“The first time we met them, when we went to visit them in the stockade, we cried all the way home,” Coto said. “The level of sexual exploitation was worse than anything we’d ever seen. We were shaken by it. But the distance they have come from that day is incredible. They’re out in the community, living their lives with such courage.”
They are at different stages of recovery, still struggling to overcome their fears and find peace.
“Today, when I talk to my mother on the phone, we don’t talk about this part of my life,” Rosa says. “She tells me to put it all in the past, and that is what I want to do. I thought about it a lot at first. I had a lot of nightmares. But little by little, I’m putting it in the past.”
What does she value most about her life now?
She answers quickly with a rare smile. “My liberty.”
Sarah, who used to hyperventilate when she talked of her experiences, still has moments of panic.
“When I see a tan van, I get scared, because that’s what they transported us in. I wonder who’s inside. When I see a van like that, I can’t forget these things.”
Sometimes she sees prostitutes on the street, she says, shaking her head. She cannot understand it. “I think, how can you? You’re U.S. citizens! You don’t have to do this!”
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FEDERAL TASK FORCE SEEKS TO ROOT OUT INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE
In California, 80 Thai workers were discovered in slave-like conditions–smuggled into the country, held in a garment sweatshop, forced to work long hours and held behind razor wire at night.
In New York, 50 Mexicans–all deaf–were ordered by their smugglers to sell pencils and trinkets in subways and on street corners for 12 hours at a time. Those who didn’t bring in enough money were beaten and their families threatened.
And in Florida, law enforcement officials exposed a Mexican sex-slavery ring that forced at least 27 women into prostitution.
Welcome to America, land of the free.
Ten cases of modern-day slavery–involving about 150 victims–prompted the creation last year of the National Worker Exploitation Task Force, a joint effort between the U.S. departments of Justice and Labor to eradicate the shadowy business of trafficking in humans.
“It’s amazing to me that in the final days of the 20th century, we have people held in slavery in this country,” said Tom Scott, U.S. attorney for the Southern District, whose office prosecuted the Florida case along with the Justice Department. “That such brutal conditions could exist today–unbelievable!”
No one knows exactly how many people are trafficked into this country, held in slave-like conditions and forced to work, but some Justice Department officials say the number is in the thousands.
“We formed the task force because we had anecdotal information suggesting that this was a problem much larger than just the cases we already knew about,” said Bill Lann Lee, acting U.S. assistant attorney general for civil rights. “We’re talking about personal liberty and laws that derive from the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits slavery. These are the most basic elements of humanity.”
Cases under investigation or prosecution by the task force, according to a Justice Department official, include:
- Five defendants in Illinois who allegedly imported Russian women to the United States, telling their parents that they would be dancing in respectable, Broadway-type shows. Instead, they were forced to strip in nude dance clubs and become prostitutes.
- Young Nigerian women allegedly lured from poor towns and kept as domestic servants against their will in New York and Texas. They were told if they didn’t cooperate, their families would be harmed.
- Two Thai women allegedly kept for years under harsh conditions of domestic servitude by a prominent member of Thai-American society in Los Angeles. The allegations included 18-hour work days, letter censoring and isolation from the outside world.
- Two Florida men who pleaded guilty in May to forcing more than 20 laborers to work in the tomato fields of Immokalee to pay off smuggling debts.
The targets of involuntary servitude tend to be vulnerable populations–poor immigrants, mostly undocumented, and frequently female, Lee said.
The story of the deaf Mexicans in New York became public in 1997 after four workers walked into a Queens police station and, using sign language and written messages, described a life of abuse and enslavement that triggered an avalanche of national attention.
As in many of the slavery cases, they had been promised decent-paying jobs and smuggled into the country only to find themselves living in cramped housing and forced to work. They were watched by bosses who doled out one diaper per child each day and demanded a certain amount of money from each worker. Threats and beatings followed for those who failed to sell enough key chains or pencils.
The task force soon hopes to offer services and information about where to seek help for those in forced labor.
“We need to get the word out in Spanish-language newspapers and television stations especially, that you can come to law enforcement and you will be helped,” Scott said.
A national hotline is also on the way, offering information in 140 languages on where victims can get assistance.
For Lee, the cases strike at the heart of the American justice system and the founding principles of the country.
“When I assumed this job in December 1997, I did not anticipate that I would be spending so much of my time on the issue of involuntary servitude, just one year before the millennium,” he said. “Today, after all the cases that have come across my desk, I am no longer surprised by it. But I am very saddened by that.”–Amy Driscoll, Herald Staff Writer
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ARCHAIC LAWS HAMPER ANTI-SLAVERY EFFORTS
Archaic laws, a lack of minority investigators and fuzzy immigration guidelines combine to hamper the fight against modern-day slavery, Justice Department officials and immigrant advocates say.
The difficulties start with the very laws used in slavery cases.
Peonage, involuntary servitude–the charges harken back to the Civil War and have remained largely unchanged since.
“You can be a slave without chains,” one Justice Department official said. “Even though the law has caught up with changing attitudes in areas like domestic violence, slavery is still being prosecuted under the old laws.”
Involuntary servitude, also known as forced labor, is the most common charge in slavery cases today. But to prove the case, prosecutors must be able to show that the victims were threatened by their captors. Helplessness or powerlessness isn’t a sufficient threat. Law enforcement officials say they’d like to see that changed.
Peonage, the other charge available to prosecutors, is even tougher to prove, requiring that prosecutors demonstrate a debt exists and the victim is being forced to work it off.
The investigations themselves–before cases ever make it into a courtroom–also are hampered by a lack of agents who can assimilate into a minority community and win the trust of victims.
When U.S. Border Patrol Investigator Kevin Douglas was working on a tip about a Mexican brothel in Palm Beach County two years ago, his non-Mexican looks automatically triggered suspicion. He eventually had to pose as a cable television installer to get a good look at the trailer where women were being held.
And winning the trust of victims is tough for investigators–tougher if agents cannot speak the language, notes Mike Gennaco, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles who prosecuted the case of the Thai garment workers.
“The language barrier is a real problem in these cases,” he said. “In our case with the Thai workers, we were fortunate enough to have an investigator who spoke the language.”
Many of the task force cases involve Mexicans, and authorities believe that is due in part to higher numbers of Spanish-speaking agents.
“If there are Asian brothel houses in Portland, Ore., and they don’t have any Asian investigators, they’re probably not going to be aware of it,” noted a Justice Department spokesman. “As Hispanics increasingly enter law enforcement, I think we’re more attuned to those crimes.”
After arrests are made, prosecutors face a new hurdle–immigration guidelines that offer an uncertain future for victims. Many victims are reluctant to come forward for fear of being returned to their homelands where they might face retribution. Most prosecutions rely heavily on the testimony of the victims.
Only recently have federal law enforcement agencies, including the Immigration and Naturalization Service, begun to work with the victims to help them stay. Some have obtained “S” visas, awarded to victims who substantially help the government in prosecuting a case.
But only 200 S visas are awarded nationwide each year and the program is set to end this year. Other visa programs are under consideration that may offer a better solution for victims in slavery cases, but nothing has been officially announced.
“The federal government wants to make sure that exploited workers–the true victims in these cases–are not exploited any further by the prosecution process,” Gennaco said. “After it’s all said and done, it should be taken into account that they did assist us and that they have concerns about retribution if they are returned to their countries.”–Amy Driscoll, Herald Staff Writer
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