Subject: [Stop-traffic] News/US: Trafficking in human flesh
From: Melanie Orhant (morhant@igc.org)
Date: Thu Oct 19 2000 - 10:43:30 EDT
Sorry about the format.
Melanie.
____________
Trafficking
in human
flesh
A landmark act
passed by the
Senate last
week would
increase
protection for
slaves forced
into prostitution.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Stephen Lemons
Oct. 16, 2000 | Last Wednesday,
137 years after
Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation, the U.S. Senate
overwhelmingly
passed the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act,
the first modern anti-slavery
statute of its kind
in the world. Co-sponsored by Sen. Sam
Brownback, R-Kan., and Sen. Paul
Wellstone,
D-Minn., the legislation, which increases
penalties for trafficking and
establishes special
visas for victims, enjoyed
unusually strong
bipartisan support. The Senate
approved the
measure 95-0, following the
House, which had
earlier OK'd it by a vote of 371 to 1.
The act authorizes $94.5 million
over the next
two years for enforcement. In addition, a
provision of the measure reauthorizes the
Violence Against Women Act for five years.
President Clinton, a vocal
supporter of that
provision, is expected to sign
the bill into law in
the next few weeks.
According to Ann Jordan, a
lawyer with the International
Human Rights Law Group -- a
human rights organization in
Washington -- a confluence of
factors helped the issue reach
critical mass.
"There's been a recognition of
trafficking as a crime by both the
Department of Justice and the
State Department," says Jordan.
"The Department of Justice has
been pushing
for improvements in the law
because they've
been prosecuting these cases.
And the State
Department, aware of the international
implications and the involvement
of organized
crime, commissioned a report
[from] the CIA on
the matter."
The 1999 CIA report has been a
wake-up call
for many. But knowledge of the trafficking
problem was growing even before
the report.
Sen. Wellstone, for instance,
told the Senate
during his floor statement on
the legislation on
Wednesday that his wife Sheila
urged him to do
something on this matter several
years ago. As
early as three years ago he submitted a
resolution in the Senate
regarding the matter.
Wellstone informed his
colleagues that both
Jewish and evangelical groups
supported the
bill. "Something important is in
the air when
such a broad coalition of people
including Bill
Bennett, Gloria Steinem, Rabbi David
Sapperstein, Ann Jordan and [Prison
Fellowship Ministries founder]
Chuck Colson
work together on the passage of
legislation," he
said.
The bill will offer protection to domestic
workers as well as the more
visible victims --
the thousands of sex slaves in
America's major
cities. Just flip to the back of
any alternative
weekly paper in the country, and ads for
"Soothing Oriental Massage" or "Russian
Models Offer Full Release" leap
out at you.
Often they include silhouettes
of nude female
bodies, in case you somehow
missed the point.
According to anti-slavery activists and
government agencies, the foreign women who
staff such enterprises are often
the victims of
organized crime groups who recruit them
under false pretenses, bring
them to the U.S.
illegally and force them into
prostitution to pay
off outrageous debts.
The Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish
Slavery and Trafficking (CAST)
estimates that
as many as 10,000 Asian women
from countries
like China, Thailand and
Indonesia toil as sex
workers in Southern California. The CIA
believes that upwards of 50,000 women and
children are trafficked to this
country and
coerced to work unpaid as
domestic servants,
factory workers and prostitutes
each year. And
the INS has reportedly
discovered 250 brothels
in 26 U.S. cities -- brothels
that likely involve
trafficking victims.
"This is the most comprehensive
legislation
which any country has ever
passed regarding
trafficking," says Jordan in praise of the
proposed statute. "Though it
could be better, it
does recognize that this is a
serious problem in
many types of industries in the U.S. -- in
restaurants and agriculture, not just in
prostitution."
The legislation would provide
some succor for
victims of trafficking who aid
law enforcement
in the prosecution of their
captors. Formerly,
such victims were themselves
subject to arrest
and deportation, but now they'll
be offered the
opportunity to stay and work
legally in the U.S.
and get compensation from those who held
them in bondage. Traffickers could face 20
years to life for their activities.
"The law also recognizes that the crime of
servitude includes psychological
torture, not
just physical coercion.
Traffickers tell victims
that the police will be after
them. They threaten
them and their families with
violence. These are
women, and sometimes men, who are in a
strange country and do not speak
the native
language. It's a horrendous
crime," Jordan says.
Jordan says that the proposed
law would have
been even stronger had it not been for the
objections of Sen. Orrin Hatch,
R-Utah, through
whose judiciary committee the
law had to pass.
