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Forced Labor and Rape, the New Face of Slavery in America
Human trafficking has become a major issue in the Midwest heartland of America, causing some campaigners to dub it a modern form of slavery.
Mexicans seeking a new life in America use plastic bags to float down the heavily polluted New River into Calexico, California. Photograph: David McNew/Getty Images Figures from the State Department reveal that 17,500 people are trafficked into the US every year against their will or under false pretenses, mainly to be used for sex or forced labor. Experts believe that, when cases of internal trafficking are added, the total number of victims could be up to five times larger. And increasing numbers of trafficked individuals are being transported thousands of miles from America's coasts and into heartland states such as Ohio and Michigan.
"It is not only a crime. It is an abomination," said Professor Mark Ensalaco, a political scientist at the University of Dayton, Ohio, who organized a recent conference on the issue. In Ohio a human trafficking commission has just been set up to study the problem, while in the northern Ohio city of Toledo a special FBI task force is tackling the issue. For many local law enforcement officials, it is a bewildering new world.
In one recent incident a 16-year-old Mexican girl was found to have been trafficked across the US border. Doctors noticed the heavily pregnant girl showed clear signs of physical abuse when she was brought into a hospital in Dayton to give birth. The police were called but the couple who had brought her had already fled. When the girl's story emerged, it became clear she had been kept against her will in the nearby city of Springfield and used for labor and sex. "I thought slavery ended a few centuries ago. But here it is alive and well," said Springfield's sheriff, Gene Kelly.
He emphasized the risks to the girl's baby after it had been born if the doctors had not been so alert: "Like the mother, the baby could have ended up a victim for years to come. Who knows? Future labor? Future person to traffic?"
Ohio anti-trafficking campaigner Phil Cenedella, founder of Combating Trafficking Anywhere, believes that the baby was destined to be sold off by her captors. "They would have put the kid on the black market. It is crazy that this is happening." Human trafficking - defined as forcing someone against their will to work for no reward - has been dubbed modern slavery. At the Dayton conference, it was discussed as a growing social problem, not in some far-off foreign land, but among the cornfields of Ohio.
"The problems are broader than we realized," said Ohio's attorney general, Richard Cordray. "What we want to do is find and disrupt these networks."
One of the country's leading anti-trafficking advocates is Theresa Flores, a former victim. Flores puts a different kind of face on human trafficking in America. She is white, middle-class and blond and looks the epitome of a suburban American woman. She grew up in a wealthy suburb of Detroit in Michigan and did well at school. Yet Flores tells a nightmarish story of two years being drugged, raped and sold for sex.
Flores, whose ordeal was turned into a book called The Sacred Bath: An American Teen's Story of Modern Day Slavery, was attacked and raped when she was 15. Her assailant used the threat of photographs he had taken during her rape to force her into having sex with strangers. She became the effective prisoner of a drugs gang that used her as a prostitute and kept her earnings, or gave her away free to gang members as a "reward". "People don't think that trafficking looks like me or that it can happen to someone who came from a nice neighborhood. But it does. People need to see outside that box," said Flores.
Flores said that her lowest point came when the gang took her to a seedy motel where she was raped by as many as two dozen men. She woke up alone, abused and with no clothes. "I was told I would die if I told anyone. It happened over and over for two years as I became a sex slave for those men," she said.
Anti-trafficking campaigners point out that cases in the US come in a wide variety of forms involving men, women and children. One major area is that of trafficked labor with people used for domestic work or, more commonly, for back-breaking labor in agricultural industries. But trafficking cases have also occurred in businesses such as restaurants, hair salons and beauty parlors. The overwhelming majority of the rest are sex cases, usually involving young women or children forced into prostitution. The methods used to keep people vary. They include confiscating the passports of those brought in from a foreign country or the threat of extreme violence. Other tactics are to threaten family members if a victim does not comply or, as in Flores's case, to use blackmail.
Trafficking represents a new challenge to law enforcement, especially in regions which have traditionally not thought of it as a major problem. That is especially true where it happens within an immigrant community. Languages are a problem as well as cultural issues and a natural fear that many immigrants - some of them possibly illegal - have of contacting the police.
Kelly believes that is the case in Springfield, a town that is almost the Midwestern archetype. It was once featured in a story in Newsweek magazine entitled "The American Dream". But its 65,000 citizens also face all the problems of a modern America in the grip of a deep recession: an immigration crisis and profoundly changing demographics. The town now hosts several prominent minority communities who make up more than a fifth of its population, including Russians, Chinese, Latinos and Somalis. "There are a lot of people who distrust law enforcement. We need to break down those barriers. Our officers need training, especially in languages," said Kelly. "If you can't speak to people, you can't reach them."
