these foreign nationals.
Many of their employees were allegedly victims of human trafficking who were
coerced to work in violation of the terms of their visa without proper pay
and under the threat of deportation. The defendants also required them to
reside together in crowded, substandard and overpriced apartments.” Many of the workers were employed at
hotels in the Kansas City area and in Branson, Mo., Whitworth said. Child
maids now being exported to US www.zimbio.com/AP+News/articles/7537/Child+maids+now+being+exported
Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian
couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their
California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron
their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family's crystal. She
earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. She had no breaks during the
day and no days off. Once behind the walls of gated
communities like this one, these children never go to school. Unbeknownst to
their neighbors, they live as modern-day slaves, just like Shyima, whose story is pieced together through court
records, police transcripts and interviews. Shyima cried when she found out she was
going to America in 2000. Her father, a bricklayer, had fallen ill a few
years earlier, so her mother found a maid recruiter, signed a contract
effectively leasing her daughter to the couple for 10 years and told Shyima to be strong. She arrived at Los Angeles
International Airport on Aug. 3, 2000, according to court documents. The
family brought her back to their spacious five-bedroom, two-story home,
decorated in the style of a Tuscan villa with a fountain of two angels
spouting water through a conch. She was told to sleep in the garage. It had no windows and was neither heated
nor air-conditioned. Soon after she arrived, the garage's only light bulb
went out. The Ibrahims didn't replace it. From then
on, Shyima lived in the dark. She was told to call them Madame Amal and Hajj Nasser, terms of respect. They called her
"shaghala," or servant. Their five
children called her "stupid." Young
workers in the oldest profession genderberg.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3628 www.columbian.com/article/20081207/NEWS02/712079963
Sarah was 16 and addicted to crack
cocaine when she heard there was easy money to make in the parking lot of a
fast food restaurant off Fourth Plain Boulevard. “I went there to pick up guys,” Sarah, 22,
said. “They would buy me what I wanted as long as I had sex with them.” After working for a year in Vancouver,
Sarah ventured to Portland. Willowy, her greasy blond hair pulled tight into
a bun, she looks exhausted. “I got
here on Sandy and 82nd, and this guy, D.C., asked me if I wanted to get
high,” she said one morning last summer, sitting on a curb in northeast
Portland. “Then he told me I owed him money and to go get money.” Sarah was trapped. She’d fallen prey to a
pimp’s come-on and become one of the 20 to 30 juveniles Portland police say
work the streets at any given time. Like more than a third of those girls,
she is from Vancouver. And like many of them, she remains beyond the reach of
police efforts to separate her from her pimp. It’s been six years, and Sarah
is still on the streets. ‘SNITCHES DIE, YOU KNOW’ - “I can cite case after case of
girls coming from average families, and once the pimp was able to intervene,
the family didn’t matter anymore,” Dick said. “I know of officers’ daughters
who got into it, a federal prosecutor’s daughter, a DA’s daughter, a
politician’s daughter.” Cherise was a rebellious 15-year-old when she met her
first pimp, Deandre Green, at Lloyd Center in
Portland. Green was a 25-year-old Bloods gang member from Aloha, Ore. He sweet-talked her to a nondescript,
two-story motel and told her the rules: This is business, don’t be out of
pocket, respect your pimp and give me all your money. According to court documents, when Cherise said she had second thoughts, Green said, “I know
where you live and where your family lives. I will kill you and your family
if you say anything to anybody. You’re mine now.” Human trafficking cases increase in El Paso libertasuiuc.blogspot.com/2006/11/human-trafficking-cases-increase-in-el_12.html www.speforums.com/showthread.php?t=737 Gardes showed the photograph of a field
worker standing on top of a large farm truck -- a scene common across the
Southwest. His name is Ricardo, she said. He was smuggled across the border
in Arizona and abandoned in the desert for eight days with only three days'
worth of food and water. He was found by another smuggler who offered to
guide him, for a fee. When Ricardo couldn't pay, the smuggler sold him to a
Florida labor contractor for $1,100. This became Ricardo's debt. He
worked in a field for $80 a week to repay it. At the same time, his
trafficker overcharged him for rent and other necessities. Gardes said he was never meant to be able to repay the
debt. One day, another trafficking victim escaped, was recaptured and
was beaten in front of Ricardo and the others. "At this point, Ricardo
realized this was really slavery," Gardes
said. Sexual Slavery in Southern California Today? Epidemic, say officials She was a teenage girl from an
impoverished village in Bangladesh. The American couple offered her transport
to America and a better life: a nice job as their nanny and housekeeper,
wages and opportunity. The dream offer dissolved into a nightmare as soon as
she reached sunny Southern California. The couple informed her she owed them a
huge sum for bringing her into the country and forced her to work without
wages for years in their home, where she was repeatedly raped and beaten by
the husband and abused by the wife. After three failed attempts, and with the
help of good Samaritans, she finally escaped. Runaway raped, held as sex slave Since September, the
15-year-old girl had been raped repeatedly, threatened with death and sold
for sex over the Internet, police said. Her captors hid the runaway in
a hollowed-out box spring covered with a piece of wood and tucked underneath
a bed in a small apartment complex adjacent to Interstate 17 in west Phoenix. ***
ARCHIVES *** Hotline
Launched To Report Human Trafficking - 866-347-2423 Immigrations
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) TIPLINE at 866-347-2423 A Blight
on the Nation: Slavery in Today's America www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000122
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. Tampa
man is fifth suspect arrested in human trafficking case blogs.tampabay.com/breakingnews/2009/05/fifth-suspect-arrested-for-human-trafficking-case.html
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 Saint Paul Legal Ledger legal-ledger.com/item.cfm?recID=11817
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 United States that
would involve pursuing her career as a journalist. 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 Brooklyn Park and then take her
wages, even after her visa expired.
“I didn’t know there was help out there,” said Bukola,
who now lives in Anoka. Pinellas
deputies: 3 arrested in human trafficking case suncoastpinellas.tbo.com/content/2009/may/10/102049/men-forced-women-prostitution-says-pinellas-sherif/
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 Tampa Bay area and elsewhere while being physically and mentally abused,
detectives say. "It was
violent," Pinellas County sheriff's Capt. Theresa Dioquino
said at a news conference Sunday. "There was a lot of mind control, and
the personal liberties these individuals actually had at one time were taken
from them." Politics
of the Plate: The Price of Tomatoes www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2009/03/politics-of-the-plate-the-price-of-tomatoes?currentPage=1
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 www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/04/13/0413trafficking.html
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
Clearwater helped destroy an international sex slave ring www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article984066.ece
She came from “Rape
Trees” Frame Arizona-Mexico Border: Grim Reminders of Human Trafficking chattahbox.com/us/2009/03/15/%E2%80%9Crape-trees%E2%80%9D-frame-arizona-mexico-border-grim-reminders-of-human-trafficking/
A recent report from the Cronkite
News Service, a student-run news service of Arizona State University, shed
the national spotlight on a new immigration problem plaguing the desert
border towns of Arizona: so called “rape trees,” trees on the U.S. side of
the border littered with women’s undergarments. Mexican drug cartel members
and the coyotes, who smuggle immigrants across the border, are believed to
rape the women as soon as they enter 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 dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/01/25/traffic.ART_ART_01-25-09_B1_VFCLSF9.html?sid=101
Minutes after getting a call,
Flores would silently slip out of the house, cut through the backyard and get
in a car waiting at the curb. She would then be whisked away from her home in
an affluent Detroit suburb to homes and hotels, anonymous places where she
was forced to have sex for hours with strangers. "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
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
Mumbai, India, even though she and the other dancers didn’t participate in
prostitution or stripping. The two male performers played in a band while the
six women performed traditional folk and Bollywood-style
dancing between eight and 14 hours a day, seven days a week … 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 India, stating they would surrender their passports and be
confined to their home when they weren’t working, Shirke
said. “They said it was for our
safety, and we believed them,” Shirke said. Child
maids now being exported to US www.zimbio.com/AP+News/articles/7537/Child+maids+now+being+exported
Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian
couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their
California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron
their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family's crystal. She
earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. She had no breaks during the
day and no days off. Once behind the walls of gated
communities like this one, these children never go to school. Unbeknownst to
their neighbors, they live as modern-day slaves, just like Shyima, whose story is pieced together through court
records, police transcripts and interviews. Shyima cried when she found out she was
going to America in 2000. Her father, a bricklayer, had fallen ill a few
years earlier, so her mother found a maid recruiter, signed a contract
effectively leasing her daughter to the couple for 10 years and told Shyima to be strong. She arrived at Los Angeles
International Airport on Aug. 3, 2000, according to court documents. The
family brought her back to their spacious five-bedroom, two-story home,
decorated in the style of a Tuscan villa with a fountain of two angels
spouting water through a conch. She was told to sleep in the garage. It had no windows and was neither heated
nor air-conditioned. Soon after she arrived, the garage's only light bulb
went out. The Ibrahims didn't replace it. From then
on, Shyima lived in the dark. She was told to call them Madame Amal and Hajj Nasser, terms of respect. They called her
"shaghala," or servant. Their five
children called her "stupid." Young
workers in the oldest profession www.columbian.com/article/20081207/NEWS02/712079963
Sarah was 16 and addicted to crack
cocaine when she heard there was easy money to make in the parking lot of a
fast food restaurant off Fourth Plain Boulevard. “I went there to pick up guys,” Sarah, 22,
said. “They would buy me what I wanted as long as I had sex with them.” After working for a year in Vancouver,
Sarah ventured to Portland. Willowy, her greasy blond hair pulled tight into
a bun, she looks exhausted. “I got
here on Sandy and 82nd, and this guy, D.C., asked me if I wanted to get
high,” she said one morning last summer, sitting on a curb in northeast
Portland. “Then he told me I owed him money and to go get money.” Sarah was trapped. She’d fallen prey to a
pimp’s come-on and become one of the 20 to 30 juveniles Portland police say
work the streets at any given time. Like more than a third of those girls,
she is from Vancouver. And like many of them, she remains beyond the reach of
police efforts to separate her from her pimp. It’s been six years, and Sarah
is still on the streets. ‘SNITCHES DIE, YOU KNOW’ - “I can cite case after case of
girls coming from average families, and once the pimp was able to intervene,
the family didn’t matter anymore,” Dick said. “I know of officers’ daughters
who got into it, a federal prosecutor’s daughter, a DA’s daughter, a
politician’s daughter.” Cherise was a rebellious 15-year-old when she met her
first pimp, Deandre Green, at Lloyd Center in
Portland. Green was a 25-year-old Bloods gang member from Aloha, Ore. He sweet-talked her to a nondescript,
two-story motel and told her the rules: This is business, don’t be out of
pocket, respect your pimp and give me all your money. According to court documents, when Cherise said she had second thoughts, Green said, “I know
where you live and where your family lives. I will kill you and your family
if you say anything to anybody. You’re mine now.” www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/112408_Forced_labor_operation_busted.html
For the past seven years, federal
authorities say, a Falls Church man forced almost a dozen female illegal
immigrants from Indonesia into a form of slavery, selling their services as
housekeepers to Montgomery County families.
Soripada Lubis has
been charged with conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants. He has been
released on bail and ordered to stay at his Roosevelt Avenue home with his
wife and children. It’s in that home,
a federal agent said in a sworn statement, that Lubis
kept between seven and 11 women at a time, sometimes sleeping two to a bed.
He allegedly held the women’s passports, and threatened kill their families
in Indonesia and alert immigration officials if they left him, the statement
said. Peruvian
Nanny Exploited In Shocking ICE Case www.ktvu.com/news/18012707/detail.html
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 Peru to Walnut Creek under a three-month visitor's visa. Investigators say Dann
promised Pena she'd live in a big house with a private bathroom and would be
paid up to $600 a month to care for Dann's three
young boys. Instead, ICE says Pena
became a virtual prisoner for almost two years. Dann, her
children and Pena shared a two-bedroom apartment. Investigators say Pena was
forced to sleep on the living room floor while working from dawn to dusk
every day, cooking, cleaning and caring for the children. The complaint alleges Dann
didn't pay Pena a salary and actually charged her $15,000 for clothing and
other expenses. 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 United States, you must suffer." "They may not be physically
restrained, but they're told, 'You're here illegally,'" says Special
Agent Walsh. "They may not speak the language, they're told 'If you
cause problems or try to get away, I'll report you to immigration and they'll
put you in jail.'" Investigators
say Dann even rationed Pena's food, weighing the
meat she purchased and hiding fruit from Pena. Neighbors say Pena often
appeared daily in the same clothes. actioncenter.polarisproject.org/the-frontlines/recent-federal-cases/326-connecticut-man-sentenced-to- 360-months-in-prison-for-leading-brutal-sex-trafficking-ring-that-victimized-us-citizens
Evidence presented at trial
demonstrated that Paris operated a prostitution scheme in the Hartford,
Conn., area in which he exploited young, uneducated girls from troubled
backgrounds and forced them to perform commercial sex acts for his financial
benefit. The evidence demonstrated that Paris used a combination of
deception, fraud, coercion, brutal rapes, threats of arrest, physical
violence and manipulation of addictive drugs to maintain control over his
victims. 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 www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/06/modern-day-slavery/
A millionaire perfume maker in
Islip, N.Y. was convicted and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment for
committing a crime - human trafficking - that most people had never heard of
just five years ago. That crime is the modern-day equivalent of slavery. In
this case, the victims were two Indonesian women who were beaten, starved and
never allowed out of the mansion where they worked as domestic servants. Imprisoned
in the American Nightmare www.officer.com/print/Law-Enforcement-Technology/Imprisoned-in-the-American-Nightmare/1$43295
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 United States, I was happy," she recalls. "I
think I'm coming to make friends, to have a good life and to make
money." 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 www.nbcaugusta.com/news/southcarolina/28434359.html
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 United States. Slattery
described how she was forced to do housework and essentially serve as an
unpaid nanny. "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. www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/September/08-crt-770.html
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 U.S. after being convicted of a felony and
deported, and Ismael Navarrete
also pleaded guilty to document fraud. Cesar and Geovanni
Navarrete face up to 35 and 25 years in prison,
respectively. The other defendants face a range of 10-25 years in prison.
