Human Trafficking in the Western Hemisphere
Beef Tacos and Forced Prostitution
Published September 03, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
La Cabana, a Mexican restaurant in Atlanta suburb Woodstock, GA, was famous for two things -- the beef tacos in the front of the house and the young women and teen girls selling sex in the back. That's because this Mexican restaurant was a front for a human trafficking operation from Central and South America to metro Atlanta. Selling ethnic foods by day and human beings by night is a trend among traffickers all over the country.
At La Cabana, women and girls as young as 15 were smuggled from Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador into the U.S. While the restaurant was open, they served customers plates of Hispanic delicacies. But after the kitchen closed, the restaurant became a gentleman's club, and they serviced the mostly Hispanic male audience sexually. In a back room, the women and girls were forced to engage in prostitution to pay off their smuggling debt. Interestingly enough, none of the news reports I found on this case called it human trafficking. But if this isn't human trafficking, then I'll buy Rush Limbaugh's greatest hits tape.
Keeping trafficking operations within one cultural, racial, or ethic group are one technique traffickers use tp avoid detection by the police. The philosophy is that operating a criminal enterprise within a community of "friends" is safer. This happens often with suburban brothels in private homes that sell cater exclusively to Korean men, Hispanic men, East African men, etc. But large numbers of men going in and out of a private home at odd hours might look suspicious to neighbors. Therefore, an ethnic restaurant provides an ideal cover for the traffickers. Plus, they have two sources of income from the women they are exploiting: their labor in the restaurant and their sexual exploitation. In this case, fortunately, the police were a couple steps ahead.
The La Cabana trafficking ring got busted because someone, presumably who lived in the area, called in a tip about the loud music late at night and Hispanic women going in and out of the building frequently. This is one more example of how people like you, just by being aware of your surroundings, can help trafficked people to safety. If you see something suspicious, don't trick yourself into believing you're the Dark Knight and go running in guns-or-video-cameras-blazing. But do call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-3737-888 or call local law enforcement.
Photo credit: Loco beef taco by jasonlam
To Better Know a Country: Human Trafficking in Guatemala
Published August 19, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Every year, the U.S. State Department releases a Trafficking in Persons report which rates countries on their efforts to combat human trafficking. Each week, I'll be providing a brief glance at human trafficking in one of those countries, based off the 2009 Trafficking in Persons report, with my own (often snarky) analysis added. This is just a snapshot of what's going on in the country. For more information, you can check out the full text of the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report here.
This Week's Country..... Guatemala
Basic Stats
- Ranking: Tier 2 Watch List
- Status: Source, transit and destination country for trafficking victims
- Political Stability: Shaky on a good day
- Cash Flow: Lower now that Americans have been cutting back on their Starbucks
- Do I Think They Care?: They want to care, but have a lot on their plates.
Who Are the Victims and What Are They Doing?
- Girls: Commercial sex, forced begging, child sex tourism, forced labor in agriculture, and domestic servitude
- Boys: Forced begging, child sex tourism, and forced labor in agriculture
- Women: Commercial sex and forced labor in agriculture
- Men: Forced labor in agriculture
Where Are They Coming From and Where Are They Going?
- Victims are trafficked from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua to Guatemala.
- Victims from Guatemala are trafficked to Mexico, Belize, and the United States.
- Guatemalan and foreign victims are trafficked internally.
What's Gotta Happen?
- Implement and enforce anti-trafficking law.
- Prosecute traffickers, including public officials who are complicit with traffickers.
- Focus on forced labor in addition to forced prostitution.
- Increase funding for anti-trafficking efforts.
What Can I Do?
- You can support The Institute of Trafficked, Exploited, and Missing Persons, an organization which helps protect Guatemalan children from exploitation.
In summary, Guatemala's got a tough row of Fair Trade coffee to hoe. They're still recovering from a civil war and dealing with a struggling economy that has long been exploited by Europe and the U.S. The first step is getting the right laws on the books and keeping those laws enforced. Hopefully, Guatemala will be able to work with neighboring nations to make that a priority and reduce trafficking into and out of Guatemala.