Some commentators and experts have accused victims' advocates and academics of overstating the problem, arguing the problem has been exaggerated and expressing skepticism at the notion that vast organized criminal networks are dealing in human beings for sex or labor. Law enforcement officers also acknowledge that the definitions of trafficking may need refining.
In North Carolina last week the mother of a five-year-old girl was charged with human trafficking after being accused of offering her daughter for sex. The child was later found dead. The crime was horrific, but the distinction between trafficking and simple, sadistic child abuse might not be immediately obvious.
"We have a problem with definition. It is not always straightforward and easy to explain," said Laura Clemmens, a government lawyer in Dayton. "The hard part is bringing it into the light. At the moment these crimes are clouded in secrecy."
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27 Comments so far
Show AllThis country reaches lower ground by the minute.
Go ahead, ask me to salute and pledge.
Extol the common cause.
Please don't ever infer that I am an american.
I'm not.
I'm a human, born amongst red white and blue beasts.
have you ever been over seas? have you seen what people over in therd world countries do to there own people? and why do you say that? is it because of the article? that we so called "American's" would rape and sell our people and others into slavery? or because you are to ignerent to see that this shit is not only happining here in America but all over the world and is only getting publisized here? traficking in persons have always been a major problem all around the world but it is more publisized here so that people like you can have one more reason to hate this country... i do not condone it and i hate to think that American people would ever think to do something like this. but you cannot say that the other countries are not doing the same thing if not worse.
Hey navychick,
Are you serious, or just trying to prove Buck's point?
Human trafficking isn't new and has been around for ages. It's just that now it has become sooo obvious. Until it seriously affects the upper class, little will be done about it.
The Dark side of the land of the free and home of the brave..
Yes, our moral superiority permits killing innocents and now killing souls.
Why not? They justify perpetual war, corporate hegemony owns the presidency, senate and congress...
the earth is a trash can for the administration who speaks with a forked tongue while taking big coal cash, they condemn CEO pay out one side of their mouth but pass no legislation prohibiting it, they shit on the poor, and people in Obama's class pocket windfalls of illegally gained profit while living their lavish life styles.
Ever consider purging the elites?
Please stop referring to these parasites as 'elites'.
Human trafficking is a worldwide problem that criminal gangs are getting into for simple business reasons: huge profits with little chance of punishment as compared to other illicit enterprises such as drug smuggling. Aiding the traffickers are barriers of language and culture; it is no surprise the trafficked generally come highly dysfunctional places where incompetent elites rule and the police are their thugs.
NOTHING accumulates wealth like slave labor - ABSOLUTELY nothing - just ask Tommy Jefferson - a dowry of 200 humans in chains - forced labor - they were his E-Ticket to a life of wealth power and aristocratic privilege (over us) - also his ticket to the White House. Slavery is natural to the human condition as witnessed by the last 6000 years of male dominated life. This is also why all those American corporations have switched to off shore slave pits on the Pacific Rim - of course now that the richfilth animals are going to strip you naked and take everything from you, reducing you all to debt-slavery - you will be on the menu shortly and maybe some of those mfg jobs will come back - as slave labor jobs in the US....its the American Way...the white majority will make good slaves, illiterates are easy to manipulate - look at your recent election - Master's Overseer won again - and they made you like it....just like you'll like your chains...
While true, luckyleft,
You omit the fact that Thomas Jefferson was a vocal abolitionist, and insisted that the institution of slavery which was setup by the British colonizers, be prohibited in America. As you may know, because of his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, the whole South walked out and refused to return unless slavery continued.
I am anti-corporate-war like Ralph Nader. But I continue to be a part of products (oil) where the price is manipulated by bombing countries into submission. Does this make me a war-monger? Are you going to blame me for this war? You characterization of Thomas Jefferson is grossly unfair. His slaves were not all chained as you imply. They were free to run away at any time but did not do so since he treated them well. He probably treated them better then Big Ag treats their illegal aliens in the farm belt today. His plantation was not particularly profitable. He slipped further and further into insolvency and died in deep in debt.
His family was in poor health and he frequently missed conventions and pleadings from his colleagues to show up. He did not campaign for himself. He loathed public service and tried to get out of it. He knew constantly being away from his plantation might bankrupt him, and it turns out he was right. Nobody gave more for the cause of Liberty than this one man you scathingly vilify.
He risked everything he had to free the colonies from the heavy hand of British Monopoly (the British East India Company). It wasn't long after he wrote the Declaration that he was branded a "terrorist" by the Empire and saw his plantation overrun by British Redcoats. Exactly the same situation we find ourselves in today. Instead of Redcoats it's NorthCom and fifteen intelligence agencies deployed against citizens. Instead of Hessian mercenaries it'll be Blackwater and Wackenhut.
The rest of your comment I agree with.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Marian Cole
This EVIL did not just begin to occur on 1/20/09.