Sentencing is scheduled for various dates in September and December 2008. 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. Human
trafficking in Macon? Depends on whom you ask www.macon.com/210/story/416886.html For one woman, human trafficking
began with an advertisement promising the opportunity to work in America at a
hair salon. She was assured that her travel arrangements and documents would
be taken care of. It seemed like a
perfect opportunity to work and earn enough money to send back home to
support the woman's family and three young children. Once she reached Atlanta, however, she
found herself working in a massage parlor with false travel documents. She
was forced to prostitute herself to a quota of 20 men to repay traffickers
about $80,000 in exaggerated travel expenses, room and board, according to an
Atlanta social service agency. Probe:
Diplomats abuse their workers, invoke immunity [PDF] modernemancipation.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=14 Federal investigators have
uncovered numerous cases of foreign diplomats - mostly in The female victims were as young
as 14-years old. They expected a better life in America only to learn when
they got here that they were sex slaves. An indictment says three of the
men -- 31-year old Juan Cortez-Meza, 34-year old Amador Cortez-Meza and
25-year old Francisco Cortez-Meza -- travelled to
Mexico to seduce and befriend the females with promises of a better life in
America. "Once they started
dating them in Mexico they would get them to come to the US promising them
jobs in restaurants or cleaning houses and then when they got here they were
forced into prostitution," said Assistant United States Attorney Susan Coppedge. The indictment says "The
victims were beaten, threatened, or their families back in Mexico were
threatened in order to force the victims to work as prostitutes against their
will." Indian
workers' struggle shines light on human trafficking, slave labor The plight of immigrant Indian
workers who were deceived into virtual slavery has brought attention to the
vile practice of human trafficking.
Indian workers protest slave-like conditions before the Department of
Justice, Washington, D.C., June 11.
The workers took jobs with Signal International to work on the U.S.
Gulf Coast following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The
Indian workers were told they would receive "green cards," allowing
them permanent legal residence in the United States. Many who left their
families behind in search of better wages had been told they would be able to
bring their relatives. The promises
were all lies. Instead of receiving permanent legal status, the workers—who
had paid fees of up to $20,000 to Signal—received 10-month H-2B temporary
worker visas. The workers were
essentially trapped, and their employers knew it. Their documents were stolen
and wages were withheld. For all practical purposes, slavery had returned to
Louisiana. Modern
slavery global scourge, speakers tell CBF supporters The woman came over from China
expecting love, marriage and a better life, according to a speaker on human
trafficking June 19, during a workshop session at the Cooperative Baptist
Fellowship General Assembly in Memphis, Tenn.
But she wasn’t allowed to leave her house for three years. Her husband was the only one who ever told
her she was beautiful and loved, said Paul Lange, executive director of Oasis
USA. She had a twisted loyalty; at times she felt loved and dedicated to her
husband, but most days he abused her.
He seized her documents so she couldn’t leave, Lange said. Instead of
the freedom she sought, she became a captive in her own house. Researchers
Issue Report on Human Trafficking A team of researchers at
Northeastern University’s Institute on Race and Justice, in collaboration
with Arizona State University and Sam Houston State University, has issued a
report about the incidence of and response to human trafficking in the United
States. Lead by principal investigators Assistant Professor Amy Farrell,
Ph.D., and Associate Dean Jack McDevitt, the
researchers conducted a random survey of law enforcement agencies throughout
the United States to better understand how agencies identify and respond to
suspected cases of human trafficking. Previous research has provided limited
information on human trafficking cases, from specific jurisdictions, while
this survey provides the first comprehensive national look at how local,
state and county law enforcement agencies respond to human trafficking. The report, entitled
“Understanding and Improving Law Enforcement Responses to Human Trafficking,”
was made possible by a grant from the National Institute of Justice and is
now available online … Full
Report [PDF] … Executive
Summary [PDF] Fulton
judge, deputy son charged with human trafficking A former Fulton County magistrate
judge, his Forsyth County Sheriff's deputy son and the deputy's wife have all
been charged with human trafficking, among other charges, for their part in
allegedly forcing an Indian nanny to work without pay in their Woodstock home
beginning in 2003. The suit also
alleges they then used their influence to hassle her after she escaped with
the help of a neighbor. The charges against the three
allege the Garretts later stopped paying the victim
for her work as a nanny, significantly curtailed her freedom and ability to
leave their home, and threatened to malign her to her family in India if she
did not work for them. The woman was
reportedly forced to work more than 16 hours a day, every day, under a
barrage of insults, intimidation and threats of jail and deportation. With
the assistance of a neighbor, the victim escaped the Garretts'
home, said Nahmias.
In addition, the indictment
alleges that after the victim escaped, the Garretts
falsely accused her of theft to local authorities, reported her illegal
status to federal authorities and falsely accused her of engaging in
terrorism-related activities to the Department of Homeland Security. One woman who
operates a shelter in northwest MO speaks out "We have dealt with many
cases where as the girls are brought in as mail-order brides, when they got
here basically they were used for prostitution and pornographic
purposes," said Cheryl Leffler, who operates a
women's shelter in northwest Missouri for more then 10 years. "They usually start with just
written correspondence with them, and after they have pretended to be the
perfect person they get the girls to trust them," said Leffler.
Traffickers promise the world to potential victims and pay for their
plane ticket to Kansas City. Traffickers then take them to their home, where
the horrific experience begins.
"They had been traumatized. Their first sexual experience had
basically been brutally raping them to get them under control," states Leffler, "'This is what's going to happen to you if
you don't do what I tell you.' They thoroughly believe these guys will kill
them." Grand
Jury Indicts Human Trafficking Suspect Police say Walker lured two women
to Lexington then forced them to work at a strip club then took their
money. The women also say Walker tried
to keep them from leaving. Man
Sentenced for Human Trafficking and Alien Smuggling Corea lured young Central American
women to the United States with promises of good jobs. However, once the
young women arrived, they were forced to work in the bars and cantinas of the
defendant and co-defendants selling high-priced drinks to male customers. The
women were subjected to numerous threats of harm to themselves and family
members in order to compel their servitude, and some suffered sexual assaults
at the hands of the defendant and his co-defendants. Former Human Trafficking Victim Speaks Out www.ginsc.net/main.php?option=view_article&mode=0&article=5769&lang=ge kgmb9.com/main/content/view/6151/40/ HAWAII - This young Tongan named Francis
came here in 2001, Lueleni Maka
promised him $240 a week. He was paid only $20. "I ask him about the rest of my money.
Said he sent em back to my family, so I called my
parents and they said they never get nothing from him," said former
victim Francis. Maka told Francis he would turn him
into immigration if he tried to escape the pig farm he stayed at. "He make me afraid of him. He hit me a
couple of times. yeah. metal frames, I get scars on my back from him. Get
guys they worse than me. He beat 'em up till blood
coming out their mouth and nose. it's very sad. We cannot do nothing. we so
scared of him," Francis said. Sentences
given in human trafficking plot Members of a human trafficking
ring have been sentenced for a conspiracy to smuggle Central American women
into the United States and keep them in forced labor. Eight defendants were convicted in Houston
in connection with a scheme to force the women to work in restaurants, bars
and cantinas in the Houston area. The defendants were accused of planning to
use threats of harm to the victims and their families to keep them from
escaping before they paid off their smuggling debts. How an eastern Iowa teen prostitution, human trafficking ring took root swoplv.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/ia-how-an-eastern-iowa-teen-prostitution-human-trafficking-ring-took-root/
www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080420/NEWS06/880341325/0/deathnotices In the basement of an
ordinary-looking Williamsburg home, the 13-year-old girl was given a choice.
Either she would have sex with two men nearly twice her age or she would be
given back to her kidnapper. Already
in the week since Demont Bowie told the suburban
Minneapolis girl she belonged to him, he'd beaten and abused her, starved her
and deprived her of sleep. He traded her body to his friends and even a
mechanic. When Demont told her to do something to
someone, she did. There was no refusing. He'd said he'd kill her, kill her
family, if she tried to leave. - htcp 3
Arrested On Suspicion Of Human Trafficking According to the complaints, the
victims were forced to work nearly 24 hours a day and were advised that it
would be necessary for them to work for several years while they repaid their
"travel debt." The victims
allegedly were threatened, and their passports were kept from them. Sex victim gives voice to problem www.columbiatribune.com/2008/Mar/20080323News004.asp At 15, Theresa Flores was a
self-described "blond, white girl" from an upper-class Detroit
suburb and went out on date with a boy she knew from school. That night she
was attacked and raped as the boy’s cousins took photos. It was the beginning of an agonizing two
years for Flores. Her attackers - members of a gang - blackmailed her with
the threat of revealing the photos and forced her to become a sex slave.
Fearing for her life, she escaped only after her family moved from the state,
taking her with them. "You don’t
think that it happens here" in the suburbs, "and until it hits you
between the eyes, you don’t realize it," she said. "But it can
happen to anybody." Human
trafficking steps from the shadows Describing herself as "a nice
Catholic girl who lived in a large, suburban house" near Detroit during her
teenage years, she said she was targeted by traffickers, drugged, and
date-raped at the age of 15 - "I was just a kid," she said - and
then blackmailed and forced to work as a prostitute "for two long
years." "They said they would kill me
and my family and my dog if I didn't do what they said," reported
Flores, adding that she was "beaten into silence every night" by
her captors. Throughout her ordeal, she said, she was permitted to live at
home, sneaking out every night to turn tricks, and then returning home and
going to school the next day. Once, she said, she was kidnapped, taken to
inner-city Detroit, and "tortured for hours and hours and left for
dead" before being returned to her emotionally absent parents by an
unsympathetic police officer. Only when her father moved the family to
another city after a job transfer, she said, did she finally break with her
captors. Indian
Workers Accuse Signal International Of "Human Trafficking" They talk of living "like
pigs in a cage" in a company-run "work camp." "I've been a guest worker all my life.
I've never seen these kinds of conditions," said the interpreter,
"We lived 24 people to a room. And for this, the company deducted $1,050
a month from our paychecks." Man
Pleads Guilty In 'Kennel Case' Rape The accused ringleader behind a
horrific 2005 kidnapping and rape case pleaded guilty on Friday to six
charges after admitting his role, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas
said. The 15-year-old victim was
kidnapped, gang raped and during her 42-day captivity, forced to engage in
acts of prostitution, Thomas said. She was mostly confined to a dog kennel,
Thomas said. Website
Content Calls for Action to Combat Human Trafficking That reality hit home for one
Chicago area family when their 17-year-old daughter was abducted and forced
into prostitution. It would be seven years before she was found. The teenager had decided to delay her
college plans and answered an advertisement seeking a nanny, recalls Ruth
Hill, executive minister of Women Ministries, who knows one of the girl’s
cousins. The girl was kidnapped as soon as she arrived at the home for the
job interview. Five years later, the
girl was able to slip out a postcard saying she was being held at a bar in
Cincinnati, but her captors had moved her by the time law enforcement
arrived. It would be another two years before the FBI found her - addicted to
heroin and pregnant. Georgia
Man Sentenced to 15 Years on Sex Trafficking and Mann Act Charges "Defendant Jones' sentence
sends a clear message that those who traffic in people will be harshly
punished," said U.S. Attorney David E. Nahmias. "Defendant Jones preyed on numerous
young American women who fell for his fraudulent 'modeling' scheme, signed contracts
in which they owed the defendant money, then were forced and coerced into
prostitution to pay back the contracts. The case broke when two victims were
brave enough to come forward and report Jones' crimes to APD, whose human
trafficking task force worked closely with the FBI in bringing justice to the
victims." Numerous victims were on hand for
the sentencing and testified that Jones caused them to engage in sex acts,
including oral sex and vaginal intercourse, with himself and others, by
striking them and threatening to beat them. One victim submitted her
statement to the court, outlining the abuse she suffered at the hands of
Jones and stating that Jones was "a cruel and manipulative man whose
life revolved around the sexual,emotional, physical
and psychological exploitation of young women." She stated that her life
was devastated and that she even considered suicide on more than one occasion
to escape Jones' brutality. Brothel/human trafficking operation discovered in Tumon [Guam] www.kuam.com/news/26036.aspx At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Officers went to the Blue Room in Three
get max sentences for roles in human trafficking ring A federal judge in Trenton today
sentenced three people to the maximum sentences allowed for their role in a
human trafficking ring that smuggled young women from Honduras and forced
them into indentured servitude working in Hudson County bars. The Rosales-Martinez sisters
admitted they helped oversee dozens of illegal Hondurans who were forced to
work six days a week and live in cramped Hudson County apartments until they
could repay smuggling fees as high as $20,000. The immigrants earned $5 an hour, plus
tips, by dancing and drinking with male patrons at bars in Union City and
Guttenberg. One ring member said the girls were encouraged to prostitute
themselves; another said they were beaten if they ignored the house
rules. Another told agents she was
forced to ingest abortion pills after ringleaders learned she was pregnant.
The baby was born in a toilet and died. A
Tennessee man is in jail in Lexington, after being charged with human
trafficking 45-year-old Calvin Walker was arrested
yesterday morning at the Catalina Motel and charged with two counts of human
trafficking for allegedly forcing two women to work at a local strip club,
then taking their money. The women say he lured them here
from Tennessee, then when they tried to leave, he took their identification
and their money. Four Accused Of Human Trafficking, Prostitution www.wben.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=08937 Federal agents conducted early
morning raids at four massage parlors and accupressure
locations the government says were fronts for prostitution and human
trafficking. U.S. Attorney Terry Flynn
says the four suspects charged large amounts of money to women in Asia who
wanted to come to the United States. The women were forced to pay back the
fees by performing sex for money inside those spas, says Flynn. Human
trafficking more common in Ca. California is the top destination
in the U.S. for people who force women and girls into hard labor and sex
trade. U.C. Berkeley researchers found 57 forced labor operations over a five
year period, in about a dozen California cities, involving more than 500
people from 18 countries. Sex
slaves, human trafficking ... in America? In spring of 2004, Katya (not her real name), like thousands of other
foreign exchange university students, was looking forward to the summer job
placement that she and a friend had received in Virginia Beach, Va. When she
and her friend Lena arrived at Dulles Airport after a long flight from
Ukraine, they were relieved to be met by fellow countrymen who spoke Russian. “When we got to the hotel in
Detroit, everything changed,” says Katya. “They
closed the door and sat us down on the couch, took our passports and papers
and said, ‘You owe us big money for bringing you here.’ They gave us strip
clothes and told us that we were going to be working at a strip club called Cheetahs.” Georgia
Wrestler Forced Women In Sexual Servitude In addition to forcing the victims
to work as prostitutes, Norris made the women work in and around his two
homes in Cartersville. Witnesses testified that Norris required the victims
to haul trees, lay sod, and paint. The evidence at trial further established
that Norris set strict rules and fined the women for such infractions as
talking too much or failing to exercise. In addition, he kept the women
financially indebted to him by charging them for food, medicine, and
cigarettes. Norris then told the victims that they could not leave until
their debts were paid, all the while continuing to increase the debt he
claimed he was owed. Human
trafficking often below radar in Columbus Human-trafficking cases in
Columbus are rare, but when they occur, they aren't likely to be reported to
law-enforcement agencies. "In four of the five
labor-trafficking cases, service providers indicated that, although they knew
whom in law enforcement to contact about trafficking victims, they could not
take the chance that the disclosure could lead to negative consequences for
their clients," researchers wrote in their report, released last
month. Language barriers and the fear
of arrest and deportation were among the reasons that human-trafficking cases
go unreported, the study found.
