Human Trafficking Around the World (3 page)

The U.S. State Department publishes the globally acknowledged annual
Trafficking in Persons Report,
and as a result some experts regard the United States as a front-runner in the crusade against human trafficking. Yet the country’s failure to monitor and enforce its H-2 guestworker visa program has created ample opportunities for traffickers to exploit and enslave legal migrants. Thus in the aftermath of the 2005 natural disasters Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, high demand for cheap labor to rebuild New Orleans resulted in rampant labor exploitation and human trafficking. Legal migrant workers in the Gulf Coast region were forced to live and work in labor camps surrounded by armed guards, and some had to cook with contaminated water and kill and cook pigeons to survive
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Unlike the United States, Japan has not enacted a comprehensive anti-trafficking law. Although the government took a strong step forward in its 2009 Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Persons by acknowledging that sex trafficking is not the only form of human trafficking, forced-labor victims continue to be marginalized. As a result of ethnocentric policies, the government prohibits foreign unskilled laborers from working in Japan. But the disparity between the nation’s immigration posture and its labor needs has created a quandary. With a demand for inexpensive labor but without an adequate low-wage labor force, Japan uses the government-run Industrial Training Program and Technical Internship Program to create a temporary and low-cost migrant workforce for employers. The stated purpose of the program is to transfer skill, technology, and knowledge to persons of other nations and thereby play a central role in the economic growth of developing nations, specifically those in East Asia. Instead, it has created opportunities for exploitation and human trafficking
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In the UAE, the astonishingly rapid rate of urban development has come at a cost. Migrant workers make up more than 90 percent of the UAE’s private-sector workforce. Although workers are promised high-paying jobs, upon arrival in the UAE many earn less than half of what they were promised or are not paid at all. Furthermore, the recruitment of foreign workers involves a system of brokers and agents who charge workers a continual flow of exorbitant fees that they simply cannot pay back, placing them in positions of debt servitude. Although it is illegal for employers in the UAE to withhold worker passports, the common method used by an employer to trigger the deportation of a worker is to turn in the worker’s passport to the Ministry of Interior. Thus the law and common practice regarding legal migrant workers contradict each other
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In the United States, Japan, and the UAE, foreign workers’ dependence on legal employment is tied to one employer, creating the opportunity for unfair treatment, abuse, and human trafficking. Unscrupulous employers take advantage of the system by withholding worker passports, charging outrageous fees that place workers in positions of debt bondage, forcing laborers to work excessive hours, restricting their movements, and paying them little or not at all. Victims often face the threat of deportation, the threat of bodily harm to themselves or family members, and psychological, physical, and/or sexual abuse at the hands of their employers or the employers’ agents
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CHAPTER 1

United States

No one is raiding a factory looking for trafficking victims; they are looking for illegal immigrants.

—SUZANNE B. SELTZER, PARTNER AT KLASKO RULON STOCK & SELTZER, LLP

The United States, through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) and other statutes, prohibits all forms of human trafficking as well as many of the activities that surround it, such as confiscating or withholding a person’s documents or committing fraud in forced-labor contracting. Those convicted of labor trafficking face imprisonment ranging from 5 to 20 years for involuntary servitude, forced labor, peonage, and domestic servitude. In aggravated circumstances offenders face up to life imprisonment. Sex-trafficking offenders face up to life imprisonment with a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years for the sex trafficking of minors and a minimum sentence of 15 years for trafficking a minor under the age of fourteen through force, fraud, or coercion (U.S. Department of State, 2000, 2011). Although U.S. anti-trafficking laws are adequately stringent, the nation’s visa programs reflect conflicts between its anti-trafficking and immigration agendas (discussed later). The H-1B temporary visa program is designed to attract foreign workers in specialized fields such as technology, engineering, and medicine; the H-2A visa program allows for the temporary hire of nonimmigrant foreign workers to perform agricultural labor; and the H-2B visa program allows for the hire of temporary nonimmigrant workers to perform nonagricultural labor on a onetime, seasonal, peak-load, or intermittent basis (U.S. Department of Labor, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c). The government, however, does not adequately monitor its visa programs, particularly the H-2B visa. Just like the H-1B and H-2A visa programs, the H-2B visa is employer-specific (visa holders suddenly become illegal if they no longer work for the employer identified on their visa applications), but for years it was the lack of regulations and enforcement of the H-2B visa program that left these visa holders the most vulnerable.