I do not think anyone needs to sit around the "oval table" pondering a definition. The people who can, need to root it out, prosecute those engineering and enjoying the fruits, jail them and help those so badly wounded to heal. WE ARE BETTER THAN THIS!!!!!!!!!!!
Are we?
/cm
I'm sorry, and it breaks my heart, but no, we are not better than this.
Most people reading this story are outraged that there are such people in the world, never mind the USA.
I'll bet there is not one person in ten reading this who, raised in the antebellum South, would not think slavery was just the way things were supposed to be---besides being backed up by the Bible and the force of law.
Thomas Jefferson knew slavery was immoral but he would have had to give up the luxury to which he had become accustomed to free his slaves. He couldn't free them after his death, they had to be sold to pay his debts.
The Bhagavad Gita which I read nearly every day has a verse with words to this effect: "This world has no moral foundation; There is no God; What is the cause of birth but lust?" Evil men of truly little intelligence believe this. They go down to a foul hell.
On good days I hear Krishna speaking to me as to Arjuna: "Fight the battle of good against evil. Do not be afraid. You will conqueror both your enemies and your fear. Heaven waits for the man of faith."
My fear is that I am no better than anybody else. Most days I need not look far to have my fears reinforced. I think Thoreau meant this when he said "I have never met a worse man than myself and I never will".
What we cannot be at all we cannot see either.
Nietzsche,
At least you have the courage to speak out against obvious evil. Thomas Jefferson was shunned by much of Virginia Society for his vocal outrage over a system of slavery that he had been born into. He had the same power to go into poverty (free his slaves) that Americans today have to end the war (quit using oil and die from the elements). The private automobile society is wrong and it is destroying the planet. But how many of us can escape oil products? Even our food is heavily fertilized, packaged and transported by oil.
When TJ wrote "Notes on Virgina" published in Europe, he never intended his fellow Virginians to read his impressions of the truth of slavery. When it was republished in America he was shocked. And of all people, the people most upset with him were the so-called anti-slavery Federalists (rich merchants shipping slaves based out of New England) and they never forgave him.
Why can't we fathom the fact that a man facing the evil (a slave-holder or a soldier) is the only one qualified who can speak out against it with authority and passion. The armies of little-old church ladies across America happily support this war and agricultural slavery, since they are not face-to-face with the real evil it is. Most Americans live in a fiction. And the drug of TV and personal transport is why they cannot change.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
No wonder the "progressive" movement is rudderless and ineffective. Harris' article is a serious of disconnected stories intended to incite rather than inform. Yes, human trafficking is a world-wide problem but last time I looked we weren't a Tier 2 or 3 country. You can't make a global issue out of a low-life criminal mother who sells her 5 year old; even Theresa Flores' story is questionable. It's often one's own family or countrymen who sell their own into prostitution and slavery.
BTW, the FBI's most wanted in human-trafficking happen to be mostly Latino - Saenz, Ravelo and Rodriquez, there's also a Russian. Why am I not surprised?
Sorry, whitey can't take full blame for this one.
Russians are white. Latinos are almost white. What point are you trying to make? That white people holding slaves is an aberration? That white people are morally superior to darker skinned people? Intrinsically superior maybe?
If dark skinned people do it that makes it OK for white people to do it? Does not being a tier 2 or 3 country mean we are all equal?
You have some issues to resolve.
You're asking loaded questions.
Take a close look at your other post on this thread, another self-loathing white male I'm guessing. And you think I have issues.
Now that you mention it I'm not exactly proud of the way white males have been running this planet for the last 4,000(?) years. I think maybe a black matriarchy could not do worse.
I have issues all right but they are all with myself. I'm not a danger to the people around me.
Yes, I guess challenging the multiculturalism dogma could be considered dangerous.
"...challenging the multiculturalism dogma..." That's quite a euphemism for xenophobic race baiting.
Poverty is at the root of human trafficing for slavery and sex.
Two of my aunts went to work as live in maids in Pittsburgh when they turned 14. They were helping to support their mother and siblings after their immigrant father was killed in a mining accident. They were worked so hard carrying heavy things up and down stairs that they could not later bear children. They were also raped, which they told us in the indirect language of the 1950s. The cure was WW II when they were able to find real jobs.
The basis of modern slavery is poverty. If poverty is not cured, people will submit to these conditions. Many will be frightened to report the conditions, because they will lose the few dollars they get to send home. Or they will be further abused. Or they are afraid of what law enforcement will do to them, including deportation.
If this slavery is a crime, then we should not have any fugitive slave acts. We should help the victims who report this without any negative consequences to them. Part of the reaction should be assistance with recovering and finding decent work. This is a hard sell when nobody gets much assistance in finding work these days.
Joe
This editorial posing itself as news begins with this supposedly real figure...
'Figures from the State Department reveal that 17,500 people are trafficked into the US every year against their will or under false pretences, mainly to be used for sex or forced labour.'