"For the undocumented, the overriding concern is about
immigration status," said Angie Plummer, executive director of the
Community Refugee and Immigration Service, one of the groups interviewed by
researchers. "There is a
reluctance to present victims to officials who have the right and ability to
turn them over to (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)." www.humantrafficking.org/updates/809 www.abcactionnews.com/content/segments/investigators/story.aspx?content_id=c8fc0810-e3d1-4596-b37f-683df06b8bbb "Sue" says she ran away
from a foster home at 13. She met a man in his 40's who promised her free
rent, meals and a job. After a few months, "Sue" says things
changed, drastically. "He
started beating me with sticks, poles, knives, hammers. It really got out of
control. So besides fighting the street you had to fight this non-human. i was told,
if we left, he was gonna hunt us down, and, you
know, kill us." "Sara" says the
traffickers who held her poured gasoline on her while they held a match.
"They kicked and stomped on me. They dragged me by the hair. Fifteen
guys circled me and stomped on me." Ukraine woman forced to dance at strip club testifies in D.C. Lured from the Ukraine with the
promise of a student visa, the young woman believed she was headed to the
U.S. to study and to Virginia Beach to work as a waitress -- not to Detroit,
where she was forced to dance at a strip club. Using the alias "Katya"
to protect herself, the 22-year-old woman spoke publicly for the first time
today, describing to a congressional panel how she was forced to work at the
Detroit club for months until she and another young woman escaped with the
help of one of the patrons of the club.
"They forced me to work six days a week for 12 hours a day,"
she said of the men who made her work at Cheetah's in Detroit. "I could
not refuse to go to work or I would be beaten." While she was forced to
dance at the strip club, she said she was not made to be a prostitute. Houston major
hub for human trafficking The picture, with its implicit
threat, was all it took. It was taken
just before Christmas 2004. She had been thinking about running away from the
windowless bar on Houston's northwest side, where he kept her and other
women, forcing some of them into prostitution while they paid off their
"debts." But Maximino
"Chimino" Mondragon
knew of her plans. Carrying a camera
and Christmas presents for the woman's daughter, he had appeared unannounced
at her family's home in El Salvador. The woman, who was not identified by authorities,
told investigators that Mondragon had talked his
way into the home by saying the gifts were from her. "By the way," Mondragon
reportedly asked her parents, "would you mind taking a photo of me with
the little girl?" There were no
more plans of escaping. With similar threats, Mondragon and a network of family members and associates
operated one of the largest human trafficking rings in U.S. history in which
as many as 120 women were held captive and coerced to work off their
smuggling debts. Some of the women were raped and forced to have abortions. Slavery
in my backyard and a thousand points of light (At the lecture) Coonan also said
that it’s happening within the Chinese community as well, with traffickers
promising young women a better life in America. According to Coonan, in
nearby Quincy, a
Chinese restaurant has Hispanic women working there and living in a small
shed behind the restaurant. Many of these restaurants also have their
employees living in the kitchen after hours as well. “I think the most shocking thing
is that everything is close to home,” said Danielle May, who attended the
lecture. “This is not something that you see on the international news being
in Cambodia, or Thailand. This issue is happening at home. I think it’s
scary. Quincy is 45 minutes away and people are being enslaved. This is
shocking that this is 2007 and slavery is still going on.” Md.
Cracks Down On Human Trafficking One who escaped told her story
with the condition that she not be identified. "We were kept in one room, me and my
daughters," said the woman. Their
passports taken, her children were forced to work in the home without pay
while she worked on the outside.
"We've had a number of significant cases in the Washington
suburbs, mostly women, who have been held in basements doing labor at no
charge. Domestic labor," said Rod Rosenstein, U.S. Attorney for
Maryland. It took 12 years for Martina Okeke to break free. After moving from Nigeria to New
York in 1988, she cooked, cleaned and took care of a Staten Island couple's
children on the promise of a $300 monthly wage and tuition help for her kids
back home. She never received a penny.
Friends from Okeke's church finally
convinced her to leave the family, but she refused to report them to the
authorities. "I did not want to have a bad name," she told a
reporter from the New York Times. In June 2001, two Indonesian
women, who paid $3,000 each for a falsified visa, airline tickets from
Jakarta and the promise of a well-paying restaurant job in New York, escaped
from a Brooklyn brothel. They had arrived in New York only to find that their
"debt" had increased to $30,000. The men waiting for them at the
airport also threatened to kill them if they refused to work as prostitutes,
according to the Brooklyn Rail. Cary's
Neo-China accused of 'human trafficking' According to a lawsuit filed in
Wake County court, Neo-China's parent company, Freshco
Inc., sponsored Amu Zheng
and his wife and son to come to the United States in 2001. Under immigration
law, employers can sponsor someone for a green card if they can offer a
full-time position. Once in the country, Zheng
alleges, Neo-China's owner Diana Yu and manager Chris Chang told Zheng and his family that they had to work at the
restaurant "at whatever terms they imposed"—more than 90 hours a
week at less than minimum wage. Antipoopoo's (FMW'S) Backyard www.philippinepolitics.net/boards/showthread.php?p=101340 HUMAN TRAFFICKING: A MILLION-DOLLAR INDUSTRY IN DESTIN - She was 19, petite and brunette. She was from Eastern Europe and had been in the United States for less than a month. Promised a job as a housekeeper at a hotel or condominium in Okaloosa County, she instead found herself stripping at a local topless bar. She had to borrow a costume and when she hit the dance floor, she moved without rhythm or style, as if her body and her mind were in two different places. This isn’t what she came to the United States to do. Man Sentenced On Child Prostitution Charge A man was sentenced to five years
in prison Friday in a case where federal prosecutors have said a child was
essentially bought and sold for crack cocaine Prosecutors said Geiler took a 17-year-old girl to Gray's house in
January. He told Gray the girl owed him money, and he left her with Gray so
she could work as a prostitute to pay off her debt. They say Gray ultimately let the girl leave
with another person who promised him crack. Three charged in hair salon human trafficking ring blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates/2007/09/three_charged_in_human_traffic.html www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/09/three_charged_in_human_traffic.html The women lived in crowded
apartments rented by the alleged ringleaders in Newark and East Orange,
sleeping 8-10 to an apartment and sleeping on tattered mattresses on the
floor, Manifase said. Victims told investigators
their travel documents were taken from them and they were threatened with
return to Africa if they objected to working without pay, authorities said. Man
Pleads Guilty as Trial is About to Begin on Federal Sex Trafficking and Mann
Act Charges Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney
General for Civil Rights; David E. Nahmias, United
States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia; Gregory Jones, Special
Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Richard Pennington,
Chief, Atlanta Police Department, today announced that Jimmie Lee Jones, also
known as "Mike Spade," 31, of Stone Mountain, Georgia, pleaded
guilty yesterday to federal charges of conspiracy to engage in sex
trafficking and transporting young women across state lines for purposes of
prostitution. Just after his trial began,
Jones admitted to U.S. District Court Judge William S. Duffey,
Jr. that he had lured and coerced eight young women -- including two
juveniles -- into prostitution. "The defendant in this case
took advantage of numerous young women by enticing them with promises of
modeling contracts and then using force, threats, and coercion to force them
to work as prostitutes," said Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim. AMW
Fugitive Data File For Maribel Rodriguez Vasquez BOGUS JOB OFFER ENTICES GUATEMALAN
GIRL TO U.S. - Jane
Doe told authorities that after a month of working as a babysitter,
Vasquez turned the tables and began forcing her into a life of
prostitution. According to Doe, when she refused to become a sex slave,
Vasquez threatened to kill the family she left behind in Guatemala. Doe
also recalled that Vasquez forced her to see a so-called witch
doctor who cast spells and foretold bad fortune if she ever tried
to escape or told anyone about the prostitution ring. RP
diplomat: No human trafficking in case filed by maid According to the Associated Press,
under the plea, Reyes must pay Gado about $78,000
to make up the difference between what she was paid and what she was supposed
to get under her contract. Gado had claimed she was promised $8 per hour for a
40-hour workweek and $12 an hour for overtime, but was paid $250 a month, pay
that was increased to $325 in July 2006 when she was required to begin caring
for the Reyeses’ infant granddaughter. 'Slave trade' growth prompts action in FW www.kvue.com/news/state/stories/081707kvueslavetrade-eh.4247b468.html The International Chiefs of Police
Association delves into the secret world of human trafficking; and one
officer has managed to breach te walls and delve
into that world. He is one of few who work in the new Fort Worth Anti-Human
Trafficking Division. "You can buy a human being
out on the street for $90 and put him to work as a slave," the
undercover said. Women, men, boys and
girls are forced into prostitution. Some can end up having sex with different
men every 15 minutes while others are purchased to work on farms or
restaurants for little to no money. "Some of them are put to
sleep in garages," the officer said. "They're locked up in closets.
They're being fed very minimal. Especially, the females are being verbally
abused, physically abused." US
hands Lithuanian 7-year-sentence for human trafficking Michail Aronov,
34, and his business partners "smuggled women into the United States and
compelled them through threats and coercion to work as dancers in strip
clubs, holding them in a condition of involuntary servitude," the
department said in a statement. The
human trafficking network used the guise of a legitimate business, Beauty
Search Inc., to cover their criminal conduct, it added. "These criminals preyed upon
the hopes and dreams of women who came to the US for a better life, but found
only enslavement, exploitation, violence and isolation," special agent
in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of investigations
in Detroit said in the statement. Blacks enslaving blacks in 2008 [mssg
#81] Elizabeth, 54, was meted a three-year jail
term by the U.S. court after pleading guilty to a charge of forced
labor. The judge noted that Ruiz was made to sleep on a dog bed and
work 18 hours a day. Too, while she cleaned and provided fresh food to
the pets of the Jacksons, she was only given
three-day old food for her meals. After working several months for the Jacksons, Ruiz only got $300 as payment and was even
threatened by the Jacksons that she would be turned
over to the immigration authorities should she try to leave them. Christian Medical
Association Doctors: U.S. Government Must Link AIDS, Anti-Trafficking Efforts Highlighting a just-published
study showing that sex slaves spread AIDS even after their rescue from human
trafficking overlords and pimps, the nation's largest faith-based association
of doctors today called for more concerted U.S. government action related to
the link between AIDS and human trafficking. Dr. Barrows said, "Health
officials have just begun to recognize this link, and stronger emphasis is
needed. Interventions aimed at eradicating sex trafficking, rescuing and
restoring sex-trafficked victims, and preventing future sex trafficking need
to be a more strongly emphasized strategy in the President's Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and other AIDS-related programs. Anti-trafficking
measures should be specifically and consistently emphasized in AIDS-related
grant stipulations and proposal evaluations." Enslaved
in the U.S.A. - American victims need our help President Bush made combating human
trafficking a priority. Both Attorney Generals Ashcroft and Gonzales have
spoken out against trafficking in the U.S. and made the investigation and
prosecution of trafficking a priority. Most of the focus on identifying and
assisting victims and prosecuting offenders has been on foreign nationals
trafficked into the U.S. There are
more American citizens than foreign nationals victimized by sex traffickers
in the U.S., yet there are no federally funded services for them,
particularly if they are over age 17. Company
Accused Of Human Trafficking Workers from Thailand say they've
been made into economic slaves by the company that brought them to our
area. They're 20 men from Thailand who
for the past year have picked mushrooms in Armstrong County. They say they often did not get paid and
now they must return home where they will face enormous debt. Venture into an abandoned
limestone mine in Armstrong County and you'll find hundreds of workers
picking mushrooms in the dark. It's
tough work and not enough locals wanted the job so last year Creekside Mushrooms hired 20 legal guest workers from
Thailand through a California company called Global Horizons. Under the contract, Creekside
paid Global but soon discovered that Global wasn't paying the workers for
long stretches of time. Some nights, the men had to go fishing after work
just to feed themselves. "We made multiple phone calls
to the president of the company who then chose not to return any of my calls
or emails and the gentlemen just weren't getting paid," Domenic Galassi, an official with Creekside
Mushroom, said. And Galassi says their situation has become even more dire.
He says each man paid upwards of $20,000 to a recruiter in Thailand to come
to America on Global's promise of three years
employment. 3
Arrested in Human Trafficking Some factors taken into
consideration to file criminal charges against these individuals included
allegations of victims receiving rationed meals of limited quantity, the
acrobat performers not being paid the salary they were promised, their
passports and work visas being held from them, enforcers watching and
controlling the movements of the performers, and a fear of the performers
that their families in China, as well as themselves, would be harmed if they
attempted to leave. Nevada
man sentenced to life in prison on charges related to the sex trafficking of
minors The evidence at trial showed that
during the first two weeks of May 2005, Doss conspired with his wife, Jacquay Quinn Ford, to transport two girls across state
lines to work as prostitutes. Doss and Ford transported the victims -- one 14
and one 16 -- from Nevada to work as prostitutes in Los Angeles, Sacramento,
San Francisco and Oakland. Doss recruited and transported the 16-year-old
victim by the use of force. Las
Vegas Acrobatic Troupe Busted For Human Trafficking On Friday, the FBI and Metro
descended near Desert Inn and Grand Canyon. That's where authorities say
they found four adults and five juveniles being held against their will. State
struggles with legal, moral aspects of human trafficking "I saw the victims in the
brothels," said state Rep. Joanne Giannini,
recalling that many of the prostitutes were minors. "A lot of people
think that it doesn't exist." Giannini said when police have raided these facilities
the women refused emergency social and medical services. "They are
afraid of getting into trouble," she said. According to Garry Bliss, director
of policy and legislative affairs for Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline, efforts have been made to provide counseling
and social services to the women, but they rejected them, fearing retribution
from their captors – the owners of the establishments who reap big profits. He believes most of the women to
be in their 20s or 30s, and said some have probably been in this country for
some time, being moved constantly from state to state. They are initially
enslaved to pay off debts incurred in traveling to the United States. Often,
they have come to this country assuming that they are to work as housekeepers
or nannies. "It's a hole that
they can never dig themselves out of," Bliss said. "These women are
not acting on their own free will." Middle
Tennessee sees rise in human trafficking GIRLS LURED INTO SEX TRADE - As a result of November's
arrests, Nashville resident Cristina Andres Perfecto pleaded guilty to two
counts of commercial sex trafficking and admitted luring two Mexican girls to
the United States by telling them they would be employed at a restaurant in
Nashville. Perfecto admitted she knew all
along that the girls, who were 13 and 17, would be coerced to engage in
prostitution in brothels in Memphis and Nashville. Perfecto said physical
force and threats against the victims and their families were used to force
the girls to engage in prostitution. Woman Pleads
Guilty to Human Trafficking Related Charges Olga Mondragon
is a 47-year-old El Salvadoran national.
