3. “Money may be able to buy a lot of things, but it should never, ever be able to buy another human being. ” – John F. Kerry, Secretary of State – How do traffickers victims? 1. Prey on vulnerable individuals 2. False promises – perpetrators offer help; the reality is something different 3. Kidnapped/abducted Prey on vulnerable individuals: Holly Austin Smith (child sex trafficking survivor) – Smith shares her personal story and how easy she was coerced into the vicious world of human trafficking. At the age of fourteen, Smith wanted nothing more than her individual freedom and a little attention.
Little did she know, that she was being manipulated into the inexorable clutches of a sex trafficking industry. Holly spent many years as a child prostitute on the streets of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Holly speaks about how she was lured into this business by a complete stranger. Quote from the Prologue: • June 1992, South Jersey I was looking for something. It was the summer after my eighth grade middle school graduation, and I had been looking ever since that school year had begun… I stared into the faces of strangers as they passed by me in large crowds…
I was looking for someone to acknowledge me in some way… And then one day, somebody did. I was walking through the mall with friends, searching each face, when I noticed a man watching me. I held his stare, waiting for him to turn away, and then he raised his finger and curled it back, motioning for me to come over to him. I blinked and looked behind me… I looked back at him and he curled his finger again, motioning for me to come over. I shook my head no. He dropped his fist and continued to watch me.
I looked around to see if anyone noticed the exchange. My best friend and her boyfriend had stopped at the Piercing Pagoda, my other friends loitering around them, and everyone else in the world continued to look over me, past me, or through me. Only this guy noticed my existence. It was a moment for which | had been waiting-a stranger who lived out there in the real world spotted me and invited me in. I was unsure of what to do, hesitant; yet I was equally afraid I might miss this opportunitybut for what? I didn’t know, but I wanted to find out.
Footnote: “Survival Stories,” Survival Stories, accessed December 14, 2015, http://richmondjusticeinitiative. com/human-trafficking/survivalstories/. False Promises: • “From about February 1996 – March 1998, some twenty-five to forty Mexican women and girls, some as young as fourteen years old, were trafficked from Veracruz state in Mexico to Florida and the Carolinas in the United States. The victims had been promised jobs in waitressing, housekeeping, and landscaping, childcare and elder care. Upon their arrival, the women and girls were told they must work as prostitutes in brothels. Footnote: Gilbert King, Woman, Child for Sale: The New Slave Trade in the 21st Century (New York: Chamberlain Bros. , 2004), 183. Another example: This article exploits the John Pickle Company, a Tulsa, Oklahoma based oil company that was accused of trafficking fifty-three skilled workers from India. These men were charmed and lured to the United States with false promises of high-paying jobs and a better life for themselves and their families. Many of the men shut down their own businesses in India to take full advantage of the job opportunity that was presented in the United States.
These men suffered tremendous physical and psychological abuse. Personal narratives, of those that survived, expose horrid details of their time trapped in Tulsa, Oklahoma. John Pickle was greedy, and he abused these Indian citizens for his own economic advancement. • Toofan Mondal recalls what was promised,”I would have a good future in America and I would make a good salary. He told me that food, travel, medical insurance, and accommodations would be provided free… this would be a long term contract and hat after two years, I would be allowed to bring my family to America also. Footnote: Michael A. Scaperlanda, “Human Trafficking in the Heartland: Greed, Visa Fraud, and the Saga of 53 Indian Nationals “Enslaved” by a Tulsa Company,” Loyola University Chicago International Law Review, (2005): 229, accessed January 16, 2016, http://lawecommons. luc. edu/cgi/ viewcontent. cgi? article=1130&context=lucilr. • Mr. Bharathakumaran Ramachdran Nair (a welder from India) describes his conversation with Mr. Pickle (false promises), “John Pickle told me that I would be given an apartment to share with at most four people.
He told me there would be a swimming pool, health club, and other amenities common to apartments in the United States... I had been given very good living arrangements while I worked in the Middle East. I assumed that what was given in the United States would be even better because of the reputation of the United States. ” Footnote: Michael A. Scaperlanda, “Human Trafficking in the Heartland: Greed, Visa Fraud, and the Saga of 53 Indian Nationals “Enslaved” by a Tulsa Company,” Loyola University Chicago International Law Review, (2005): 229, accessed January 16, 2016, Control of victims/ways traffickers prevent victims from escaping
1. Physical restraint – often traffickers keep their victims trapped in Isolation/locked away from the outside world • Minh Dang, a survivor of domestic sex trafficking in the United States, writes a personal letter to the respected members of the anti-human trafficking movement addressing how to effectively work to fight modern-day slavery. Minh Dang describes her experiences and how she felt as a victim in this horrific industry. “I have often described my experience of trafficking as being like that of a caged animal at the zoo…. y movements were restricted and monitored, and my environment was not native to me. I was isolated from others in my own species. Although this simile fits, I have come to find that I also often felt like an alien. I always knew that I resembled human beings because of my two eyes, two arms, two legs, and same general body shape; however, it appeared as if I were not thinking or living like other human beings I witnessed. ” Footnote: Laura T. Murphy, Survivors of Slavery: Modern-day Slave Narratives (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), Foreword VIII.
2. Important legal documents, like passports and temporary work visas are confiscated/victim loses his/her identity; rendered powerless and totally dependent on their trafficker 3. Threat – deportation, withhold money Main Point 1: Serious Physical Health Challenges Sub-Point(s): Abuse, Disease, and Addiction – A relentless chain of pain and cruelty “The individuals victimized by modern-day slavery do not just have tough jobs or demanding bosses. They are not simply underage laborers or sweatshop workers.
They are forced to work for no pay under the threat of violence. Footnote: Jesse Sage and Liora Kasten, eds, Enslaved: True Stories of Modern Day Slavery (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006), 2. Personal testimony of a victim who survived the brutal sex trafficking ring in Florida The Cadena family trafficked vulnerable girls and women from Mexico with the hopes of a better life. These young girls and women were stripped of their identities and personal freedoms, and endured many brutal physical beatings. • “We worked six days a week and twelve hours a day. We mostly had to serve 32-35 clients a day.
Weekends were worse. Our bodies were utterly sore and swollen. The boss did not care…. We worked no matter what… they did not protect us from client beatings. Also, at the end of the night, our work did not end. It was the bosses turn with us. If anyone became pregnant, we were forced to have abortions. ” Footnote: Siddharth Kara, Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 107. Maria was twelve years old when she came to work for Sandra Bearden, a 27-year-old homemaker in suburban Laredo, Texas.
Sandra had wanted a maid, but she did not want to pay an exorbitant amount of money for these services. Sandra drove to Vera Cruz, Mexico where she met Maria and her family. As Sandra sat in Maria’s home, she convincingly persuaded Maria’s parents to let her go. Sandra promised Maria’s mother and father that Maria would attend school and experience new things. Bearden lied to Maria’s parents. Once Maria was smuggled across the border, she endured an endless chain of abuse for seven months. Maria survived, and Sandra Bearden was arrested and convicted.
“On arrival, Maria was dragged into hell. Sandra Bearden used violence and terror to squeeze work and obedience from the child. From early morning till mid afternoon, Maria cooked, cleaned, scrubbed, and polished. If Maria dozed off from exhaustion, or when Sandra decided she wasn’t working fast enough, Sandra would blast pepper spray into Maria’s eyes. A broom was broken over the girl’s back and a few days later, a bottle against her head. At one point, Bearden tortured the twelve-year old by jamming a garden tool up her vagina. That was Maria’s workday; her “time off” was worse.