The author first does not ask himself if this rather imaginary figure from the US State Department is not part of the US government's campaign for 'something they call 'Homeland Security'? We have to watch our borders and... Beware!... only billions upon billions of dollars fed to the military-security-policing-industrial complex can protect you! Is that right? I rather think not.
Further, even if this figure is real?... it really means not much at all. What is the meaning of 'trafficked into the US'? Some farm worker men bring their girlfriends and wives and then go bust. If the woman turns to prostitution to feed the kids has she been 'trafficked'? I think the US State Department, in order to justify their Border Wall and so-called Global War on Terrorism would definitely classify such as 'trafficking'. So why does Mr Liberal Bleeding heart author, Paul, fall along lock step in march?
And 17,500 in one year for a population of over 300,000,000 in the US of this sort of thing is not very much, though it might seem to those who want to fight ghosts everywhere, which is what liberal 'humanitarian' interventionists always want to do.
'Forced Labour and Rape, the New Face of Slavery in America', CD and Guardian UK? Give us a break, will you? You're overdosed on faux liberal nonsense in my book with this law and order bathroom output. There is hardly a massive outbreak of new slavery in this country at this time. So why peddle this fear mongering?
I believe that there is always a root cause in every problem. One reason i think is poverty and exploitation. We can never deny the fact that this is an increasing problem. Not only in this country but for sure in other country's as well. It is also a mere fact that this people never really wanted to do this but with the high influence and pressure coming from media and misleading ideas of 21st century like eminence,fortune,the ideas of credit cards for shopping, new technologies that will help us to get updated,it will really result to problems and confusions to our lifestyle. The more we consume, the more problems we are faced to.
..
The article's second-to-last paragraph says, "In North Carolina last week the mother of a five-year-old girl was charged with human trafficking after being accused of offering her daughter for sex. The child was later found dead. The crime was horrific, but the distinction between trafficking and simple, sadistic child abuse might not be immediately obvious".
Imo, that is trafficking, sex trafficking, if the 5-year-old child was offered up for sex in exchange for something in return, whether it be money or in another form. If the adult who's accused wasn't a parent, but a stranger, then it'd likely be okay to call this sex trafficking, but I don't see why it's not okay just because it was the child's mother in this case. Any adult forcing a child into sex for others in exchange for money or compensation of another form is committing sex trafficking of children.
If a parent uses a child to deliver drugs in exchange for money or another form of compensation, then the parent will be accused of drug trafficking. When it's for sex and it's forced, to boot, then why shouldn't it be called sex trafficking? It's legitimate to call it that.
The quoted paragraph, however, is used to argue that the act is an example of a case that shouldn't be called trafficking; but the paragraph only says the child was later found dead after having been brutalized. It doesn't say whether the accusation against the mother for forcing the child into sex services is true, or not, though. If it's a false or erroneous accusation, then it's false and it's possible that no form of trafficking of the child took place. The paragraph doesn't say if the child was killed by the mother or someone else, so it doesn't really tell us with certainty that the mother is really guilty of any criminal offence against her child. The paragraph speaks of child abuse, brutal, but doesn't say who actually committed this crime.
It's a lousy paragraph for arguing about what should and shouldn't be officially called trafficking; it's an invalid paragraph to use for argument, in this regard. And it's also lousy in other respects, above. It doesn't tell us any certainties, except for the child having later been found dead after brutal abuse, and without saying anything about the specific kind of abuse or abuses that were committed to or against the child.
In any case, if the mother forced her child, FIVE-year-old child, into sex with others in exchange for any form of compensation, then the mother's guilty of abusing her child, badly, and for sex trafficking of the child. If it had been drugs, then it would be trafficking. The same applies, then, if it's sex.
That's how I see this; if the mother's guilty of the sex part of the story.
I have read that sex tourism is big business in Thailand, and several other countries. And, according to one report I read, 25-30% of the sex tourists are white men from the United States. The United States comprises only 5% of the world's population -- another point of the report.
I could not beleive it when i ran across this website, which i found through links in a "second life" profile (the virtual world):
http://www.asstr.org/~Neal/PuertoEsclava.html
It is full of horrible stories where the reader is supposed to be titillated by the thought and description of situations where people are being taken advantage of in the worst possible ways.
Slavery and its mindset is alive and well it seems.
Slavery is but the logical end-game of the neocon policies that have been pushed on the country since the 1980 election of Reagan. Banksters profiting by stealing from the poor and middle class, corps moving production to countries that practice slavery... Why is anybody surprised? Didn't anybody think these things trough? This country was built on slavery. We had a brief respite from the 1930's to the 70's. But then the slaver mentality began its resurgence. Will we stop it now, will we roll it back? Not with neocons or democons in power. U.S. a Christian nation? Please, I wish it was.