American Slavery:
Modern-Day Slavery in America
Briefing Book
April 20, 2010
Contents
Summary -----
3
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) -----
7
What is Human Trafficking -----
8
What’s Being Done -----
40
What’s Needed -----
50
Bibliography ----
55
2: American Slavery
Summary
Slavery today takes on a completely different meaning than in the past. Past slavery
meant you legally owned someone. Often, indentured servitude were kept separate from
talks of slavery. Indentured servitude is a contract between the servant and master as to
how long they would work for them and that the master would take care of them.
However, slavery today takes on a much broader definition. Anything from the trafficking
of humans for forced labor or sex under violence or coercion is considered part of modernday slavery.
Slavery or human trafficking today no longer means that one does not own someone
legally, nor does it mean that only certain ethnicities or sexes are involved. Statistically,
according to a UC Berkeley study in 2004, almost 50% of human trafficking is for sex or
prostitution of children. However, the other 50% is split into forced labor such as
agriculture, nannies, hotel services, and sweatshops in US territories.
Human trafficking in the United States is not limited to foreigners being delivered to
the United States, nor is the problem limited to the United States borders. The issue seems
to be one of lax laws, in that if it becomes harder to traffic individuals into the United States
more customers go overseas for what they seek. They also begin to turn domestically, as
numerous cases in this portfolio show. A case in Greensburg, Pennsylvania of Nicely a
young girl who moved in with the Pollard family to finish high school, is an all too common
example. They forced her to become a domestic slave within her own town.
3: American Slavery
A major problem of modern-slavery today is its wide definition and the
obliviousness of the public to its persistence. Many Americans see this as an ancient
problem that only occurs in Russia or in Africa. The wide definition that human trafficking
encompasses can often be misinterpreted as smuggling. Often smuggling or kidnapping are
used as means to an end, which is slavery. However, not all cases of smuggling end in
slavery. The largest issue is that often the traffickers have too much power within the
governments to be prosecuted, in the past the traffickers hardly are touched in cases.
However, the victim usually ends up becoming the criminal instead.
These problems do not just able to the sex trade in America. The forced labor in the
agricultural or sweatshops in the States is also vast. These slaves are usually foreigners,
mainly Hispanic, that are forced to work long hours with little to no pay. They most often
speak little English, which makes them dependent on their captures because they are afraid
of deportation by law enforcement. As said before this is not exclusive to the states, often
companies find ways to exploit labor in American territories. An article, in this portfolio,
brings to light the illusion of ‘Made in USA’ in which slaves in the territories of Guam and
the Virgin Islands are forced to work in sweatshops. Since these are only territories, the
same regulations forced on labor in the States is not regularly enforced making it easy for
companies to exploit the desire for US made products, yet have cheap labor.
United States efforts have been slow, yet they have been moving. Organizations like
freedomcenter.org and freetheslaves.net have been instrumental in pressuring the
government to do something about the holes in the system. Eventually it led to several
federal laws, such as Victim of Trafficking Protection Act of 2000 (VTPA) and 2005
4: American Slavery
reauthorization, and the 2003 PROTECT Act. The VTPA Act of 2000 extended penalties of
offenders to a minimum of twenty years and a maximum of 30 years. Its reauthorization in
2005 created various monitoring agencies such as the Office to Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons (TIP). PROTECT Act of 2003 was a provision to try to protect the
victims of trafficking from imprisonment.
Three other more recent actions being taken are overseas troop training, the
proposal of a bill on Unaccompanied Alien Children Protection Act, and the End Demand for
Sex Trafficking Act of 2005 (EDSTA). Each of these closes a loophole in the current system
of exploitation, but not fully. Troops going abroad are not forced to sit through a seminar
about how to avoid and deal with situations that can lead to exploitation. One soldier
explains that the seminar makes you realize that the prostitutes in Taiwan, Kuwait, etc are
most likely all victims of sex trafficking. The Unaccompanied Alien Children Protection Act
forces states to take abandoned children in within 72 hours along with placing them within
a protection system. It is a means to stop children that are abandoned in the United States
from being forced into prostitution to make ends meet. The EDSTA of 2005 opens up the
MANN Act, which specifics what trafficking is across borders, to a more broad definition
that even consumers that go across state borders or internationally are subject now to
trafficking violations.
Despite these small steps, forward the United States’ ability to combat trafficking
and slavery is lax. A major problem already mentioned is that traffickers are usually quite
powerful individuals making it harder to find and stop the source. Some of the
academically problems is that the United States has no means to see what works and what
5: American Slavery
does not, due to trafficking lucrative nature. However, also because statistical data on the
subject is hard to critic since reports released by TIP and other agencies have no citied
data. Therefore, the normal peer review system that is involved in various other problems
such as poverty, unemployment, etc does not able. Another large failure is the US’ failed
criticizing and reprimanding of international corporations and contractors for
accountability. Instead, they push the issue as not their problem. Ignoring the fact that
Bridgestone or Kellogg were using forced labor.
The United States role in combating the human trafficking industry is huge. The
largest foreseeable problem is that the issue is neither domestic nor international.
Combating it abroad does not does it from according in the United States, and in return
combating it here certainly will not completely stop it from coming. Instead, what is
needed is a vast system to both prevent it from occurring and to protect the victims from
being seen as the perpetrators. This issue is a battle on two fronts, and therefore it must be
fought on both fronts. Ignoring the problem in one area means that they will find a way to
make it return.
6: American Slavery
F.A.Q.
When was slavery abolished?
Globally it was abolished on December 10, 1948 when the UN adopted the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. However, the United States had abolished slavery in 1865.
What is modern-day slavery?
Slavery today goes by many names; human trafficking, sex trafficking, bonded labor,
or forced labor.
Why does slavery persist?
It persists in the United States because there currently are not many prosecutions of
traffickers themselves. Along with high demand for cheap labor and child prostitution, this
means that the problem of slavery will continue to persist.
If slavery is human trafficking, isn’t that only foreigners?
No, however in the United States most reported cases are of foreigners. However,
federal law does not mandate that trafficking is only international bodies nor does it have
to be trans-state bodies. In fact, trafficking often is within a single state.
Trafficking of individuals across borders therefore is slavery, right?
No, if forced labor or sexual exploitation is absent then it is kidnapping not human
trafficking.
7: American Slavery
What is Human Trafficking?
Defining Slavery
Cases
8: American Slavery
Slavery in the 21st Century
…
Slavery still exists today. Whether it is called human trafficking, bonded labor, forced labor,
or sex trafficking, it is present worldwide, including within the United States and,
increasingly, in your local community.
An estimated 12 - 27 million people are caught in one or another form of slavery. Between
600,000 and 800,000 are trafficked internationally, with as many as 17,500 people
trafficked into the United States. Nearly three out of every four victims are women. Half of
modern-day slaves are children.
Slavery Defined
…
Contemporary slavery has been defined and banned in international treaties and within
nations around the world. But outlawing slavery has not prevented its expansion into a
multi-billion dollar global industry on a par with drug trafficking and illicit arms sales.
Efforts to combat slavery will have only limited effectiveness unless anti-slavery laws are
recognized, implemented and enforced by law enforcement officers, courts, and political
leaders. Public awareness is also critical: slavery will remain an invisible scourge unless or
until an informed public becomes actively engaged and committed in helping identify
situations in which some form of slavery is suspected. An aroused public also can bring
public pressure to bear those in power to address those cases.
These are widely used definitions of modern slavery:

Forced Labor: "all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace
of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself [herself]
voluntarily." -International Labour Organization

Trafficking in Persons: "recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of
persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction,
of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the
giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having
control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation." - United Nations

Trafficking in Persons: "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or
obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion
for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or
slavery." - United States
Slavery: Past and Present
9: American Slavery
Slavery today is similar to forms of slavery that have existed for centuries in that these
characteristics are found:

Control through violence or threat of violence

Exploitation for profit

Loss of free will
Modern forms of slavery however, are much different in several important ways:

No longer a need for legal ownership

People caught up in slavery today can be purchased and sold for as little as $100
(compared to 10 times that much in the 1850s). As a result, people become
"disposable;" i.e., easily replaceable.

Slavery cuts across nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, education-level, and
other demographic features.
Slave Labor Uses
 Prostitution, pornography, stripping

Domestic servitude (e.g. nannies and maids)

Agriculture (e.g. farms and dairies)

Hard labor (e.g. construction, landscaping, and mining)

Sweatshops

Child soldiers

Peddling and begging

Hospitality industries (e.g. hotels and restaurants)

Other poorly regulated industries
Slavery in the United States
…
Contemporary slavery/human trafficking remains a reality for many victims in the United
States, where both American citizens and foreign nationals are trafficked into and within
the United States for forced labor. Victims are men, women, and children and are from
diverse nationalities, ethnicities and religions. They are found in any situation where
another person is willing to exploit another for profit. Victims have included, among others:

Members of a Zambian boys choir who were forced to sing to earn their traffickers a
profit and withheld from obtaining an education were promised;
10: American Slavery

Hearing-impaired Mexicans (men, women and children) who were forced to peddle
items on the streets of New York to earn money for their traffickers;

South Asian women forced to work in a textile factory without pay and with constant
physical and sexual violence against them

Young American girls forced to prostitute themselves on the streets of Los Angeles (and
dozens of other cities) while under const

ant physical and sexual violence from pimps and those purchasing the sex;

Latino men forced to work on farms without pay, long hours, under armed guard, and
constant violence or threat of violence against them.
http://freedomcenter.org/slavery-today/
11: American Slavery
EXPOSÉ:
Modern Slavery in America
by Stephen Lendman
Friday, 6 March 2009
This is the plight of America's vulnerable and those we exploit abroad,
whether in restaurants, hotels, agriculture, domestic work, the sex trade,
or on US offshore military bases, and seldom do courts provide justice.
Called human trafficking or forced labor, modern slavery thrives in America, largely below
the radar. A 2004 UC Berkeley study cites it mainly in five sectors:

prostitution and sex services - 46%;

domestic service - 27%;

agriculture - 10%;

sweatshops or factories - 5%;

restaurant and hotel work - 4%; with the remainder coming from:

sexual exploitation of children, entertainment, and mail-order brides.
Modern slavery persists for lack of regulation and work condition
monitoring, enabling immoral exploitation of powerless workers for
profit.
It persists for lack of regulation, work condition monitoring, and a growing demand for
cheap labor enabling unscrupulous employers and criminal networks to exploit powerless
workers for profit.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines forced labor as:
"....all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty
and for which said person has not offered himself voluntarily."
Forced child labor is:
12: American Slavery
a. "all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of
children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labor, including
forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;"
b. "the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of
pornography or for pornographic performances;"
c. "the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the
production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;"
and
d. "work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to
harm the health, safety or morals of children."
The Free the Slaves.net's definition is being "forced to work without pay under threat of
violence and unable to walk away." It reports:

an estimated 27 million people are enslaved globally, more than at any other time
previously;

thousands annually trafficked in America in over 90 cities; around 17,000 by some
estimates and up to 50,000 according to the CIA, either from abroad or affecting US
citizens or residents as forced labor or sexual servitude;

the global market value is over $9.5 billion annually, according to Mark Taylor,
senior coordinator for the State Department's Office to Monitor;

victims are often women and children;

the majority are in India and African countries;

slavery is illegal but happens "everywhere;"

slaves work in agriculture, homes, mines, restaurants, brothels, or wherever
traffickers can employ them; they're cheap, plentiful, disposable, and replaceable;

"$90 is the average cost of a human slave around the world" compared to the 1850
$40,000 equivalent in today's dollars;

common terminology includes debt bondage, bonded labor, attached labor, restavec
(or de facto bondage for Haitian children sent to households of strangers), forced
labor, indentured servitude, and human trafficking;

explosive population growth, mostly to urban centers without safety net or job
security protections, facilitates the practice; and
13: American Slavery

government corruption, lack of monitoring, and indifference does as well.
American Anti-Trafficking Efforts
US laws prohibit all forms of human trafficking through statutes created or strengthened by
the 2000 Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (VTVPA) with imprisonment
for up to 20 years or longer as well as other penalties.
In April 2003, the Protect Act was passed (Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End
the Exploitation of Children Today Act). The law protects children and severely punishes
offenders when enforced. It's to prosecute American citizens and legal permanent residents
who travel abroad for purposes of sexually trafficking minors without having to prove
prior intent to commit the crime.
The 2000 law (reauthorized in 2005) provides tools to combat trafficking offenders
worldwide. It also establishes the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP
Office) and the President's Interagency Task Force to help coordinate anti-trafficking
efforts. The State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) also
is for victim protection. In addition, various other US agencies are involved, including the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) through its Rescue and Restore Victims
of Human Trafficking public awareness campaign and by identifying victims.
The Department of Justice handles prosecutions, and along with DHS and the State
Department, addresses various trafficking issues through the interagency Human
Smuggling and Trafficking Center. Still, enforcement is often is lax or absent, at both federal
and state levels, because offenders are powerful and those harmed are the "wretched of the
earth," mostly poor blacks, Latinos and Asians. As a result, the practice is rampant and
growing. Below are examples of its forms.
Farmworker Slavery
In a March 2004 report, Oxfam America highlighted the growing problem in a report titled
"Like Machines in the Fields: Workers without Rights in American Agriculture." It's a
shocking account of how "Behind the shiny, happy images promoted by the fast-food
industry with its never-ending commercials, there is another reality:"

nearly two million overworked farmworkers living in "sub-poverty misery, without
benefits, without the right to overtime," a living wage, or other job protections,
including for children;
14: American Slavery

in Florida, it's not uncommon to find instances of workers chained to poles, locked
in trucks, physically beaten, and cheated out of pay; it's pervasive enough for a
federal prosecutor to have called the state "ground zero for modern-day slavery" in
a New Yorker magazine article;

John Bowe, author of "Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of
the New Global Economy," calls Florida agriculture "an unsavory world" where
workers like Adan Ortiz fear talking about their bosses because he has nightmares
that they might "come after me with machetes and stuff;"

basic US labor laws exclude farmworkers, including the right to organize; laws like
the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRB) and 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act
(FLSA); also OSHA protections are lacking; the 1983 Migrant and Seasonal
Agricultural Worker Protection Act (AWPA or MSPA) provided modest but
inadequate relief and none at all when it isn't enforced; Oxfam reported that, except
in California to a modest degree, "state laws perpetuate inequality," especially in
Florida and North Carolina;

overall, enforcement at both federal and state levels is lax and has weakened in
recent years; most notable are the lack of investigations, prosecutions, and
resources allocated for either; in the case of undocumented workers, nothing in the
law protects them;

many serve as forced labor against their will in a modern-day version of slavery:
terrorized by violent employers, watched by armed guards under conditions of
near-incarceration, living overcrowded in "severely inadequate" barracks or
trailers, often plagued with rust, mildew, filth, broken appliances, sagging or leaky
roofs, non-working showers, and multiple occupants being over-charged up to $200
a week by unscrupulous employers; yet workers put up with it because in the words
of one: "If we don't work, we don't eat;"