She and her co-defendants conspired with others to smuggle female
illegal aliens from Central America to Houston. Once in Houston, Olga Mondragon,
working with other co-defendants held the women and girls in a condition of
servitude in bars owned by the conspirators until the women had paid their
smuggling debts to the defendants. The
defendants used threats of harm to the women and their families to keep the
women in a condition of servitude. Specifically, Olga Mondragon
and her co-defendants threatened that the women's families or children would
pay the consequences if any of the young women attempted to leave before
paying their smuggling debts, including threats of kidnapping and threats to
report the young women to dangerous co-conspirators who could have people
killed or burn people's houses down. Falling Short
of the Mark: An International Study on the Treatment of Human Trafficking
Victims [PDF] UNITED STATES - The United States is complying
with its international obligations under the Trafficking Protocol for the
protection of victims of human trafficking. Increasing approval rates for
victims seeking residency and support are encouraging signs that the system
is working and not being abused. The integration of government and civil
society support, which receives some government funding as well, has had
encouraging results. There are some concerns about the needs of child victims
which warrant attention, as well as the degree of pressure put on victims to
cooperate with law enforcement officials. RESIDENCE - Under the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act (.TVPA.)78 and Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization
Act (.TVPRA.),79 the U.S. Department of Homeland Security may issue .T-Visas.
to allow victims of .severe forms of human trafficking. To remain in the country
in order to provide assistance in federal investigations and prosecutions of
those responsible for the harm they have suffered. After three years of
having T-Visa status, victims may apply for permanent residency. Victims may,
in some cases, also apply for non-immigrant status for their spouses and
children; or, in the case of victims under 21 years old, their parents. Details
emerge in human trafficking case in San Antonio How's $600 to buy what you'd like
simply for accompanying men on trips? We can make it happen, al otro lado — on the other
side. That pitch allegedly made by a
trio of women sounded like gold to some impressionable teens and a young
woman not making much in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Three girls agreed to be smuggled to the
United States in mid-May and once they were in or near San Antonio, they were
primped, new clothes were bought for them and they were given English
lessons. Their understanding was that they did not have to have sex with the
men. But rather than the glitz they
were promised, they were sold in an underground world for prostitution,
according to prosecutors and documents filed in federal court Friday. The girls were delivered to a man in San
Antonio referred to in court records as the "boss," who had them
strip, inspected their bodies and told them they were going to be having sex
with men for up to five years to pay off their smuggling debt. The "boss" said he had paid
$3,000 apiece for two of the girls and said he would pay even more to get
them ready for other men, witnesses told investigators, according to their
statements. Anyone who fled would die, and their families would also suffer
the same fate, the statements said. - HTUSAMX Laws Block Trafficking; Sexual Terror Ignored www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/3182/context/archive At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
The report found that half of all
states' laws now make trafficking a felony, nine
state laws provide restitution to victims and 11 states enacted laws providing
for victim protection. Many Midwestern states, including Missouri, Iowa,
Minnesota and Nebraska, had additional laws such as those to regulate travel
service providers that facilitate sex tourism. Report
Card on State Action to Combat International Trafficking [PDF] Each state therefore received five
letter grades, one for each type of law — criminalization, victim protection
and services, statewide interagency task force, regulation of international
marriage brokers, and regulation of travel service providers that promote sex
tourism. Each state’s individual report card includes a brief analysis of the
state’s legislation and includes recommendations for improvements. Fourth Chinese
National Pleads Guilty to Trafficking-Related Charge Each defendant acknowledged in his
or her plea having a role in recruiting and arranging travel and immigration
documents for Chinese females to travel to American Samoa to engage in
prostitution. Upon arrival, the victims, who were unpaid, were denied access
to their passports and return airline tickets, and were denied the opportunity
to leave until they had paid off increasing debts. Beatings,
Isolation and Fear: The Life of a Slave in the U.S. Evelyn Chumbow
was once a slave, but not in some distant country. She worked right here in
the United States. Chumbow,
now 21, was brought to suburban Maryland in 1996 from her native Cameroon by
Theresa Mubang. Mubang
promised Chumbow's family that if 11-year-old
Evelyn came to America, she would have the prospect of a bright future and a
first-rate education, as she had been a top student in her native country. Wealthy
N.Y. Couple Charged With Slavery The women, prosecutors said, were
subjected to beatings, had scalding water thrown on them and were forced to
repeatedly climb up stairs as punishment for perceived misdeeds. In one case,
prosecutors said, one of the women was forced to eat 25 hot chili peppers at
one time. One of the women also told
authorities they were forced to sleep on mats in the kitchen and were fed so
little, they had to steal food. The women legally arrived in the
United States on B-1 visas in 2002; the Sabhnanis
then confiscated their passports and refused to let them leave their home,
authorities said. Identified in court papers as Samirah
and Nona, the women said they were promised payments of $200 and $100 a
month, but federal prosecutors said they were never given money directly. One
of the victims' daughters living in Indonesia was sent $100 a month,
prosecutors said. Human
Trafficking on Long Island, NY The Long Island group was born in the
fall of 2004, just months after the arrests of a couple on Long Island in
what was then considered one of the largest human-trafficking cases in the
country. Mariluz Zavala and her husband, Jose
Ibanez, later pleaded guilty to smuggling 69 fellow Peruvian immigrants and
enslaving them in Amityville, Brentwood and Coram. Both are in prison; Zavala
was given 15 years, even longer than prosecutors asked for. Most Wanted Women: Human Trafficking Mastermind The Federal Bureau of
Investigations says this Guatemalan national lured twelve women -- three mere
minors -- with the promise of the American dream. "What they would do is go to these
countries to the rural areas and recruit women with the promise here and
making good money." After
crossing the border, promised dreams quickly turned in to nightmares as the
victims were forced into street prostitution to work off their smuggling fee. "Often times they were
physically abused if they tried to leave they were beaten up." Trafficking
victims spurn help But local investigators are
finding that victims of human trafficking don't surface easily. In the six months since World
Relief got a $450,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to help
survivors in the region, none have been found. Human
trafficking called a concern for N. Texas Given Kachepa,
20, of Zambia said he was lured out of his country nine years ago by a
Sherman-based Christian group that promised him a better life in the United
States. When he and 10 other boys got here, they were organized into a choir
that toured the nation, earning large fees for the ministry. Regardless of sickness or fatigue,
they were required to perform up to seven concerts a day, with no payment. "If we did not sing, the
choir manager would say, 'No singing, no food,' and he would turn off the gas
for the stove so we couldn't cook," Mr. Kachepa
said. "Sometimes we went for three days without having anything to
eat." Modern
day slave trade: Human trafficking continues, even in the U.S. According to a report published on
the Central Intelligence Agency Web site, “International Trafficking in Women
to the United States: A Contemporary Manifestation of Slavery and Organized
Crime,” 45,000-50,000 women and children are brought to the United States as
slaves every year. The document also reported that the majority of these
victims come from Latin American and Southeast Asia, although there has been
a recent influx of trafficking from Central and Eastern Europe. “After drug
dealing, trafficking of humans is tied with arms dealing as the second
largest criminal industry in the world, and is the fastest growing,” states
the United States Department of Health & Human Services Web site. Yes, There Are Slaves in the
United States, and the Problem Is Getting Worse. Emily Nicely, 19, was routinely
beaten with broom handles, a metal pipe, belts and wooden boards. She was forced to quit school, to do chores
and deliver newspapers without pay. She was by any definition - including
those of the federal government and the family that held her captive for six
months - a slave. Man
charged with human trafficking Carter said human trafficking
"is something that is coming to our attention more due to the fact that
we have a growing diverse population within Hillsborough County that could
potentially be victims." Victims generally do not report the crime,
because they are in the country illegally, she said. State mobilizes to fight human trafficking The problem: Trafficking has
proved hard to detect. Victims typically fear retribution and clam up,
experts say. Unlike smuggling, trafficking involves confiscation of travel
documents and other coercion. The U.S.
State Department estimates 14,500 to 17,500 foreign workers are brought into
the country each year via trafficking - part of a $9 billion global criminal
trade exceeded only by illegal arms and drug dealing. The victims of human trafficking www.khou.com/news/local/houstonmetro/stories/khou070227_ac_humantrafficking.15d0ee5.html “I felt more like a slave,” he
told 11 News in Spanish. While often
invisible, the stories are strikingly similar. “They were making sure I was so scared so
that I wouldn’t walk out, or immigration would come get me. “It was really hard for more it was tiring
my feet had blisters,” Diego said. At just 14, Diego journeyed alone
from Honduras to El Paso with an American dream, one that quickly turned into
a nightmare when ranchers took him in and forced him to clean stalls seven
days a week, he said. WJZ Investigates Sex Trafficking wjz.com/local/local_story_054143021.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
19-year-old Chantee
was hanging out with two friends in downtown Human
trafficking and slavery still active practices People can be sold repeatedly,
Atkinson said. This creates a tier of markets and prices, based on how worn a
person has become in the sex or labor trade, he said. In the sex trade,
people get sold overseas when they reach the lower prices. “From there, they die and never come back,”
he said. Human Trafficking Plaguing Maryland wjz.com/local/local_story_052195616.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Lidia and her daughters came to Human
Trafficking Victims May be Hidden in Plain Sight They are kidnapped, branded and
forced into prostitution. Or they are lured from their home countries to the
U.S. with the promise of jobs as nannies and housekeepers and then,
"once they get to the United States, it turns into quite a
nightmare." Man
pleads guilty to smuggling women for prostitution in brothel ring The ringleaders sneaked hundreds
of women into the United States, most of them from Latin American countries,
and forced them to have sex with as many as 40 men a day, according to the
court documents. They moved the women from brothel to brothel and kept the
earnings. "The prostitutes
reported they were not free to leave the brothels on their own, and the
brothel operators were usually armed with firearms," according to the filing. Lawsuit
accuses Connecticut nursery of human trafficking A dozen Guatemalan workers filed a
federal lawsuit Thursday accusing one of the nation's largest nurseries of
engaging in human trafficking by forcing them to work nearly 80 hours per
week, paying them less than minimum wage and denying them medical care for
injuries on the job. The workers, who filed the lawsuit
against Imperial Nurseries in Granby and its labor recruiter, say they were
promised jobs planting trees in North Carolina for $7.50 per hour. Instead,
they say they were taken in a van to Connecticut without their consent, had
their passports confiscated so they would not escape and were threatened with
arrest or deportation. "These workers came here
lawfully to earn a living and support their families," said Nicole Hallett, a Yale Law School student helping the workers.
"Instead they were defrauded and trapped into conditions of forced
labor." U.S.
intensifies fight against human trafficking A senior U.S. Justice Department
official estimated about 15,000 victims of human trafficking arrive in the
United States annually, some as young as 9 years old, destined for jobs in
brothels, as unpaid domestic servants, or in other jobs as virtual slaves. The victims represent a source of
continuing income for the rings that provide them, making human trafficking more
attractive than drug smuggling to some criminal syndicates, authorities said. Tall
Americano, Hold the Paycheck A Tacoma teen's coffee shop servitude
shows that human trafficking isn't just about sex slaves. When Abdenasser
"Sammy" Ennassime returned home to visit
his family in Morocco six years ago, he could brag of a bustling coffee shop,
a baby son, and an American wife to show for his more than two decades in the
United States. In this light, Ennassime's suggestion to bring his adolescent niece, Lamyaá, to his home in Tacoma to help with the new
baby—in return for enrolling her in school and guiding her toward U.S.
citizenship—was seen as the magnanimous gesture of a generous uncle. Woman
Pleads Guilty to Forcing Juvenile Girls Into Prostitution In Memphis At her plea hearing, Perfecto
admitted that she told the girls, who were 13 and 17 years of age at the
time, that they would be employed at a restaurant in Nashville, knowing all
along that the girls would be coerced to engage in prostitution in brothels
in Memphis and Nashville. Perfecto
further admitted that co-defendant Juan Mendez then used physical force and
threats against the victims and their families to force the victims to engage
in prostitution. Legislation
targets human trafficking in state Bradley and O'Dell, of Litchfield,
were convicted in 2003 of forcing four Jamaican men to work for their
tree-cutting business. The men lived in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, and
received no pay for their work, according to Zuckerman. Both Bradley and
O'Dell were sentenced to five years, 10 months in prison. Albany needs to wake up and pass a
law that will quash human traffickers and protect the most vulnerable. Human slavery - not just crummy pay and
lousy work conditions, but outright forced servitude, including the
kidnapping, buying and selling of people - is going on in New York City, which
is a major hub and destination in a monstrous, global slave trade. The modern resurgence of this ancient
horror will continue for exactly as long as cynical politicians and an
apathetic public allow it. "Pimps promise to smuggle the
impressionable girls into the United States, telling them they can get jobs
as nannies, cooks and maids - making enough money to support their families
back home," Bode wrote. "These traffickers charge the girls as much
as $7,500 in illicit crossing fees - but once they get to the United States,
the girls are raped and forced into prostitution. By the time the girls realize they have
been kidnapped, it's too late for them to escape." Human
trafficking is 'alive and well' in U.S. Human trafficking most commonly is
found in the sex trade, but also plagues the lives of farmworkers,
domestic servants and hotel and restaurant workers. The $10 billion annual revenue generated
through human trafficking, Colletti said, can start
like it did for a Chinese girl, "Maria." Maria is not her name but is a
documented example of trafficking. She was sold in China for $2,000 and taken
to France. She was then shipped to the United States, where she was sold to
her owner for $8,000. Maria logged
12-hour days in a Florida manufacturing company and received $20 per week.