THE UNITED STATES AS A DESTINATION

The United States is one of the top ten destinations for human trafficking, with tens of thousands of people brought into the country each year. Until recently experts believed that sex trafficking accounted for most of the victims; today, however, more foreigners are found in labor trafficking. For instance, of the trafficking victims certified by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2009, 82 percent of foreign adults and 56 percent of foreign children were labor trafficking victims.
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Of the foreign trafficking victims identified in 2010, 55 percent of the adults (70 percent men and 30 percent women) and 62 percent of the children (50 percent boys and 50 percent girls) were forced-labor victims (U.S. Department of State, 2010, 2011).

The increase in identified forced-labor victims has resulted in an increase in identified male trafficking victims. In 2008, men made up 45 percent of the 286 adults certified by HHS. This was a 15 percent increase over those certified during 2007 and a 39 percent increase since 2006 (U.S. Department of State, 2009c). In 2009, 58 percent of the 271 labor trafficking victims were men (U.S. Department of State, 2010). On the other hand, sex trafficking continues to primarily target female victims. For instance, 15 percent of foreign adult victims certified in 2009 were sex-trafficking victims; all of them were women. Of the 38 percent child sex-trafficking victims who received eligibility letters, 84 percent were girls and 16 percent were boys. Of foreign child forced-labor victims, half were boys and half were girls. Three percent of adults and 6 percent of children were victims of both sex and labor trafficking (U.S. Department of State, 2010).

The covert nature of human trafficking makes it difficult to ascertain which countries are primary sources for trafficking into the United States. That said, the certification by HHS gives us a glimpse of some possibilities. For instance, the 286 foreign adults certified by HHS in 2008 were primarily from Mexico (23 percent), Thailand (19.5 percent), the Philippines (16 percent), Korea (4 percent), and China (2.7 percent) (U.S. Department of State, 2009c). The United States is also the most frequent destination for victims trafficked from Latin America and the Caribbean, and one of the top three destinations for persons trafficked from Asia (other than other Asian nations). The primary countries of origin for identified foreign victims in 2010 were the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, India, Mexico, the Philippines, and Thailand (U.S. Department of State, 2011).

Labor trafficking occurs primarily in domestic and food and care services, garment, and agricultural sectors (Bales et al., 2004, pp. 1, 14). One such case is that of an Egyptian girl, Bennu, who was forced into domestic labor in Irvine, California. In 1999 Bennu’s sister Eshe was working for Abdel Nasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim and Amal Ahmed Ewisabd Motelib when the couple accused Eshe of theft. In exchange for not going to the authorities, the couple demanded the labor of Bennu, and required her parents to pay them roughly 30 dollars a month for 10 years. Bennu and Eshe’s parents agreed to the ultimatum, forcing Bennu into domestic servitude. When 10-year-old Bennu arrived in the United States in 2000, the couple confiscated her passport. For two years Bennu worked as a housekeeper for the family and as a nanny to the couple’s five children. During that time she did not receive pay or education and faced physical and verbal abuse as well as threats of deportation. The couple told her that her family would reject her if she was deported and tried to return home (Srisavasdi, 2006).
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Another alleged forced-labor case, which made headlines throughout the United States, involved roughly 600 Thai nationals brought to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland between 2001 and 2007 by Global Horizons Manpower, Inc. The federal charges, now dismissed, stated that the defendants confiscated the workers’ passports and required them to perform farm labor without pay or for nominal wages.
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The original complaint alleged that the workers were forced to live in overcrowded and substandard conditions (U.S. Department of Justice, 2011a, 2011b). “It’s a classic bait-and-switch,” said FBI Special Agent Tom Simon. “They were telling the Thai workers one thing to lure them here. Then, when they got here, their passports were taken away, and they were held in forced servitude working on these farms.” The complaint also alleged that the defendants used false promises of high-paying jobs to induce the workers to incur excessive debt. In order to secure jobs in the United States, the workers paid recruitment fees of up to $21,000. Many were encouraged to mortgage their homes or farms to make the payment. “In the old days,” Simon said, “they used to keep slaves in place using chains and whips. These days, it’s done through economic intimidation” (Kerr, 2010). The government suddenly dismissed the criminal charges against the defendants in July 2012, but the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pursuing civil litigation against Global Horizons Manpower as well as six farms where the workers allegedly faced discrimination and deplorable working conditions (Lin, 2012).