the commercial power of giant buyers and retailers like Wal-Mart (selling 19% of US
groceries) and Yum Brands (the world's largest fast-food company) squeeze
growers and suppliers for the lowest prices;

increased competition from imports have had a similar effect, especially in winter
months;

yet while wages and prices to producers are squeezed, profits are passed up the
distribution chain to corporate giants at the top.
15: American Slavery
Farmworkers have been punished as a result and are perhaps the poorest and most abused
laborers in America. Around half of them earn less than $7500 annually. Lucky ones earn
up to $10,000, in either case it's far below the federal poverty threshold, and their wages
have been stagnant since the 1970s.
Doing some of the worst and most dangerous jobs in America (from exposure to toxic
chemicals and workplace accidents), poverty has forced them into sub-standing housing,
temporary jobs, increased migrancy, and family separation.
Besides sub-poverty wages, around 95% get no Social Security, disability, or medical
insurance benefits (let alone vacations or pensions) for themselves or their families.
Women farmworkers face other abuses like male dominance, sexual harassment, or worse,
while at the same time remain primary family caregivers.
Crop and livestock agricultural jobs exist throughout the country, but over half are
concentrated in California, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Washington. Most
farmworkers are young (between 18 - 44 or younger), male (about 80%), and Latino. They
have little education, and many are recent undocumented immigrants (mostly from
Mexico) forced north because of destructive trade laws like NAFTA.
Organizing efforts have won important victories but not enough to increase workers'
bargaining power under a fundamentally unfair system. So while achievements of
organizations like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida (with over 2000
members) are impressive, they're no match against agribusiness giants or Wal-Mart.
Nor can they ameliorate conditions in one of the country's most hazardous occupations.
Farmworker disability rates are three times than for the greater population. Around
300,000 laborers suffer pesticide poisoning annually, and many others endure accidents,
musculoskeletal, and other type injuries (some chronic).
A 1990 North Carolina study found only 4% of workers had access to drinking water, handwashing, and toilet facilities, a particularly dangerous situation for children and pregnant
women.
Oxfam calls farmworker conditions today the equivalent of a "19th century plantationstyle" model relying on field hands, rudimentary equipment, long hours, little pay, no
benefits, under a basically "inhumane, anachronistic (system crying) out for reform." But
how when all levels of government turn a blind eye to the worst of abuses, and for the
undocumented blame them for their own plight.
Domestic Servitude in America
16: American Slavery
Each year, many thousands, mostly women, arrive in America with temporary visas to
work as live-in domestic workers - for the wealthy, foreign diplomats, or other domestic or
foreign officials. They come to escape poverty or to earn money to send home to families.
Often they're exploited or victimized by unscrupulous traffickers who hold them in forced
servitude, work them up to 19 hours a day, keep them practically incarcerated, pay them
$100 or less a month, and often subject them to sexual abuse.
Undocumented workers have no protection, but even legal entrants have few. Because
visas are employment-based, they're obliged to one employer no matter how abusive, and
if leave they lose their immigration status and are deported. As a result, few do or file
complaints. Some who do are rarely protected because government agencies are lax in
their monitoring and enforcement.
Live-in domestic workers are also excluded from labor law protections with regard to
overtime pay and right to organize, strike, and bargain collectively. In addition, they're
unprotected by OSHA and against sexual harassment under Title VII workplace safeguards
as it applies only to employers with 15 or more workers. In cases of foreign employers,
they enjoy diplomatic immunity, even from criminal, civil, or administrative prosecutions.
As a result, special visa domestics endure human rights violations. Employers are
immunized while workers are powerless to stop abuses like:

assault and battery, including physical beatings and threats of serious harm;

limited freedom of movement, including arbitrary and enforced loss of liberty by
use of locks, bars, confiscation of passports and travel documents, chains, and
threats of retaliation against other family members;

health and safety issues, including unhealthy sleeping situations in basements,
utility rooms, or other unsatisfactory places; unsafe working conditions
endangering health; denial of food or proper nutrition; and refusal to provide
medical care and having to work when ill;

wage and amount of work concerns - US labor laws afford no protections so long
hours, little rest, and low pay are common;

privacy invasions - the UN General Assembly's December 1966 International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) provides that "(n)o one shall be
subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or
correspondence;" it applies to everyone, even live-in domestics on visas;
nonetheless violations of ICCPR are common and migrants get no redress;
17: American Slavery

psychological abuse - often highlighting employer superiority and worker inferiority
to enforce control and render employees powerless; other abuses include insults,
food restrictions, denying proper clothing, and various other demeaning practices;
and

servitude, forced labor, and trafficking - ICCPR and other international laws and
instruments prohibit it, yet don't effectively define "servitude" as distinguished from
slavery; as a result, abusive labor relationships are inevitable; trafficking is
specifically prohibited under the UN's Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the (UNadopted 2000) Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; nonetheless, the
practice is rampant and growing; in the case of migrant domestic workers, abuse is
widespread and greatly underreported.
Sex Slavery in America
It's the largest category of forced labor in America and with good reason:

it's tied to organized crime and highly profitable;