Mexican Drug Cartels Switch to Selling Humans
Published August 13, 2009 @ 11:19AM PT
Here's a math problem you won't remember from school: Which is higher, the black market value of a pound of cocaine or the black market value of a 13-year-old girl? If you guessed the girl, you get 100% on this math test.
When a drug cartel trafficks a pound of cocaine into the U.S., they can only sell it once. When they traffic a young woman into the U.S., they can sell her again and again. This is a simple economic fact that I (and others in this field) have been aware of for years. However, it seems some Mexican drug cartels have recently discovered this additional potential for profit, and they are now switching from trafficking heroine to trafficking human beings.
The idea that drug traffickers will suddenly switch to humans is even more disturbing in the light of an increased national discussion around legalizing some drugs, like marijuana. What would the pot traffickers do then? Would they get respectable jobs in the brand new legal marijuana industry? Or would they use their criminal contacts to traffic harder drugs, guns, and people? I'm of the inclination that while some criminals might go clean in a new legal drug industry, the rest will see how much more cash they can make through the illegal sale of human beings.
What do you think?
CNN recently did a story on this disturbing new trend, which feature anonymous interviews with women being trafficked into the U.S. by some of the Mexican cartels.
Texas Battles Rep as Human Trafficking Hub
Published August 07, 2009 @ 08:06AM PT
Texas, and especially the border areas of the Rio Grande Valley, have been called a human trafficking hub and the "gateway" of human trafficking into the U.S. Certainly, the Texas-Mexico border is a popular entry point for traffickers smuggling in people from all over Central and South America. But abolitionist Texans are refusing to let their state be further tainted by it's title, and have taken some serious legislative and grassroots action to close the gateway.
Local advocacy group Children At Risk has put forth a number of bills to the state legislature, including:
- HB533 created civil liability for human traffickers by providing victims with an avenue to sue traffickers.
- HB4009 established a victim assistance program, a statewide human trafficking task force and mandated training for law enforcement agencies to help identify victims.
- SB 707 requires sexually-oriented businesses to maintain proper identification records for employees or independent contractors.
- HB960 gives municipalities and counties the right to access the National Crime Information Center, to obtain criminal information on people applying for licenses to operate sexually oriented businesses.
- HB 3094 created civil liability for operating an illegitimate "massage parlor" in a county with a population of 3.3 million or more. The offense is a Class A misdemeanor and carries a fine of $1,000 per violation.
Despite these new tools for law enforcement and social service organizations, the abolitionists of Texas have their work cut out for them. An estimated 17,000 people are brought across the border each year, many of them duped with false promises of jobs that turn into slavery once they reach America. This is one of those cases where the issue of human trafficking does get tied up in the immigration debate and included in the hotly contested policies around border protection and immigration. Trafficking is one peice of a larger issue, but one which deeply affects both the people crossing the border and those who live in Texas and the rest of the U.S.
Immigration aside, however, bravo to Texas for being proactive. It's never easy to admit when you have a problem, especially one as serious as being the gateway to human trafficking into the U.S. But acknowledging the situation has helped Texas take important steps to rectify it.
Hear that traffickers? Don't mess with Texas.
Dreams of America Dashed: Mary's True Story of Slavery
Published August 04, 2009 @ 01:21PM PT
Mary's story was originally collected by The Salvation Army. Human trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico can be especially fluid because of the high demand for cheap labor in the U.S. and the broad border between the two countries. Here's Mary's story:
Mary was born in Mexico. When she was about 17 years old, she was persuaded to go to the USA with the promise that she would have a better life and be provided with a job. A man promised to take her and to look after her.
However, when she arrived in the USA her life got a lot worse. She was given a job at a factory packing vegetables. But she was escorted there and back every day and was never allowed to go anywhere on her own. She was never paid for the work that she did. She was given drugs and was badly abused. She wasn't allowed to go and see a doctor when she was ill or hurt. She wasn't allowed to leave her apartment except when she went to work. The man who took her to the USA threatened her. He said that if she tried to escape she would be deported - sent back to Mexico - or hurt by the immigration authorities.
Eventually Mary managed to escape with her young son. She is now staying in a special center that looks after people who have been trafficked or abused. She is being given shelter, food, clothing and advice about what to do next. She is hoping that she will be able to stay in the United States and start a new life.