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates that 50,000 women and children are trafficked each year throughout the United States for commercial sexual exploitation. This category covers a variety of forms, including forced prostitution, sex shows, stripping, and pornography (Kaiser, 2005, p. 1A). Lack of regulation within the U.S. sex industry exacerbates the problem. Although prostitution is illegal except in the state of Nevada, the sale of pornography (aside from child pornography) and the operation of strip clubs are legal but largely unregulated. Strip clubs, which are usually zoned in certain areas, are often used as a front for prostitution. Pornography, which is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment, is pervasive in the United States, with Americans spending roughly $10 billion a year on adult entertainment. Pornography is linked to some of the biggest U.S. corporations; Time Warner, Hilton, Westin, AT&T, and Marriott earn tens of millions of dollars a year in distribution (CBS News, 2004; University of Nevada, 2004). The considerable profits earned by large U.S. corporations come at a cost, as the lack of regulation results in the illegal use of underage and trafficked persons.

A common feature of all forms of human trafficking is the use of exorbitant fees, such as those for transportation and housing, which places victims in a position of debt bondage and makes them vulnerable to a multitude of additional abuses. This phenomenon is clearly illustrated in a case of women and girls trafficked from Mexico to Florida with the promise of housekeeper and waitress jobs. Upon arrival in the United States, the traffickers raped the women and girls, confiscated their travel documents, and forced them to prostitute. Guards prevented them from leaving the brothels, and if the victims tried to escape they faced severe physical punishment as well as threats of deportation. The women allegedly earned $3 per trick but never received the money. Instead, the traffickers told the women the earnings would go toward the $2,000-per-person transportation fee. To put some perspective on the situation, in order to pay off her debt, each woman would need to have sex with around 667 men. The traffickers also charged the women for room and board and other miscellaneous fees (OAS/PAHO, 2001). The use of fees to create debt bondage is also apparent in an Atlanta case in which Asian women and girls between the ages of 13 and 25 were trafficked to the United States and forced to prostitute until they paid off debts of between $30,000 and $40,000 per person. Conditions in the bordellos resembled those in a prison, with guards, barbed-wire fences, and dogs (Richard, 2000, p. 21).

The lawlessness and high demand for cheap labor that tends to accompany the aftermath of natural disasters can create an atmosphere ripe for human trafficking. Trafficking in New Orleans and other areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita began shortly after the storms. To date, at least nine large cases of exploitation in the Gulf Coast region have been documented that may be classifiable as forced labor. The cases involve more than 3,728 alleged victims from Bolivia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, India, Mexico, Panama, Peru, the Philippines, and Thailand.

One such example is that of Thai nationals trafficked to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The victims were forced to work and live in hurricane-damaged buildings riddled with mold and debris without electricity or running water. Some of the victims were eventually discovered inside the Capri Hotel in November 2005 (Andert, 2007, p. 27). Conditions in their living quarters were so squalid that they were forced to cook with contaminated water (Asanok et al., 2007). “They did not have enough food,” said attorney Lori J. Johnson of Legal Aid of North Carolina, Farmworker Unit. “At the end, they had to build traps to capture pigeons to eat.”
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The victims’ civil complaint states that North Carolina human resource company Million Express Manpower, Inc., used a locally based Thai agent to recruit victims in Bangkok. The victims were promised legal visas and three years of employment at $8.24 per hour. Each paid over $11,000 in fees simply to secure employment (Asanok et al., 2007). In order to pay the employment fee, says Johnson, victims were steered toward lenders who were in league with the traffickers. “To secure the loan, victims had to put up their land and that of family members. Keep in mind that rice farmers in northeast Thailand typically make less than $500 a year. Essentially, there is no way that the workers could pay back the loans on their typical salary in Thailand.” Once the victims were sufficiently in debt, Million Express Manpower was safely in the power position—one that it eagerly highlighted to potential employers. “Via word of mouth, [Million Express] Manpower, Inc., began to pitch its labor force as more inclined to work hard because they were so far in debt,” Johnson said.