the demand for sex services, including from children, is high and growing; and

the lack of safe and legal migration facilitates it.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) states that the average entry prostitution age is
between 12 - 14. Shared Hope International documents modern-day sex trafficking and
examines conditions under which it exists. It confirms that most victims are underage girls.
A congressional finding estimated that between 100,000 - 300,000 children are at risk at
any time. A DOJ assessment was that pimps control at least 75% of exploited minors by
targeting vulnerable children using violence and psychological intimidation to hold them.
The Internet is a frequent recruitment tool. Other vulnerable victims are shelter and street
youths, including runaways. An estimated 2.8 million children live on city streets, a third of
whom are lured into prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home. Familial prostitution is
also common and involves the selling of a family member for drugs, shelter, and/or money.
The market includes prostitution, including with children, pornography, striptease, erotic
dancing, and peep shows, often controlled by organized crime. The combination of legal
and illegal sex generally is part of a larger portfolio of products and services that include
drugs and drugs trafficking.
18: American Slavery
Sex traffickers usually recruit victims of their own nationality or ethnicity, and migrant
smuggling facilitates it. In addition, state and federal laws too often conflict enough to
withhold victim status from the abused, impede prosecutions, and result in too lenient
sentences when they occur. Also, rarely are prostitution purchasers (including from
children) arrested or prosecuted, and overall, law enforcement agencies face legal and
systemic challenges that interfere with their ability or inclination to go after buyers. Society
provides few protections for victims, including custodial shelters for young children, and as
a result, sex services in America thrive.
Sweatshops and Factories
According to the Union of Needle Trades and Industrial Textile Employees, 75% of New
York garment factories are sweatshops. The US Department of Labor says over 50% of all
US-based ones are, the majority in the apparel centers of New York, California, Dallas,
Miami, and Atlanta but others located offshore as well in American territories like Saipan,
Guam and American Samoa where merchandise produced is labeled "Made in the USA."
Competing with low-wage offshore producers pressures US producers to cut labor costs to
a minimum, even by breaking the law, sometimes egregiously through forced labor. Like
agriculture and domestic service, the sector is especially vulnerable as it often operates
within the informal economy where regulatory enforcement is lax or absent. As a result,
worker exploitation persists. Wages are sub-poverty. Overtime compensation is the
exception, and work environments generally are poor to hazardous. Workers who
complain or try to organize usually are fired and replaced by more amenable ones.
Starvation wages, long hours, unsafe working conditions, and no protections are standard
practice in an industry long known for its labor abuses.
In 1995, two major scandals made headlines, one at home, the other offshore. On August 2,
police raided an El Monte, California apartment complex in which 72 undocumented Thai
immigrants were kept in forced bondage behind razor wire and a chain link fence. They'd
been there for up to 17 years sewing clothes for some of the nation's top manufacturers
and retailers.
They were housed in crowded, squalid quarters. Armed guards imposed discipline,
pressuring and intimidating them to work every day, around 84 hours a week for 70 cents
an hour. Workers were forced to work, eat, sleep, and live in captivity. No unmonitored
phone calls or uncensored letters were allowed, and everything bought came only from
their captors at highly inflated prices. Seven operators were arrested and later convicted of
19: American Slavery
conspiracy, kidnapping, involuntary servitude, smuggling, and harboring illegal
immigrants.
Also in 1995, National Labor Committee investigators found teenage women, as young as
13, sewing clothing for Kathy Lee Gifford's Global Fashion plant in Honduras. Pay was from
9 - 16 cents an hour under oppressive working conditions. Forced overtime was imposed
to meet deadlines. Only two daily bathroom visits were allowed. Supervisors and armed
guards applied pressure and intimidation to work faster on machines that were rust laden
and prone to accidents. Attempts by the women to demand their legal rights were
thwarted. Merchandise produced was for major US retailers like Wal-Mart.
American restaurant and hotel workers also work under onerous conditions and are
underpaid. In hotels, nearly all housekeepers are women who are required to clean 15 or
more rooms a day. Often they must skip meals and rest periods, work off the clock to meet
quotas, and have a 40% higher injury rate than service workers overall as a result.
According to US Department of Labor figures, they earn an average $8.67 an hour or about
$17, 340 annually provided they work full-time.
Immigrants, mainly women, are especially vulnerable in hotels and restaurants. A June
2005 ACLU press release highlighted one example among many pertaining to a law suit
brought by two immigrant waitresses against a New Jersey Chinese restaurant charging sex
discrimination and labor exploitation.
Filed in June 2003, Mei Ying Liu and Shu Fang Chen charged that from May 2000 November 2001 they were completely controlled by their employers, forced to work an
average 80 hours a week, paid no wages or overtime, had to pay a kickback from tips
received, faced gender and ethnic discrimination, were housed in an overcrowded, verminfilled apartment, and were threatened with death when stopped working at the restaurant.
Guest Worker Trafficking on US Military Bases
Besides Halliburton's exploited army of tens of thousands of foreign nationals in Iraq,
Afghanistan and elsewhere, the National Labor Committee (NLC) reported last July that