"It was my understanding that
Sen. Hatch did
not want a new law, and he had some
provisions removed, including
one absolutely
guaranteeing that victims of
trafficking will not
be prosecuted for working
illegally. This limited
the scope of the bill. But we
hope we can come
back at a later date and correct
this," says
Jordan.
Recent incidents have heightened
the profile of
the issue. These include a
2-year-old Thai boy
seized from traffickers in April
in a scheme to
smuggle women into the country from Asia.
The boy, known as Got, was drugged and
used as a prop to convince INS
agents that the
man and woman he was traveling
with were his
mother and father.
Also, the San Francisco Examiner
reported in
February that Berkeley,
Calif.,'s largest landlord
was under indictment for importing teenage
girls from India for sex. In a
similar case last
year, a Silicon Valley executive
was caught
allegedly trying to "buy" a 13-year-old
Vietnamese girl from her family
in Saigon and
bring her back to the U.S. as a sex slave.
And in August 1999, federal
agents busted up a trafficking
ring based in Atlanta responsible
for importing nearly 1,000 women
from various Asian countries to
work in American brothels.
Women from Korea, China,
Malaysia and elsewhere were
forced to sign contracts saying
they owed their captors fees of
up to $40,000. They were to work
as prostitutes until their debts
were paid.
These situations are only too
familiar to Jennifer
Stanger, CAST's media and
advocacy director
in Los Angeles. CAST was formed in 1998 in
the wake of the infamous El Monte, Calif.,
slavery case where more than 70 garment
workers were held prisoner
behind razor wire
and obliged to work in sweatshop
conditions
for up to seven years without
pay. Since then,
the organization has aided numerous women
from Mexico, Cambodia, Russia,
China, Burma
and elsewhere.
Stanger says that women may come
to the U.S.
expecting to work as prostitutes
or in other
industries but, once here,
they're at the mercy
of their captors. "They're
coming from really
desperate economies and situations where
women don't have many opportunities. Often
they haven't done prostitution
in their countries
of origin. But they agree to it
to get to the U.S.
and because recruiters paint an attractive
picture for them. Once they get
here, they learn
they're in debt-bondage, which
is a form of
slavery," Stanger says.
Stanger describes working with four young
Mexican women recruited by a small
Cambodian criminal organization. The women
ranged in age from 13 to 20 and
were illegally
brought to Long Beach, Calif., with the
understanding that they would work as
prostitutes for a few months and
get paid when
they returned home. Three of the women had
children to support, which Stanger says
explained their willingness to
be prostitutes for
a short period of time.
At the Long Beach brothel, they were kept
under guard and told they had to
work for the
Cambodians for free. They were
not allowed to
turn down clients, even if they
were having
their periods or unwilling to
turn a trick.
"These four girls were together
when the INS
got a tip off in 1999 and busted
up the brothel,"
says Stanger. "Three of them had only been
there a few months, but one had
been there for
five months and was not being
allowed to go
home."
The ringleader of the Cambodian gang was
prosecuted, and the women
eventually fled the
country, according to Stanger.
But under the
new law, she believes they might have been
able to stay. Stanger also
described several
other cases, like one involving
an Indonesian
woman held as an unpaid domestic
servant for
two and a half years until
repeated rapes by
her boss -- a wealthy Indonesian
man -- drove
her to write a desperate letter
in broken English
that eventually made its way to
the local sheriff.
Her tormentor was tried and
prosecuted, and
she's since been allowed to stay
in the U.S. in a
sort of legal limbo. Stanger hopes the new
legislation will help her and
the other women
suffering from forced servitude.
"There are all of these organized crime
syndicates involved, which are
very powerful
in L.A. and elsewhere --
Russian, Thai, etc.
That's why we're really praying that this
legislation is going to be
helpful to the women
we work with," she says.
"Everyone's calling it
a model for the rest of the
world. We'll see. I
consider it significant, though.
People should
know this is going on in the
house next door.
That Indonesian woman was being held by a
man in Palos Verdes, which is a wealthy
community. That's pretty
shocking -- to think
that's happening in America."
salon.com | Oct. 16, 2000
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer
Stephen Lemons is a freelance
writer in Los Angeles. He
contributes regularly to the
New Times L.A., Art
Connoisseur, SOMA magazine
and GettingIt.com.
Melanie Orhant
Stop-Traffic Moderator
Please contact me off-list for any questions about Stop-Traffic at
<<morhant@igc.org>>.
Women's Reproductive Health Initiative
Program for Appropriate Technology in Health
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dealing with human rights abuses associated with trafficking
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sweatshop labor, domestic service and some coercive mail
order bride arrangements.
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