She earned $55,000 annually for her owner but had to pay from her own pocket
for housing and food. New
Yorkers Draw Attention to Human Trafficking REPORTER: Human trafficking is a crime,
but there's no state law against it - only federal authorities can go after
the people who force women to prostitute themselves. But federal prosecutors
don't have the resources to go after low profile, smaller-scale traffickers,
so Jane Manning of Equality Now says it's outrageous that New York hasn't
joined 21 other states and made it a crime. MANNING: There are traffickers all over
NYC getting way with it. REPORTER: New York is a hub for
traffickers but when police encounter prostitutes here, they're not trained
to recognize which are victims of trafficking and they have little power to
go after the trafficker. Thais
Receive Compensation and Visas in Los Angeles Human Trafficking Case Ten people were hired to work on
the Bay Bridge retrofit by Trans Bay, a manufacturer of hinge pipe beams.
Others worked in two Thai restaurants owned by Kim in the Los Angeles area.
The restaurant workers were kept in safe houses where they slept on floors
and were given scraps of food, Martorell said. Some
of them were paid about $200 over three months, despite working seven days a
week, 10 hours a day, she said. It
wasn't until one of them escaped and went to the Thai community center that
an investigation was launched. Officials
decry trafficking of women for sex Campbell said the women work,
sleep and eat in the dingy massage parlors that are run from storefronts near
the State House, downtown and on South Main Street. “They work from the time they get
up til the time they go to bed,” he said. “They
don’t go home at night.” Campbell said the women, mostly between the ages of
20 and 50, sleep on mattresses and cook from Sterno
cans in the back rooms. Feds
raid human trafficking ring Citing unnamed law enforcement
sources, CBS 4 News said the raid disrupted the ring that allegedly has
imported hundreds of Korean women into the United States and forced them into
prostitution as a means to pay off their debts. Human trafficking cases increase in El Paso libertasuiuc.blogspot.com/2006/11/human-trafficking-cases-increase-in-el_12.html www.speforums.com/showthread.php?t=737 Gardes showed the photograph of a field
worker standing on top of a large farm truck -- a scene common across the
Southwest. His name is Ricardo, she said. He was smuggled across the border
in Arizona and abandoned in the desert for eight days with only three days'
worth of food and water. He was found by another smuggler who offered to
guide him, for a fee. When Ricardo couldn't pay, the smuggler sold him to a
Florida labor contractor for $1,100.
This became Ricardo's debt. He worked in a field for $80 a week to
repay it. At the same time, his trafficker overcharged him for rent and other
necessities. Gardes said he was never meant to be
able to repay the debt. One day,
another trafficking victim escaped, was recaptured and was beaten in front of
Ricardo and the others. "At this point, Ricardo realized this was really
slavery," Gardes said. Human
Trafficking Charges Filed The immigrants were charged
between $13,000 and $19,500. Those who failed to repay their smuggling debts
were physically threatened, a federal prosecutor, Winston Chan, said yesterday at the
arraignment. In one instance, a
defendant, Oktavian Kupchanko,
said he would have the wife and daughters of one of the immigrants raped
because the immigrant was behind on his debts, according to a court papers
filed by prosecutors. Human trafficking focus of workshop bangordailynews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=142413&zoneid=500 Part of the problem has been that
those smuggled into this country, whether on promises of a better life, other
false pretenses or coercion, have largely been treated as criminals
themselves, he said. The victims have faced prostitution charges and in the
case of them being here illegally, face deportation back to their own country
where living conditions could be equally bad or worse. The image of the victim as
criminal seems to be changing, largely prompted by a federal law change in
2000 that Gilbert said establishes provisions for treating the victims as
refugees. The provisions include the possibility of a special trafficking
visa and the prospects of housing and employment assistance and medical and
mental health services, if needed. The idea is to take a new approach
to an old problem by bringing in social services and law enforcement on the
ground level, identifying indicators of possible trafficking so that the
traffickers can be caught and those that they smuggled in can be helped. Human Trafficking in Minnesota www.rlnn.com/ArtOct06/HumanTraffickingMinnesota.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Minnesota social service groups
have assisted up to 500 sex trafficking victims and 55 labor trafficking
victims in the past three years, according to results of a study issued last
month by the state Department of Public Safety and reported in the Sept. 16
Star Tribune. The study confirms my experience as a prosecutor that human
trafficking is a much bigger issue than had been imagined in our state. Trafficking victims may be
desperately poor, dependent on drugs, in a country illegally, or just a kid
running away from home. Whatever the vulnerabilities, traffickers create
situations in which their victims are nearly powerless -- from beating,
raping and starving them, to hooking them on drugs, to taking away their
passports or other documents and threatening to deport them. Federal
human trafficking bust implicates downtown establishment Many of the women who were brought
to the United States to work in such establishments came from Korea in the
hopes of making money to support their families but were caught in the grasps
of debt bondage and sold their bodies to pay off transportation costs,
according to the Department of Justice press release. Brothel owners and
managers often confiscated the women's identification and travel documents,
and some of the women worked under threats of harm to their families back
home. Woman Gets 10
Years For Human Trafficking A tearful woman was
sentenced to just over 10 years in federal prison Friday for her role in a
human trafficking operation that enticed women from Korea to come to the U.S.
to work as hostesses at a Flushing bar. Anti-Human
Trafficking Law Helps Workers But Many Still Afraid Advocates say the public is
increasingly aware of the plight of young girls kidnapped or tricked into
working in brothels. They say, however, that too often the cases of farm
workers forced to work off ballooning smuggling debts through fraud or coercion
are shrugged off as part of the illegal immigration issue. Officials name sex slave suspect trib.com/news/state-and-regional/article_85e04b9c-c610-5c5d-9aa0-1f85e735d265.html www.jacksonholestartrib.com/articles/2006/09/21/news/wyoming/a5bdcb468a2de556872571ef008133cd.txt Investigators say the girl, who
was 13 years old at the time, told a teenage girlfriend, also alleged to have
been smuggled and forced to have sex for money with many men here, of her
plan to escape to Mexico. Affidavits say the friend informed one or both of
their captors, a reportedly 32-year-old Idaho carpenter and a 42-year-old
Jackson restaurateur -- both in custody -- of the escape plan. That caused
the alleged coyote-ringleaders to threaten to kill a man the 13-year-old
victim said she “had met and liked” in Phoenix if she tried to run away, the
documents say. 5 Charged
In Alleged Human Trafficking Scheme Authorities said that the victims
thought they had signed up for a student-work program, where they could earn
as much as $10,000 over the summer. Instead, they allegedly worked 13-hour
days, seven days a week. One student earned what amounted to 87 cents an
hour. In addition, investigators said
that eight of them shared two, one-bedroom apartments that had a television
and a mattress. "The defendants
cut the students off from nearly all forms of communication -- no telephone,
no Internet," Schlozman said. Investigators said the students were also
told their movements were being tracked by a global positioning system
device. Don’t
sweep human trafficking under the rug Media coverage of human
trafficking has alternated between the polar extremes of nonexistence and
hysteria — a New York Times Magazine story in 2004, for example, referred to
an “epidemic” of trafficking and published numbers that, in retrospect, seem
grossly inflated. The irresponsible use of the word
“epidemic,” a hallmark of trend journalism, takes the emphasis away from
where it should be. The issue isn’t the statistically dubious claim that
human trafficking and sexual servitude are swelling uncontrollably in the
United States, it’s that the situation exists at all. Fear-mongering and hysteria are
not helpful. What is helpful is the approach taken by the D.A.’s office and
Jewish Coalition: Find a way to get these women away from their captors and
set aside money for such programs — as new state laws do — while
energetically prosecuting human traffickers. Human
trafficking investigated in American Samoa Court affidavits filed in the
government’s case against two Chinese nationals believed to be a the
forefront of the prostitution ring indicate that young Chinese women were
promised jobs at a store. They instead
were forced in to prostitution. Human trafficking
is the new face of slavery in America In Arkansas, awareness of trafficking
abuse is low -- but it's probably happening out there. Immigrants and women
are at highest risk. Catholic Charities is collaborating with the FBI and
other organizations in the Arkansas Civil Rights Working Group to raise
awareness and help spot cases. Anti-trafficking
expert teaches training course Another emerging problem in the
human trafficking world is gangs, he said. California gangs are starting to
venture into the lucrative crime by recruiting girls from U.S. elementary and
high schools into prostitution with the promise of good money and nice
clothes, he said. But conditions soon change and girls are forced to stay, he
said. Some girls are trafficked out of state, said Castro, noting that San
Diego law enforcers have three or four such open investigations. 5 D.C. Spas Raided In Human-Trafficking Case www.nbc4.com/news/9690144/detail.html At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Authorities have 31 people in
custody and more than 70 suspected Korean sex slaves were freed. Investigators
said the suspects smuggled Korean women through Canada and Mexico. To help
pay off their smuggling fee, the women were forced to work in brothels in
seven states -- including Maryland -- and the District. Seen, but
not heard [ACCESS
RESTRICTED] At the recent sentencing hearing
of Mi Na Malcolm, the madam's victims — women who worked as prostitutes at
Dallas brothels — finally had the chance to tell a federal judge about their
horrific experiences since coming to the United States. Yet they did not speak. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah
Saldana recalls that the four women, who had worked in this country without
proper documentation, told her they were too afraid to talk in the Dallas
courtroom — even though they faced no criminal charges themselves, and
telling their stories to the judge might bolster their visa applications.
Such victims often fear retribution from those who kept them captive, and
they don't trust the authorities to help them, Saldana says. Immigrant
sisters admit charges in human trafficking Two Honduran sisters admitted yesterday
that they helped smuggle dozens of illegal female immigrants -- some as young
as 14 -- into the United States, then forced them to live together and work
at North Jersey bars. The admissions by Noris Elvira and Ana Luz Rosales-Martinez, during a
federal court hearing in Trenton, brought to five the number of guilty pleas
in what authorities say was a case of indentured servitude. Under questioning from
prosecutors, the women said they helped oversee dozens of illegal Hondurans
who were forced to work six days a week and live in cramped Hudson County
apartments until they could repay smuggling fees as high as $20,000. The immigrants earned $5 an hour,
plus tips, by dancing and drinking with male patrons at bars in Union City
and Guttenberg. One ring member said the girls were encouraged to prostitute
themselves; another said they were beaten if they ignored the house rules. Woman sentenced to 10 years in human trafficking case A Korean woman who admitted making
illegal immigrant women pay off their smuggling debt through prostitution was
sentenced today in Dallas to ten years in prison. Mi Na Malcolm, known as Sora,
also was ordered to pay a 460-thousand dollar fine. She must forfeit a B-M-W,
a Lexus, more than 218-thousand dollars in cash, and electronic equipment. 3 men sentenced for roles in bar prostitution ring Two members of a ring that
smuggled Central and South American women into the United States and forced
them into prostitution were sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison. A
third was sentenced to four years. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruben
Perez said the case is evidence of a major shift toward more aggressive
investigation and prosecution of human trafficking cases since the formation
of the alliance of law enforcement agencies and nongovernmental organizations
that work with victims. Oversight: Human Trafficking In New York City webdocs.nyccouncil.info/attachments/74608.htm?CFID=1944767&CFTOKEN=53306200 TRAFFICKING IN NEW YORK CITY - New York City is an
ethnically diverse city with a large population of undocumented migrants, some
who may have been trafficked. Although statistics are difficult to
ascertain, In June 2004, Senzatimore's
group initiated an investigation into a suspected trafficking organization
operating out of Long Island, New York. They found the largest human
trafficking operation ever uncovered in the United States. Thanks to their work, the
trafficking ring has been dismantled, the leader of this effort is behind
bars, and more than 80 people, including several children, have been freed
from this modern-day slavery. Defense Department Combats Human Trafficking www.theconservativevoice.com/article/15561.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Trafficking in persons is a
commercial trade where human beings are subjected to involuntary acts such as
prostitution or indentured servitude, which many feel constitutes a modern
form of slavery. Force, fraud and coercion are methods used by traffickers to
obtain and recruit persons. McGinn said the Defense Department is
focused on two areas: the overseas sex exploitation industry near U.S. areas
of operations and the employment practices of civilian contractors supporting
DoD operations overseas. American tax dollars and the
wartime needs of the U.S. military are fueling an illicit pipeline of cheap
foreign labor, mainly impoverished Asians who often are deceived, exploited
and put in harm's way in Iraq with little protection. Conference Held on Human Trafficking www.onnnews.com/?sec=home&story=10tv/content/pool/200606/216170827.html Tina Frundt
with the Polaris Project says, You get tired of every day and living, you get
tired of someone beating you every day, you get tired of sleeping with twenty
to thirty men every day, you get tired and you hit rock bottom. Frundt was only 14 when a man in
Cleveland forced her into commercial sex. Today, she calls herself a survivor
of human trafficking. Human Trafficking In North Texas cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_story_163232228.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
The changes also acknowledged they
held women against their will at their $330,000 Coppell house. The couple
watched them closely with video surveillance cameras at their house and
business and had employees guard the exits.