Having a child, especially a child the trafficker knows about, changes everything for victims. Most parents would do anything in their power to keep their children safe from harm. Just like victims of domestic violence will stay with an abuser if he threatens to harm the children, so will victims of trafficking stay with a trafficker. In Mary's case, she was able to escape with her child. But many victims' children are back in their home country, and the traffickers threaten to harm them before the victim can get home.
In Recession, Fearful Workers Keep Quiet About Exploitation
Published August 03, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Undocumented (or documented) immigrant workers being exploited at work is sadly nothing new. But in today's economy, many of the workers who previously might have spoken up about workplace abuse or exploitation are now keeping their heads down and their lips shut for fear of losing their jobs.
New America Media tells the story of Clemente Rodriguez, a documented immigrant who works 14 hour days in a shoe store in New York City. Despite the fact that New York just raised their minimum wage from $7.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour, Clemente only get $35 a day for his work. He should be making at least $101.50.
Clemente, like many other migrant and immigrant workers, is being exploited by his employer. And now he's got a tough choice to make: file a legal complaint and risk losing a job he can't replace or suck it up and take the exploitation. Clemente's thoughts are,
I know that it is important and it will help us someday. It is good for the government's record, but not for my family. If I don't have a job, what will happen now? I think it's still better to have a small income, overcome my hardships, and make sure that I'll bring food to our table.
Clemente's specific case may not legally rise to the level of human trafficking since he is free to leave his job, though, arguably has no other reasonable options. However, one technique traffickers use to keep workers enslaved is to pay them something small instead of stealing all their wages. Especially in times of recession like this one when employment can be extremely hard to come by, workers like Clemente might decide that $2.50 an hour is better than nothing.
Think about what you would put up with to keep your current job in this economy. Would you take a cut in pay or benefits? Would you put up with your boss grabbing your ass or making lewd comments? Could you handle being paid less than is legal?
Now think about what someone who is truly desperate to keep a job would put up with in order to feed his or her family and stay in the U.S. Wage theft? Sexual assault or rape? Slavery?
It's a tough market for everyone, but even tougher for those who must keep their current job at any cost, no matter how terrible.
Image from outdoors.webshots.com
Will 2010 Olympics and World Cup Boost Forced Prostitution?
Published July 14, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Next year promises to be a big one for sports fans, with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada and the World Cup in South Africa. But will those same events make it a big year for pimps and traffickers as well? Do major sporting events boost forced prostitution?
There are competing answers, with both sides using statistics from former world-wide sporting events to support their position. The Future Group recently released a report stating that there was a significant risk of increased trafficking into prostitution in Vancouver during the upcoming Olympics. They cite the comparison of the 2004 Athens Olympics, during which the number of trafficking victims identified in Greece doubled. On the other hand, a different report from Vancouver's Sex Worker Safety Action group says that there will be no significant increase in women forced into prostitution during the Olympics. They cite the 2006 World Cup in Germany, which had no significant increase in the number of trafficking victims identified, despite the high estimates from advocacy groups. It seems very little data is available from the 2008 Beijing games, due to the Chinese government's data censorship.
The logical basis behind the argument that major sporting events pose a threat to increase trafficking of women and children into commercial sex is that these events draw massive numbers of men into one place. Sometimes these men are single, traveling without their families, or in a group of friends; sometimes they are drinking. It stands to reason that some of these men might demand commercial sex as entertainment during their trip, and traffickers will supply the women to meet that increased demand.
It's logical, yes, but does it happen? Athens saw a spike in human trafficking, but Germany did not. Was the difference the prevention campaigns which were conducted in Germany? Was the Olympics perceived as more profitable by the traffickers than the World Cup? Were men at the World Cup in Germany less interested in buying sex than the men in Greece? We may not know for sure, at least not until we have better information.
Both Vancouver and South Africa, as well as a number of international organizations, are preparing for the possible increase in human trafficking in 2010. I hope that other groups are also preparing to collect better data at these events as well, so we can continue to better understand what sorts of events motivate traffickers to force women into prostitution and how we can prevent them from doing so in the future. It would be a true celebration if 2010 were known only for excellence in athletics, and not in exploitation.