"hundreds of thousands of foreign guest workers - among them 240,000 Bangladeshis have been trafficked to Kuwait (under false promises of well-paid jobs, and) forced to work
seven days a week (11 hours a day) at a US military base" under horrific conditions.
Stripped of their passports on arrival, they're housed in overcrowded, squalid dorms with
eight workers sharing small 10 x 10 rooms, paid 14 - 36 cents an hour, beaten and
threatened with arrest when they complained, forced to use most of their wages for high-
20: American Slavery
priced food, and the case of "Mr. Sabur" is typical. Hired by the Kuwait Waste Collection and
Recycling Company to work at the Pentagon's Camp Arifjan, his job was to clean the base everything from offices and living spaces to tanks, rocket launchers and missiles.
He worked an 11-hour shift seven days a week and got a one-hour midnight break for
supper. For this, he earned $34.72 a week, far less than he was promised, and he had to pay
a Bangladesh employment agency 185,000 taka ($2697) for his three-year contracted job.
His family sold everything possible for the money, still came up short, and had to borrow
the rest from a neighbor.
On the job, the Kuwaiti company illegally withheld his first three months wages, forcing
him to borrow money to survive. When he asked to be paid, he was beaten, and after an
80,000 worker strike, he was arrested, incarcerated for five days, beaten in prison, then
deported to Bangladesh still wearing his torn, blood-stained clothing.
He was owed but never paid thousands of promised dollars in back wages, and he's typical.
NLC estimates that all 240,000 Bangladeshis have been cheated out of $1.2 billion, and the
Pentagon is complicit in the crime. These same abuses are common on US bases in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and likely other offshore locations as well. In the words of one Sri Lankan
laborer for a Halliburton subcontractor in Iraq: "They promised us the moon and stars," but
instead gave us dirty work, low pay, long hours, bad food, and for the first three months
held us in windowless warehouses near Baghdad's airport with no money, and for some of
them afterwards in tents even worse than the warehouses.
A Final Comment
This is the plight of America's vulnerable and those we exploit abroad, whether in
restaurants, hotels, agriculture, domestic work, the sex trade, or on US offshore military
bases, and seldom do courts provide justice. It's America's dark side along with an
appalling record of crimes and abuses, including imperial wars, torture, and looting the
national wealth for criminal bankers and the rich at the expense of growing millions in
need left wanting at the most perilous economic time in our history. America's long and
disturbing legacy, not at all one to be proud of.
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/030609Lendman.shtml
21: American Slavery
DOMESTIC TRAFFICKING WITHIN THE U.S.
…
Victims of human trafficking in the United States also include U.S. citizens and residents
trafficked within its borders. Much like the majority of other countries affected by human
trafficking, the U.S. has a large internal or "domestic" component of human trafficking for
the purposes of both sexual and labor exploitation. One of the largest forms of domestic
sex trafficking in the U.S. involves traffickers who coerce women and children to enter the
commercial sex industry through the use of a variety of recruitment and control
mechanisms in strip clubs, street-based prostitution, escort services, and brothels.
Domestic sex traffickers, commonly referred to as pimps, particularly target vulnerable
youth, such as runaway and homeless youth, and reinforce the reality that the average age
of entry into prostitution is 12-13 years old in the U.S. Recent cases have also
demonstrated that labor trafficking of U.S. citizens occurs in locations such as restaurants,
the agricultural industry, traveling carnivals, peddling/begging rings, and in traveling sales
crews.
http://www.polarisproject.org/content/view/60/81/
TRANSNATIONAL TRAFFICKING INTO THE U.S.
…
The United States is known as a destination country for transnational trafficking networks
that bring foreign nationals into the U.S. for purposes of both sexual and labor exploitation.
Foreign national trafficking victims in the U.S. are primarily from Asia, Latin America,
Eastern Europe, and Africa. Sex trafficking cases of foreign national women and children
brought into the U.S. are known to occur in a wide variety of locations in the commercial
sex industry, such as massage parlors, hostess clubs, commercially-fronted brothels,
residential brothels, escort services, and strip clubs. Labor trafficking cases of foreign
nationals brought into the U.S. occur in domestic work environments in private homes;
small independently-owned family businesses such as restaurants or nail salons; peddling
and begging rings; and larger-scale labor environments such as agricultural farms or large
sweatshop-like factories. These cases involve both documented and undocumented
migrant workers, and they can occur in both legitimate and underground industries.
http://www.polarisproject.org/content/view/61/82/
22: American Slavery
U.S. Children are Victims of Sex Trafficking
April 2008
Assessments of Service Delivery and Provision Reveal Gaps and Challenges.
Shared Hope International (SHI) has identified a startling trend: American children are
victims of the sex trade and they are being trafficked within the United States. SHI research
reveals that Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST) is a critical problem in many locations
across the U.S.
Human rights investigations by SHI have verified that disturbing numbers of American
children are lured and forced into prostitution. These innocent victims are supplying a
demand for paid sex, a human commodity that SHI investigators find horrifyingly easy to
buy.
"If you pay the price you can get what you want, and I can get it for you. Now if you want
something really young, that $200, it's just going to cost you a little bit more than that," a
trafficker says to an undercover SHI investigator.
American children are prostituted by pimps on the streets, sold over the Internet, and