Federal agents arrested the Changs in April
of last year after one of the five women being held inside the house managed
to escape. Prosecutors say she jumped out of a second floor window. Coalition
to battle human trafficking Many victims fear coming forward
because captors threaten to kill them and their families. Some victims are
U.S. citizens - runaways or homeless. Others face language and cultural
barriers, she said. During the past 11
months, Rodriguez's coalition has worked with nine victims in Florida from
Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala - two adults, six girls and a boy, she said. Legalizing Human Trafficking www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2006/0506sen.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
For six months, Francisco* was a
prisoner of his employers. He was housed in a trailer in rural central
Florida with six other men from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. He would
work from dawn until dusk picking oranges, earning an unbelievable $15 a
week. He and his fellow workers were watched by armed guards and repeatedly
threatened that they would be killed if they tried to run away. Vigilance
Needed in Fight Against Human Trafficking The maid revealed that despite
being promised a part-time job and a work visa, her employer paid far less
than minimum wage, did not offer breaks, held her travel documents, isolated
her from calling her family, and threatened to call the police and
immigration authorities. She spoke little English and had no idea who she
could call for help. Wisconsin Couple
Convicted on Human Trafficking Charges The Justice Department today
announced the conviction of a Wisconsin couple, Jefferson and Elnora Calimlim, on human trafficking charges for using threats
of serious harm and physical restraint against a Philippine woman to obtain
her services as their domestic servant for 19 years. Human
Trafficking: Modern Day Slavery, Part 1 Nineteen trafficking cases were
reported to The Greater Milwaukee Area Rescue and Restore Coalition over the
past year. Incidents were reported in cities like Milwaukee, Spencer,
Waukesha, Brookfield and in Jefferson and Fond Du
Lac Counties. Victims are forced to
work with no pay or freedoms in restaurants, resorts, factories on farms and
in suburban neighborhoods. A new bid to halt toll of human trafficking dwb.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14258029p-15072572c.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Florencia Molina's sewing teacher in New Process
Benefits Victims of Human Trafficking Seeking College Aid Victims of human trafficking who cooperate
with law enforcement officials to prosecute traffickers will benefit from a
new, streamlined process to apply for and receive federal financial aid for
postsecondary education, announced today by U.S. Education Secretary Margaret
Spellings. Three charged in alleged human trafficking scheme talk.assmotax.org/viewtopic.php?topic=9319&forum=10&7 Marion County prosecutor Carl Brizzi is charging three men with holding about 20
undocumented immigrants in a one bedroom Indianapolis apartment. Brizzi says the
three … threatened to kill the immigrants if they tried to leave. Human
Trafficking Is Modern Day Slavery, Prostitution Is Involved But trafficking also occurs in
forms of labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude or restaurant work,
sweatshop, factory work or migrant agricultural work. Victims serve in wealthy
residents' homes, migrants trapped in the fields trying to pay off a debt
they never will be able to pay to captors who helped smuggle them into the
country. Children are smuggled into the country and sex slavery. Millionaire NY Couple Charged With Human Trafficking www.change.org/news/view?news_id=826 Two Nassau County residents are
charged with using physical abuse, threats of physical abuse and physical
restraint against two Indonesian females working as domestic servants at
their residence. Mission woman found guilty of human trafficking www.ginsc.net/members/news_details_en.php?id=1122&sub=traffiking&stat=active At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Prosecutors say Ellilian Ramos paid a smuggler $250 to bring the two
women across the Batres and Sales say the couple promised
to pay them $125 a week after smuggling costs were worked off. Instead, Ellilian Ramos didn't pay them and threatened to call
immigration authorities if they tried to leave. The women said they also worked
for the Ramos' family members and at Papacito's Day
Care, which is owned by Ellilian Ramos' sister.
Both women escaped through a window on Jan. 11, 2005, with help from two
women they met at the business. Man Sentenced For Human Trafficking Maka smuggled seven men from Tonga and
forced them to work for his landscaping and construction business for less
than a hundred dollars a week. Often they received no pay at all. Maka beat them with his fists, pieces
of lumber or a two-foot-long metal spike. Victims say they had to resort to
killing stray dogs for food. New push to combat human trafficking Victims of human trafficking blend
in with the community as they toil as nannies, servants, laborers and
sweatshop and construction workers, said a top Illinois official at the
Saturday launch of an outreach campaign aimed at fighting the problem. The campaign is intended to alert
people to look for signs of abuse that indicate workers have been forced into
servitude, said Carol Adams, director of the state Department of Human
Services. Key
Witness missing in CO slavery case against Homaidan
Al-Turki and Sarah Khonaizan An Indonesian woman who was kept
as a virtual slave and who was also a key witness against a Saudi Arabian
couple, Homaidan Al-Turki
and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan. A modern day slavery
case where the victim was forced cook clean and was sexually abused. Three Mexican Nationals Convicted of Sex Trafficking houston.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel06/ho20606a.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
At this re-arraignment hearing on
Friday, February 3, Jose Luis Moreno Salazar admitted that in 2004 he, along
with another, illegally smuggled a then 15 year old juvenile Mexican girl,
M.R.G., into the United States, knowing she was a minor and compelled her to
serve as a prostitute through the use of force, fraud and coercion for the financial
benefit of the conspirators. Jose Luis Moreno Salazar lured
M.R.G. from her family by professing love and claiming she would live with
him as his common law wife. The evidence proved that once in Houston,
Jose Luis Moreno Salazar housed M.R.G. and other women and girls in
apartments leased by members of the organization and transported them to area
bars for the purpose of prostitution. Jose Luis and his co-conspirators
provided instruction to the women and girls regarding how to service clients
and required them to turn over their prostitution proceeds at the end of each
day for the benefit of the conspirators. Jose Luis and others
threatened the women and girls to create a climate of fear to compel and
maintain their service as prostitutes. Jose Luis subjected M.R.G. to
beatings for perceived infractions. The beatings were committed with a
belt, a wire hanger, or a cable. For disobedience, M.R.G. was also
threatened with a knife and beaten by other co-conspirators at the behest of
Jose Luis. M.R.G. was 17 years old when she was rescued by
investigating agents in September 2005. Sex rings
prey on immigrant women SUPPLY AND DEMAND
- Human trafficking often
begins with someone paying to be smuggled across the border. The situation
changes when smugglers increase their prices or add fees the person is unable
to pay. Smugglers then force them into work to pay off the debt. For women,
the work is often prostitution. In all, between 20,000 and 50,000
victims are trafficked yearly into the United States, including thousands in
North Carolina. They are also forced to work in factories, migrant farms,
construction and domestic work. Most victims in Charlotte come from Central
and South America, but some others come from Asia and Eastern Europe. Emancipation
2006 - Saving innocents from modern-day slavery (a work in progress) According to U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, investigations into trafficking "increased by more
than 400 percent in the first six months of fiscal year 2005, compared to the
total number of cases in fiscal year 2004." Although keeping true
numbers on these elusive crimes is next to impossible, according to the U.S.
Department of Justice, between 14,500 and 17,500 people are being traded
within the United States. Mexican national pleads guilty to bringing sex slaves to
Houston-area bars www.khou.com/news/local/crime/stories/khou060117_gj_mexicannational.11a093cb.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Salvador Fernando Molina Garcia,
37, an illegal immigrant, has pleaded guilty to smuggling girls and young
women from The single count superseding
indictment re-alleges that Gerardo Salazar, 40, is the leader of a group of
men who smuggled minor girls and young women from Mexico into the United
States. Using deception, threats of harm, physical force and psychological
coercion, Salazar compelled their service for prostitution in Houston area
bars. Slavery Slips Through Cracks in U.S. Policy newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2032 Bernstein, whose group handles a
constant flow of slavery cases, listed some typical scenarios: An offer to earn good wages and study
lures a teenage girl abroad, where she is forced to work eighteen hours a day
as a housekeeper Aided by a smuggler, a young man’s
passage across the US-Mexico border ends with a crushing debt, to be repaid
through captive manual labor. More Slave-Holding Immigrants in the West Abdelnasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim, 45, and his
former wife Amal Ahmed Ewis-abd
Motelib, 43: The Egyptian immigrants, living in Salvadoran Nationals in the U.S. Arrested
for Sex Trafficking Scheme According to the complaint, one
young woman earned about $500 to $600 a week selling drinks to male
customers. But after paying debts that included alien smuggling fees, food,
housing, clothing and other miscellaneous items, she received approximately
$50 each week. In addition to the almost insurmountable debt, the complaint
alleges that the defendants used threats of violence against the women and
their families to control them and keep them working. The complaint alleges
that the defendants compelled the woman and girls to submit to the sexual
demands of the defendants, their close associates and bar patrons. U.S. crackdown on child prostitution hits
Michigan Two Toledo girls -- one 14 years old,
the other 15 -- were held against their will and forced to perform sex for
pay at hotels in Ohio and a truck stop in Michigan, according to a federal
grand jury indictment unsealed Friday in Detroit. According to a plea agreement
filed today, in January 2003, Okhotina paid for a
ticket for her 18-year-old niece to fly from Russia to Los Angeles. When the
teenager arrived in Los Angeles, she lived with Okhotina
at her apartment. Soon after, Okhotina took
possession of her niece’s passport and told her that she would have to work
as a prostitute. Okhotina coerced her niece to work as a
prostitute by telling her that she would be arrested if she went to the
police because she was here in the United States illegally. Okhotina also told the niece that if she left the
apartment, or if Okhotina made her leave the
apartment, she would have no place to stay and would be on the street. As a result of this coercion, the
teenager engaged in prostitution in California and Las Vegas, Nevada. Okhotina took the money that her niece received for
prostituting herself. Sex slavery is big business www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou051116_cd_humantraffic.68b08d04.html Earlier this week,
eight people were charged with smuggling 100 girls from Central America into Police target human trafficking In Indiana, at least 2
inquiries are under way into rings that push people into prostitution,
slavery. Marlene Harpi
arrived in Indianapolis from New York in June 2001, believing she would be
starting a $500-a-week baby-sitting job.
The Honduran woman, then 34, was told instead she would be working as
a prostitute in a duplex in the 3000 block of Enslaved in America: Sex Trafficking in the United States I was 14 years old
when I was forced into prostitution. Like many teens at that age, finding my
own identity and defying my parents were top on my list. So when a man came
into my life and showered me with attention and listened to me when I
complained about my parents, I did not think twice that he was ten years my
senior. After all, he said I was mature for my age and told me I understood
him better than anyone his own age. Human Trafficking Seen as Threat Within
Nation's Borders "This summer we
arrested a ring where 100 girls from Runaway raped, held as sex slave Since September, the
15-year-old girl had been raped repeatedly, threatened with death and sold
for sex over the Internet, police said.
Her captors hid the runaway in a hollowed-out box spring covered with
a piece of wood and tucked underneath a bed in a small apartment complex
adjacent to Interstate 17 in west Suspect in runaway prostitute case was child prostitute www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=4100972&nav=menu216_5 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Couple guilty of fraud, forced labor The married owners of a
group home for the mentally ill were convicted Monday of enslaving its
residents, forcing them to work naked and perform videotaped sex acts. Woman Tells Terrifying Story Of Teen Prostitution Her nightmare started
in a Sex trafficking hits home www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/10/31/65875 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
You couldn't spot them
on the street, but right now there are slaves living in local neighborhoods,
hidden in basements and being transported along area highways. The CIA estimates 50,000 women and children
are transported each year throughout the To stop a forced sex trade www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/10/31/65899 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
She said she was
trafficked by her family as a young girl and escaped by saving money for
college. Stark attended the University her first year and transferred to
University of Wisconsin-Madison to get away from her family. Rural Slavery is no longer black, white Due to recent increases
in the number of trafficking in persons cases and the release of the 5th
annual Trafficking in Persons Report, President George W. Bush has required
the Department of Defense to increase its training and awareness of this
crime in order to assist in its prevention.
The Marine Corps has decided to take on this challenge in a very
direct manner. “The Marine Corps will
take a zero tolerance approach to trafficking in persons…and the Marine Corps
opposes all activities that contribute to this crime,” said Gen. Michael W. Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps, in All Marine
Message 016/05. In light of the Corps
zero tolerance stance no Marine, Sailor or civilian Marine will ever
participate in any crime associated with trafficking in persons, no matter
how small the association. Doing so will result in severe punishment. A former inmate has
told jurors how corrections officers ignored his written pleas for help, and
even laughed at him, while he was repeatedly raped and sold into sexual
slavery by prisoners who viewed him as property. According to court documents, vulnerable
inmates were told to either fight it out with rapists or find boyfriends who
would protect them in return for sex. Mr. Johnson says gang members were free
to rape him, sometimes by paying a few dollars to the prisoner who in effect
"owned" him. Behind the moral panic, an opportunity to
work When hundreds of
federal and state agents descended on massage parlors in On paper the law looks good. But in
practice it hasn't helped many people so far, and it's hurt others, while
placing undue emphasis on commercial sex work and downplaying the plight of
victims in other jobs, like Service providers stress that
coerced sex brutalizes victims, and they're glad the government and the media
are concerned. But they wonder why other workers' suffering gets so much less
attention. The terror evoked by imprisonment in a sweatshop, says CAST's Buck, "is just as severe as it is for a
person who's sex trafficked." As the hound of human traffickers,
John Miller believes playing politics is not an option. Recently, Goldberg elaborated: "I've
only interviewed about 20 million people in my time. He was furious that he'd
been lied to about this. He just came through as the real deal." U.S. kids coerced into prostitution ALMOST A
BRAINWASHING - "He
kept all the money. He made them believe he was keeping the money for them.
The girls were not free to leave. He kept them in horrible hotels. And moved them
around. He paid for food and clothing," said Assistant U.S. Attorney
Carrie Hamilton. "It's almost a brainwashing that takes place. It's a
very complicated, horrible relationship." Surviving Chicago's sex slave trade A GUN TO
THE HEAD - Mishulovich and the others had no intention of ever
letting the debt get paid down, authorities said. On a good night, Z would
earn $500. And just about all of it went to the crew, who also checked her
belongings at the end of the night, looking for hidden cash. Captive Workforce (American Samoa) [PDF] [page 7] Around nine o’clock, the guards would shut the gates of the factory compound, preventing employees from escaping. But the fences were only an extra precaution; starvation, threats and beatings had sapped many of even the hope of ever leaving. A HIDDEN
PROBLEM - Regarding
this phenomenon, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) declared that in 2004
it detected sixteen thousand undocumented Mexicans and Central Americans
subjected to sex and labor slavery in the U.S. Agents Raid Fla. Migrant Labor Camp Officials said homeless people
were recruited to the Evans Labor Camp through offers of room and board,
along with alcohol, tobacco and drugs, which they bought on credit. But they
never made enough in the field to pay it off, according to an investigative
summary. "A lot of times, they
get them indebted even before they get back to the camp," Human trafficking goes on in U.S., too www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15491503&BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=222087&rfi=6 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
On Jan. 1, 2002, she worked her
first shift at the dressmaker’s; sewing roughly 200 party dresses over 12
hours. Later, the shifts often stretched
to 17 hours a day. Molina was locked into the shop at night - sleeping with a
co-worker in a small storage room. The shop manager paid Molina roughly $100
a week, confiscated her identity documents, and told her she would be
arrested if she went to the authorities.
"For me, it was completely dark, without money, without English,
no papers, nothing," Molina said in an interview. 10 Charged in International Human Smuggling Ring www.ice.gov/pi/news/newsreleases/articles/050721newark.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
The women, mostly from rural, poor
villages in Saudis
Import Slaves to America Last week, however, the FBI accused
the couple of enslaving an Indonesian woman who is in her early 20s. For four
years, reads the indictment, they created "a climate of fear and
intimidation through rape and other means." The slave woman cooked,
cleaned, took care of the children, and performed other tasks for little or
no pay, fearing that if she did not obey, "she would suffer serious
harm." It's shocking, especially for a graduate student and owner of a religious bookstore - but not particularly rare. Here are other examples of enslavement, all involving Saudi royals or diplomats living in America. To be sure, sex slavery in the A Modern Slave Trade www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/48633.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Consider recent trafficking cases
right here in Earlier this spring, a American women and girls are
victims of sex trafficking too. In February of this year, a father-son team
in NY
State Wants to Make Human Trafficking a Felony Last March, a Filipino-American Wisconsin
couple — both physicians — was indicted for human trafficking for holding a
Filipina as a domestic servant in their home for 19 years by threatening her
with deportation, imprisonment and physical restraint. Last fall, a 60-year-old Filipino woman in The new face of slave trade in Houston? www.khou.com/news/local/houstonmetro/stories/khou050526_jt_slavetrade.2b139287e.html The contents of this article were
found within a larger article and may possibly still be accessible [here]
He says the girls working at most
Asian and Oriental spas were smuggled here against their will. "They don't let 'em
out the doors. They don't get breaks. They can't leave and go shopping,"
says David. Three
Arrested in Connection with Prostitution Case Two Human
trafficking initiative advances in eastern Missouri "The minute you start talking
about it, individuals in the community will say, 'I may know somebody who may
be a victim," said Suzanne LeLaurin, vice
president of the International Institute, a refugee resettlement agency.
"The victims are so controlled by traffickers, it's difficult to find
them until you start doing assertive outreach and investigation. "As soon as you start doing that, you
find them." Bills Target International Slave Trade www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/6308912p-6185191c.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Slave trafficking is not a new
problem on the world stage, but now states are responding to calls to fight
it at home - even in Study Alleges Slavery In State www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ca/v-print/story/12462334p-13318412c.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
The greatest number
of victims were forced to work in prostitution, according to the
report. Others labored in garment sweatshops or as house cleaners. The bulk of the abuses occurred in and
around Forced-Labor
Charges For Saudi Prince's Wife The wife of a Saudi prince was
arrested yesterday for allegedly forcing two Indonesian housekeepers to work
for her family at homes in Russian woman pleads innocent to forcing niece into
prostitution www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20050516-2004-ca-sextrafficking.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Her niece, who was 18 at the time
and had come from a small town near St. Petersburg, told investigators Okhotina hid her passport, destroyed her plane ticket
home and subjected her to regular beatings, threats and rape by strangers,
the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said. Florida Man Accused of Buying Children for use in
Pornography www.nbc-2.com/articles/readarticle.asp?articleid=2487&z=3&p= At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
A The indictment alleges that Ibrahim and Motelib obtained
the victim's services through extortionate threats against the victim's
sister in Egypt. The couple then arranged through a third party to
fraudulently obtain a visa for the victim so she could travel to the Opening our Eyes to the World's Trafficking Nightmare “Neighbors, I’m sure, thought I
was family and had no idea I’d been sold for $2,500 to be a servant,”
described Micheline, a trafficking survivor, to a
crowd at the International Institute of Boston. Micheline,
who lost her parents as a young child, was 14 when her extended family told
her she was moving to the United States. Eager and hopeful, her world
crumbled when she found herself molested, abused, and forced to look after
three young children day and night.” Couple
Indicted On Human Trafficking Charges According to the three count indictment,
Joseph Djoumessi and Evelyn Djoumessi
violated federal law by fraudulently bringing a 14 year old Cameroonian girl
into the "Too often human traffickers
bait young girls with promises of the American dream only to then force them
into involuntary servitude. Civilized society cannot tolerate this,"
said R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights
Division. "The Justice Department takes these charges very seriously and
is committed to prosecuting those who attempt to profit by the systematic
abuse and degradation of others." Woman pleads
guilty to holding a domestic worker in involuntary servitude In 1997, the defendant, Mariska Trisanti, arranged for
the victim to travel from Indonesia to Los Angeles on a tourist visa, with
the expectation that the victim would work for her for two years as a nanny
and housekeeper. When the victim arrived in the United States however, Trisanti confiscated her passport to prevent her from
running away and put her to work for 17 hours or more per day, seven days a
week. The victim received virtually no compensation for her labor. Although Trisanti initially made some payments to the victim's
relatives, even those payments stopped entirely after the first year of service. Farm
Contractors Plead Guilty In Slavery Case The town of Albion grabbed national headlines in June 2002 when six migrant farm workers narrowly escaped the camps where they were being held in virtual slavery. Now, in federal plea agreements, a family of farm labor contractors have pleaded guilty to charges of forced labor and harboring illegal aliens. Prostitution horror for young women www.nydailynews.com/front/story/296058p-253464c.html Before the night is over, the
girls of "Zona Rosa" - a notorious
red-light district just a few blocks from the main tourist drag in this
Mexican border town - will make as much as $250 each by selling sex. It's cold-blooded sexual slavery - forced
prostitution that began when they were kidnapped from their small towns in Livonia Man Pleads Guilty to Crimes Relating to
Involuntary Servitude detroit.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel06/de03080906.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Maksimenko admitted today that he and his
business partners, including Aronov, trafficked in
Eastern European women and used the guise of a legitimate business – Beauty
Search, Inc. – to cover their criminal conduct. Maksimenko
admitted that he and his partners smuggled women into the Region's human traffic is targeted - Task force to prosecute sex-trade, slavery cases Many of the girls and young women
had been promised work as maids and were smuggled into Three Mexicans Plead Guilty in New York Human-Trafficking Case They admitted to forcing young
Mexican women into prostitution in brothels throughout the Homegrown Sex Trafficking [PDF] [page 6] Escape is often impossible. Fear maintains their victim status. Minors live in fear of sadistic acts by "customers," fear of being beaten and abused if they fail to bring in their quota (ranging from $500 to $1,800 a day/night), fear of losing their coping mechanisms (drugs and alcohol), and fear of losing a place to live and food to eat. These children are also ashamed and fear their families will find out what they have been doing. They fear the police and fear being returned home. U.S. Cooperates with Europe to Combat Sex Trafficking - Fact Sheet DOJ estimated in June 2004 that
14,500-17,500 people were being trafficked into the United States annually:
3,500-5,500 from Europe and Eurasia …3,500-5,500 from Latin America …
5,000-7,000 from East Asia and the Pacific … 200-700 from Africa …200- 600
from South Asia … 0- 200 from the Near East Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 1 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwid Ending
the quiet tragedy of modern-day slavery In the past 12 months, immigration
agents have raided a number of suspected brothels in quiet San Francisco
neighborhoods, exposing a previously unseen tragedy. Despite shock at how it could
happen here, prostitution of youth is sadly all too common in our community
and, in fact, often involves children as young as 9 years old. Child
prostitution is a devastating problem that few people want to talk about. The
fact remains that rarely do child prostitutes begin selling their bodies on
their own. Many are coerced into the lifestyle and forced into virtual
slavery by traffickers and pimps. According to the advocacy organization
Standing Against Global Exploitation, 85 percent of child prostitutes
previously suffered incest, rape or abuse at home, and are often singled out
by pimps because they are runaways. - htsccp HHS asks
doctors to watch for human trafficking Over the years, David McCollum, MD,
has seen patients who seemed to be in an abusive situation but didn't quite
fit the profile for victims of domestic violence. But there were common
themes. Someone was always with these patients, never letting them speak for
themselves, and even if they did, their English was limited or nonexistent.
They also always seemed insecure and uncomfortable. Dr. McCollum, an emergency
physician from Chanhassen, Minn., and chair of the AMA National Advisory
Council on Violence and Abuse, now thinks these patients may have been
victims of human trafficking -- a modern form of slavery in which people are
moved across borders and subjected to sexual exploitation, forced labor or
indentured servitude. "A lot of people are being trafficked, but it's
underreported," he said. Thanks to the Dept. of Health and
Human Services, resources are now becoming available to help physicians
identify the problem. HHS is rolling out its "Rescue and Restore Victims
of Human Trafficking" awareness campaign to provide physicians and other
health care professionals tools to detect victims of this crime. Sex
slaves hidden victims in trade Unlike the open slavery practised in the past, the victims of modern bondage live
in a shadowy world where threats of violence guarantee their silence and
protect their oppressors from legal retribution. "If you get caught with guns and drugs
you'll get a long prison term," says Rick Castro, a deputy sheriff with
the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and a veteran of the war against
modern slavers. "But if you're a
trafficker you've already told your victims that if they talk to the cops
they'll be killed or raped. Or their family members back home will be killed.
So there's less chance of being caught." 'Modern-Day
Slavery' Prompts Rescue Efforts Halla forbade Muka
from bathing because "she did not want my germs in the shower," Muka wrote. Halla often slapped
her and kicked her while wearing boots and shoes. Once, Halla
noticed a scratch on the baby's nose. "She pulled a knife out of the
drawer and demonstrated pulling the knife across her throat as if to slice
it," Muka wrote. "While she was doing
this, she looked at me and said that if a scratch occurred again, she would
kill me." Halla
confiscated her passport and told her "bad people" would hurt her
if she ever left, according to Muka's statement. Muka said she imagined government officials tracking her
down. Department of Homeland Security
immigration officials were able to track the diplomat, but he had returned to
the United Arab Emirates. Gov't Effort to Stem Human Trafficking Helps Very Few But what the ads don't mention is,
in order to take advantage of these benefits, victims must first agree to
cooperate in the criminal Investigations of their abusers. This is not a
viable option for most. Those who
cooperate may face retaliation from their exploiters or risk harm to their
loved ones in their homelands. For example, a Thai domestic worker who has
agreed to testify against her abuser may want to bring her two children from
Thailand to safety before the abuser is released from jail. He often
threatened to have them killed if she were to ever seek help. Victims who come forward must also go
through the arduous task of proving themselves survivors of "a severe
form of trafficking." And they must demonstrate they would face extreme
hardship if returned to their home country. Lueleni Fetongi
Maka was accused of luring Tongans here and forcing
them to work. Maka
was accused of luring seven Tongan men to Hawaii with promises of a better
life and then forcing them to work for his landscaping businesses, housing
them in squalid conditions, and controlling them with beatings and threats of
deportation. Sex
trafficking strikes closer to home than thought A bed, a teddy bear, and a roll of
paper towels are the only contents of a closet-sized room where a trafficked
13-year-old girl was sold for sex by pimps to 20-30 men a day. On Nov. 5, 2003, a woman taken
from the Lloyd Center shopping mall was found to have been drugged awake for
three straight days of sexual slavery by traffickers in Vancouver, Canada. Traffickers forced three dozen
Mexican men and boys recruited in Arizona to work 60 hours a week on farms
near Buffalo, N.Y. for $30 a week. So where are these women, men and
children who have been forced to endure slave-like conditions and where can
we find them in Portland? Despite 33 percent of the opening anecdotes being
about men and boys trafficked for labor, only 20 percent of trafficking is of
males and less than half of all trafficking is for labor. Considering 75
percent of female victims are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation,
a boom industry in Portland, it was rightly stated by speaker Mohamed Y. Mattar that, “too many people in this country do not
understand the link between prostitution and crime, between prostitution and
AIDS, between prostitution and trafficking.” Assistant Attorney General R.
Alexander Acosta of the Civil Rights Division, Assistant Attorney General
Christopher A. Wray of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein of the District of Columbia announced today
that the Department of Justice is awarding more than $7.6 million in
grants-of which $450,000 will go to the District of Columbia-to enable state
and local law enforcement to fight human trafficking by creating task forces
to aid in the identification and rescue of human trafficking victims. 'Modern-Day
Slavery' Prompts Rescue Efforts Among the experiences of the
principal victim were: working from 6 AM until Midnight every single day;
cutting the grass of a huge yard (and shoveling the huge driveway in Winter
alone, by hand) while simultaneously caring for three children, washing,
cleaning and cooking for a family of five; putting up with the all-day
screams and verbal insults of the wife in the diplomatic family; not being
permitted to ever leave the house alone; not being permitted to go anywhere
on her weekend time off unless she was accompanied. Upon arranging for
the escape of this woman, our family gave her a place to stay and work until
she was able to establish her independence. The
(ongoing) San Diego, California Child Mass Sexual Slavery Scandal The articles here below describe
one of the largest known child and youth sex trafficking cases in the United
States to date. In one of several related cases, hundreds of Mexican
girls between 7 and 18 were kidnapped or subjected to false romantic
entrapment by organized criminal sex trafficking gangs. Victims were
then brought to San Diego County, California. Over a 10 year period
these girls were raped by hundreds of men per day in more than 2 dozen home
based and agricultural camp based brothels. Slavery Continues in the Form of Forced Prostitution www.crosswalk.com/1257639/ At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
"I'm reading about how they
lured these girls from Asian nations, promised them restaurant jobs, modeling
jobs, ... seized their passports, beat them, raped them, moved them from
brothel to brothel," he said.
This was not happening in some distant Third World nation, however.
"There it was in civil Seattle," Miller said. Washington
state a hotbed for human trafficking, report says A new report says Washington state
is a hotbed for what many say is a modern form of slavery: human trafficking,
the recruitment, transportation and sale of people for labor. The state's international border with
Canada, its many ports, rural areas and dependency on agricultural workers
make Washington prone to such exploitation, according to the report Based on extensive interviews with
local social-service providers, the report notes trafficking has occurred in
18 Washington state counties, with victims ranging from
"mail-order" brides to sex workers to domestic workers and
children. The local victims have been brought from Russia, the Philippines,
China and Mexico. But what has been
difficult, according to the task force, is coming up with an actual number of
trafficking victims. "It's just
like domestic violence and sexual assault 20 years ago," said Emery.