exploited through pornography and strip dancing. The federal Trafficking Victims
Protection Act provides that any minor exploited in the commercial sex market is a
trafficking victim... yet SHI has identified trafficked children incarcerated across the
country for prostitution and related charges.
"I always felt like a criminal. I never felt like a victim at all," says "Tonya," a teenage
trafficking victim who was lured into prostitution by a pimp at age 12. "Victims don't do
time in jail, they work on the healing process. I was a criminal because I spent time in jail."
SHI has found that these children are often labeled as "child prostitutes." In the few
instances they are properly identified as victims there are no protective shelter options and
they are often placed in detention facilities with children who have committed serious
offenses.
"At an average age of 12 these children are lured and snatched by traffickers. It is a severe
injustice when American girls are held in physical and mental slavery and then punished
for the crime that is committed against them," said SHI President and Founder U.S.
Congresswoman Linda Smith (1994-1998).
SHI was awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs,
Bureau of Justice Assistance (DOJ/BJA) to conduct field assessments in 10 U.S. locations
23: American Slavery
examining two critical issues: the identification of DMST victims and the service delivery to
these victims. The assessments will be released starting the last week of March 2008. The
locations include: Las Vegas, NV; Clearwater, FL; New Orleans/Baton Rouge, LA; Dallas, TX;
Independence, MO; Ft Worth, TX; the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands; San
Antonio, TX; Salt Lake City, UT; and Buffalo, NY.
Adapted from: "U.S. Children are Victims of Sex Trafficking."prnewswire.com. 24 March
2008.
http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/801
24: American Slavery
Modern-Day Slavery in America
Yes, There Are Slaves in the United States, and the Problem Is Getting Worse
By RUSSELL GOLDMAN
March 26, 2007
Emily Nicely, 19, was routinely beaten with broom handles, a metal pipe, belts and wooden
boards.
She was forced to quit school, to do chores and deliver newspapers without pay. She was
by any definition -- including those of the federal government and the family that held her
captive for six months -- a slave.
Nicely's case made headlines last week, in part because a Pennsylvania family was accused
of abusing and threatening her. The arrests of Mark and Cynthia Pollard, as well as their
three teenage children, shed light on a problem most Americans believe was eradicated
more than 140 years ago.
Human rights organizations and federal officials, including President Bush, however, insist
that modern-day slavery, also known as "human trafficking," is alive and well today in the
United States.
Next to the illegal trades in drugs and arms, human trafficking is the third-largest and
fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world, according to government figures. The
departments of Justice and State, as well as anti-trafficking groups, estimate there are
about 27 million people worldwide in modern-day slavery.
Trafficking a Constitutional Violation
The term "human trafficking" can be applied in all cases where the use of "force, fraud or
coercion" is used to get people to work or have sex against their will, a senior official at
the U.S. Department of Justice told ABCNEWS.com.
"Despite what the word 'trafficking' suggests," the official said, "it is not human smuggling
… [and] does not require proof of movement or crossing of borders."
Human trafficking is a federal offense because it violates the 13th Amendment, which
prohibits slavery.
The Department of Justice has conducted more than 700 investigations into cases of alleged
human trafficking since 2001, an increase of 600 percent over the previous six years.
Last year, the Justice Department initiated 168 investigations, charged 111 defendants in
32 cases, and obtained 98 convictions involving human trafficking cases.
Two of those convictions in 2006 were for Jefferson Calimlim Sr. and his wife, Elnora, both
doctors from Milwaukee, Wis.
25: American Slavery
In November 2006, the couple were each sentenced to four years in prison for "forcing a
woman to work as their domestic servant and illegally harboring her for 19 years in their
residence," according to the Justice Department.
The Calimlims were convicted of using threats of serious harm and physical restraint
against their victim, whom they had brought to the United States from
the Philippines when she was 19.
According to a Justice Department summary of the case, "The victim testified that for 19
years she was hidden in the Calimlim home, forbidden from going outside, and told that she
would be arrested, imprisoned and deported if she was discovered. The Calimlims' son was
also convicted of harboring an illegal alien and sentenced to 120 days of home
confinement, three years of supervised release, and a $5,000 fine."
Trafficking very often involves an element of transnational smuggling. Of the 800,000
people trafficked across international borders every year, 17,500 of them ended up in the
United States.
New Unit for Human Trafficking Investigations
Just two months after the Calimlims were convicted, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
established a new unit within the department's Human Rights Division, tasked with
investigating human trafficking cases.
Sex slavery is more common than other forms of forced labor, but experts say trafficking
has infiltrated nearly every aspect of commerce -- from industry and agriculture to nannies
and housekeepers.
Before their arrest in 2005, Mexican nationals Josue Flores Carreto, Gerardo Flores Carreto
and Daniel Perez Alonso spent 13 years smuggling women into New York from Mexico to
be used as prostitutes.
According to the Department of Justice, "The young women were repeatedly threatened,
beaten and emotionally abused by the Carretos and their confederates, while being forced
to service up to 20 men per day."
After pleading guilty to the charges, the Carreto brothers received sentences of 50 years in