"We didn't know those numbers either. We just knew it was there." S.F.
parlor hit in crackdown on sex slave trade Earlier this month -- two weeks
after the U.S. Justice Department and local police announced a new
crime-fighting task force -- agents raided a massage parlor in an alley off
Mission Street, just a short hop from some of San Francisco's biggest
hotels. Inside, authorities rounded up
17 young Asian women believed to have been trafficked into the country for
sex and slave labor. Many were found
in a basement, reachable only through a false wall inside a cabinet. The two later told investigators
they had been smuggled from Canada into the United States in May and taken
directly to King's, where one of the managers allegedly paid $32,000 to the
person who had transported them. The two women said they briefly
escaped in August, but were soon found by the manager and two other workers,
returned to King's and beaten. New York Couple Pleads Guilty to Alien Smuggling Charges A couple in eastern New York state
has pleaded guilty to a variety of charges related to smuggling Peruvians
into the United States and subjecting them to forced labor. U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced the pleas November 5 in a press
release. Mariluz Zavala and Jorge Ibanez were
arrested last June when authorities raided the couple's homes and discovered
69 illegal aliens from Peru and a large quantity of fraudulent identification
documents. The press release says that the
couple devised a scheme starting in 1999 to obtain phony visas to get
Peruvians into the United States illegally. They charged the would-be
immigrants a hefty sum for the trip. Then the couple threatened to turn their
victims over to authorities, keeping them in forced labor situations and
confiscating their wages. Ending Modern Day Slavery: U.S. Efforts To Combat
Trafficking in Persons www.state.gov/g/rls/rm/2004/31063.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
But the trafficking issue is not
just an issue for foreign governments. The United States is not a source
nation for trafficking victims, who tend to come from places with large
numbers of young people looking to move elsewhere for opportunity. It is,
however, a transit point and destination for trafficking victims. This is
true in many places across the country, including the Bay Area, where women
have been enslaved and forced to play a role in illegal commercial sexual
exploitation. Domestically, we are fighting this
scourge through a number of different means. With the active involvement of
Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Department of Justice has significantly
increased federal trafficking prosecutions. There have been 83 convictions or
guilty pleas since an aggressive anti-trafficking initiative was launched
March 2001. In January 2004, there were 344 open investigations of
trafficking. Thanks again to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, those
found guilty of trafficking crimes face significantly increased jail time --
up to 20 years in prison from the previous maximum of 10 years for many
infractions, and up to life imprisonment under certain circumstances. Probe
into Iraq trafficking claims Indian press reports said that
Indian nationals in Jordan and Kuwait were recruited for jobs in U.S.
military camps in Iraq as cooks, butchers, laundry workers and handymen. Some of the Indians charge they
signed up through Indian employment companies to work in Kuwait, but ended up
in Iraq working for low pay and were refused permission to leave the country. Testimony of Professor Mohamed Mattar,
Co-Director, Protection Project, Johns Hopkins University, July 7, 2004 judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1255&wit_id=3643 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Based upon the analysis conducted
by The Protection Project on these cases, which the Department of Justice
kindly made available, I can say that the majority of victims that are
trafficked into the U.S. come from countries in Africa, especially Cameroon,
Nigeria, Ghana and Tonga; Latin America, especially Jamaica, Mexico, Honduras
and Guatemala; Asia, especially South Korea, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam,
Thailand and China and Russia. They are trafficked to different
states, in particular, California, Florida, New York, Hawaii, Georgia,
Alaska, Texas and North Carolina. They
are trafficked for the purposes of prostitution, other forms of sexual exploitation,
forced labor and domestic service. A Crackdown On the Traffic In Humans [PDF] pnwer.org/news/SmartBorderWeekly/2-28BorClips.pdf At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[page 25]
"Each year, tens of thousands of people -- predominantly women
and children – are trafficked into the The attorney general cited recent
cases that he said reflected the personal tragedies of foreign-born women and
children. A 14-year-old girl from Cameroon was lured to Maryland by a couple
who promised an American education; instead she served three years as a
domestic servant and was sexually abused. In California, a well-known
landlord pleaded guilty to trafficking in girls from India, who were put into
sexual servitude. Four people were charged today in
Alaska with conspiring to enslave Russian women and girls in a strip club in
Anchorage, the Justice Department announced. This is the first case
prosecuted under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of
2000, enacted by Congress in October 2000 to stop the practice of trafficking
in humans. Victor Virchenko,
Pavel Agafonov, Tony
Kennard and Rachel Kennard were charged under a 23-count indictment with
conspiring to lure six Russian women and girls to Alaska to enslave them. Virchenko is a Russian national, Agafonov
is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and Tony and Rachel Kennard are U.S. citizens.
The four defendants were previously indicted for falsely representing to
immigration authorities that the Russian women would be in the United States
for a cultural exchange. Today's superceding
indictment charges that the defendants recruited the females under false
pretenses - to perform Russian folk dances in a cultural festival - only to
force them into servitude once they arrived in the United States. The charges
against the defendants include six counts of forced labor [18 U.S.C. §1589],
for coercing the victims to perform in a strip club by employing a scheme
that relied on threats, isolation, and confiscation of the victims'
passports, visas, and plane tickets. NCC
Endorses Consumer Boycotts of Taco Bell, Mt. Olive Pickle Products IN RECENT WEEKS, THE COALITION OF IMMOKALEE
WORKERS HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED BY - The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights,
which has selected Julia Gabriel, Lucas Benitez and Romeo Ramirez, three
leaders of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, to receive the prestigious
2003 RFK Human Rights Award for their work against slavery in the fields and
for the Taco Bell Boycott. Through their work, they have helped
liberate more than 1,000 workers held against their will by employers using
violence – beatings, pistol-whippings, shootings – and the threat of
violence, according to the center. Ms. Gabriel herself is a former
captive worker who escaped from a 400-worker slavery ring that operated in
the fields of South Carolina and Florida. With the assistance of the
CIW, Ms. Gabriel successfully helped prosecute and put her employer behind
bars. The CIW's
Anti-Slavery Campaign is a worker-based approach to eliminating modern-day
slavery in the agricultural industry. In the most recent case to be
brought to court, a federal grand jury indicted six people in Immokalee on
January 17th, 2008, for their part in what US Attorney Doug Molloy called
"slavery, plain and simple" (Ft. Myers News-Press, “Group accused of keeping,
beating, stealing from Immokalee laborers,” 1/18/08). The employers were charged
with beating workers who were unwilling to work or who attempted to leave
their employ picking tomatoes, holding their workers in debt, and chaining
and locking workers inside u-haul trucks as punishment ("How about a side order of
human rights," Miami Herald, 12/16/07) Assistant Attorney General Ralph
F. Boyd, Jr. and Michael A. Battle, United States Attorney for the Western
District of New York, announced an eighteen-count indictment against six
defendants who participated in a scheme to recruit, transport and harbor
undocumented Mexican migrant workers, and then held them in conditions of
forced labor at migrant labor camps near Buffalo, New York. Department of
Justice Deserves Kudos for Cracking Down on Traffickers Exploiting Immigrant
Workers The scheme cooked up by the
conspirators involved going to Arizona to recruit and transport undocumented
Mexican migrant workers, and then hold them in conditions of peonage in labor
camps near Buffalo, New York. In a scenario worthy of a John Steinbeck novel,
the roughly forty workers were often not paid for their grueling work, and
were subjected to verbal abuse, threats of physical harm if they tried to
leave, and, of course, of arrest and deportation by the INS. In the wake of
the Supreme Court's March 27, 2002 decision in the Hoffman Plastic Compounds,
Inc. v. NLRB case, it goes without saying that the employer did not have to
be concerned about a lawsuit demanding back pay by his undocumented workers.
"Exploit away!" must have been the watchword. U.S.
Has 10,000 Forced Laborers, Researchers Say At least 10,000 people are working
as forced laborers at any given time across the United States, according to a
new report that details the nature and extent of "modern-day
slavery." The study says the laborers are working for little or no pay
on farms, in restaurants and sweatshops and as domestic servants and
prostitutes. The report, "Hidden Slaves:
Forced Labor in the United States," is to be released today on Capitol
Hill by the University of California at Berkeley's Human Rights Center and
the Washington-based anti-slavery group Free the Slaves. Part 1:
Some foreign household workers enslaved Among recent cases - • In a
middle-class subdivision of Laredo, Texas, known for brick homes and manicured
yards, a 12-year-old Mexican girl sent by her family to clean and provide
childcare in exchange for schooling was found shackled in a backyard,
according to prosecutors. Police were summoned after a neighbor doing roof
work looked down, saw the girl and called 911. The girl had been chained after
finishing her work, starved until she became so hungry she ate dirt and
tortured by having pepper spray blasted into her eyes when she dozed off,
prosecutors say. She was so weak, she had to be carried on a stretcher,
prosecutors say, and her skin had been seared red from days in the sun. Woman held as
slave, feds say - (forced to work, sexually abused for 4 years before freed) An Aurora couple were indicted
Thursday, accused of enslaving an Indonesian woman in their home for four
years, forcing her to cook and clean without pay. The husband also is accused of repeatedly
sexually assaulting the woman, records show. Federal indictments handed up
Thursday accuse the couple of keeping the woman in servitude to care for
their children and perform other domestic chores without paying her. U.S.,
Canadian And Mexican Representatives Meet To Combat Sexual Exploitation Of
Children Conferees will look at a situation
in which thousands of children are trafficked into North America for sexual
purposes annually from poorer nations in Central and South America, Central
and Eastern Europe and East and Southeast Asia. The commercial sexual trade
of at least 200,000 children was documented in a report released earlier this
year by Richard Estes, a Penn professor of social work and the conference's
chair. Other newly released information
from the Penn study shows that Canada is an easy gateway into the U.S. for
sexually exploited children from China, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia
and Central and Eastern Europe. "Due to relaxed border controls between
the U.S. and Canada," Estes said, " trafficked children are able to
be moved with comparative ease and meet with little or no official
interference." A SLAVE'S STORY - THONGLIM
KAMPIRANON - ( Translated
) I would wake up about 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning and start cleaning the
house. Around 10:00, Supewon would then take me to
the restaurant. I'd work there until about midnight. When I got back home, I
could only have a few hours sleep and then I had to wake up and start
cleaning the house again the next morning. Fact
Sheet - Worker Exploitation v On Friday, March 23, 2001, Mr.
Kill Soo Lee was arrested in American Samoa on a
two count federal complaint charging violations of the slavery statutes.
These charges are based on allegations that Mr. Lee held mostly female
workers from Vietnam in involuntary servitude at his garment factory by threatening
to enslave them over the next 20 years. This is the second case brought under
the Victims of Trafficking of Violence Protection Act. U.S. v. Soo Lee v In March of 2001, Lakireddy Bali Reddy, a landlord in Berkeley, California,
pleaded guilty to trafficking women into the United States and placing them
into sexual servitude. An expanded investigation revealed that Reddy and
certain family members conspired to bring at lest 25 Indian laborers into the
Unites States by conspiring to commit immigration fraud. U.S. v. Reddy v In February of 2001, Michael Allen
Lee pleaded guilty to using cocaine, threats and beatings to force homeless
African-Americans to work in his agricultural fields in Florida. He indebted
the workers through short-term loans and compelled them to harvest his land
against their will.U.S. v. Lee> v In February of 2001, Jose Tecum, an Immokalee, Florida man, was sentenced to nine
years in prison for felony counts including kidnaping,
slavery, and immigration violations. The defendant was found guilty by a jury
of illegally smuggling a young woman from Guatemala and forcing her to work
in the migrant fields of Florida and engage in sex acts.U.S.
v. Tecum HIDDEN IN
THE HOME: Abuse of Domestic Workers with Special Visas in the United States SUMMARY - In the worst cases, the
domestic workers are victims of trafficking-deceived about the conditions of
their employment, brought to the United States, and held in servitude or
performing forced labor. They work up to nineteen hours per day; are allowed
to leave their employers' premises rarely and virtually never alone; are paid
far less than the minimum wage, sometimes $100 or less per month; are ordered
not to speak with individuals outside their employers' families; and are
psychologically, physically and/or sexually abused. In these cases, workers'
isolation is so extreme and the culture of fear created by their employers
through explicit threats and/or psychological domination is so great that the
workers believe they will suffer serious harm if they leave their jobs and
have no choice but to remain in and continue laboring in abusive conditions. Drama
marks 'modern-day slavery' trial Sitting on the witness stand in
federal court, the 20-year-old Guatemalan woman wouldn't look at the man
accused of kidnapping her from her mountain village and taking her to the
farm fields last fall to work in indentured servitude. Imported
Servants Allege Abuse By Foreign Host Families in U.S. Thousands of domestic servants are
being brought into the United States from impoverished countries and then
severely exploited by foreign employers, many of whom work for embassies and
international organizations in the Washington area, according to human rights
groups, immigration attorneys and former domestics. An Ethiopian woman who was brought
to the United States in 1990 by an IMF official says she toiled for more than
eight years in a Silver Spring apartment until she escaped in May. She says
her employers forced her to work seven days a week, isolated her from other
people and hit her if she complained. Another Ethiopian says she
received no pay for more than six years of work in the Rockville home of an
Ethiopian-born couple who arranged for her to come to the United States on a
tourist visa. She says her duties included caring for the couple's sick child
on 24-hour call. A nanny from the Philippines says
three other Filipinos -- her employers and a friend of theirs -- arranged to
bring her in fraudulently under a visa for servants of embassy employees,
then put her to work in Fairfax for 41 cents an hour. For more than a year
before she escaped, she says, she had to work 16 hours a day and received
only one day off during the entire period. One FBI-led team is investigating
a well-off Brazilian businessman and his wife who allegedly held an
illiterate servant from their homeland in slave-like conditions for 19 years
while she worked in their suburban Maryland home. The servant, who is about 60, came to
authorities' attention recently when she had to be hospitalized for treatment
of a long-neglected stomach tumor. She told local social workers that she
sometimes had to beg neighbors for food and clothing and was regularly beaten
by the wife. She said the couple told her that if she fled their home, she
would be arrested immediately because she is black. Sexual Slavery in Southern California Today? Epidemic, say officials She was a teenage girl from an
impoverished village in Bangladesh. The American couple offered her transport
to America and a better life: a nice job as their nanny and housekeeper,
wages and opportunity. The dream offer dissolved into a nightmare as soon as
she reached sunny Southern California. The couple informed her she owed them
a huge sum for bringing her into the country and forced her to work without
wages for years in their home, where she was repeatedly raped and beaten by
the husband and abused by the wife. After three failed attempts, and with the
help of good Samaritans, she finally escaped. trafficking
case/US govt action Sixteen members of a Mexican
family operation headquartered in Veracruz were
accused [in a 52-count indictment in Fort Pierce, Florida] of luring young
women to the United States with the promise of a better life and then forcing
them into prostitution to pay off their smuggling fees. www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/trafficking.pdf stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA380601 ABSTRACT : Trafficking of women and children
for the sex industry and for labor is prevalent in all regions of the All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [USA Street Children in [USA] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [USA] [other countries]