prison. Their co-defendant, Alonso, received 25 years in prison.
Held Captive by Family Friends
Emily Nicely wasn't kidnapped or smuggled across foreign borders. Nevertheless, the
family who held her captive treated and called her a "slave."
"She moved in with the Pollards on her own accord," Detective Sgt. Henry Fontana of the
Greensburg, Pa., Police Department told ABCNEWS.com.
26: American Slavery
Nicely, he said, had at times dated both of the Pollards' teenage sons, Mark Jr., 18, and
Jonathon, 17, and had agreed to live with them after her family left Greensburg so she could
finish school at Greensburg Salem High School.
But things took a turn for the worse. She was forced to drop out of school and "was abused
physically and mentally and felt she couldn't leave," Fontana said.
"On numerous occasions, the Pollards punched her, kicked her and struck her with broom
handles, a metal pipe, belts and boards," read a police affidavit.
The Pollard family referred to Nicely as its "slave," according to the affidavit.
Police were called March 10 by Greensburg resident Nelson Williams, a customer on the
paper route Nicely was forced to work. When asked about the bruises on her face, Nicely
"broke down and told [Williams] about her ordeal," Fontana said.
Cynthia Pollard told investigators that Nicely had been bruised after she fell while
delivering newspapers. She also said the family had "numerous physical confrontations
with Nicely but that it was always in self-defense," according to a police affidavit.
After being reached by ABCNEWS.com for comment, Department of Justice officials said
they would launch a federal investigation into Nicely's case
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2981327&page=3
27: American Slavery
Sex slaves, human trafficking... in America?
December 17, 2007
Some foreign exchange students are tricked and exploited in the United States.
In spring of 2004, Katya (not her real name), like thousands of other foreign exchange
university students, was looking forward to the summer job placement that she and a
friend had received in Virginia Beach, Virginia. When she and her friend Lena arrived at
Dulles Airport after a long flight from Ukraine, they were relieved to be met by fellow
countrymen who spoke Russian.
The two men, Alex Maksimenko and Michael Aronov, were holding signs with the girls’
names and greeted them by taking their bags and luggage. Charming and reassuring,
Aronov informed the girls that they had been reassigned to a job in Detroit where they
would waitress and perfect their English language skills.
The men drove Katya and Lena to the Greyhound bus station and gave them tickets to
Detroit. Confused and exhausted, the girls had no reason to question the change of plans.
“When we got to the hotel in Detroit, everything changed,” says Katya. “They closed the
door and sat us down on the couch, took our passports and papers and said, you owe us big
money for bringing you here. They gave us strip clothes and told us that we were going to
be working at a strip club called ‘Cheetahs.’”
Shocked and scared, the two women were subjected to physical, mental and sexual
abuse over the next year as they were forced to work 12-hour shifts stripping for local
Detroit men’s clubs. According to immigration customs agent Angus Lowe, the men
controlled the women through intimidation with guns and threats to hurt family members
back home.
Katya and her friend are two of the estimated 17,000 young women and girls annually who
are forced to work in the sex industry in the U.S. by organized criminals. “Chicago, Houston,
St. Paul, Minnesota, these crimes are happening in every community in America big and
small,” says Marcie Forman, Director of Investigations for ICE (Immigration Customs
Enforcement.) “We’re talking about money here. Millions of dollars and these people don’t
think about these women as human beings. They think of them as dollars and cents,”
Forman says.
In February 2005, after months of planning and finally confiding in a customer from the
strip club, the two girls escaped and were brought to the FBI and ICE. Their escape resulted
28: American Slavery
in the arrest of Alex Maksimenko and Michael Aronov, both of whom pleaded guilty and are
serving time in federal prison for their crimes.
Even though her captors are in prison, Katya says she will never live without fear.
Maksimenko’s father — who was also convicted of forced labor and illegal trafficking —
continues to live openly in Ukraine as a fugitive from authorities.
Adapted from: Grace Kahng, "Sex slaves, human trafficking... in America?." msnbc.com. 3
December 2007.
http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/743
29: American Slavery
iAbolish Case Reports:
Slavery in America
Alaska

Seven Russian women were brought to Alaska in order to dance nude at the Crazy
Horse strip club. The traffickers used false visas and convinced the women that they
would be performing traditional folk dances. Upon arriving, however, the women —
two of whom were only sixteen at the time — were forced to dance naked. The
traffickers confiscated all their possessions, their passports, and their plane tickets
— as well as the tips they made while dancing, claiming that the money would be
used to pay for expenses. The traffickers also threatened the women with violence
and forced them to live in squalid conditions. Four people were arrested, three of
whom pleaded guilty to visa fraud and bringing minors into the state. Charges of
kidnapping, forced labor, and conspiracy were dropped.
Arkansas

Five people were arrested and tried on charges that they smuggled two Chinese
women into the US. Using fake visas and a sham marriage, the smugglers allegedly
conspired to make the women sex slaves for Little Rock businessman David Jewell
Jones. Unfortunately, one of the women, worried that she would be deported if Jones
was acquitted, embellished her testimony on the stand and the trial ended with a
hung jury. The accused, however, have been re-indicted on marriage fraud charges.
California

In 1999 Supawan Veerapol was found guilty of charges, including one of involuntary
servitude. Veerapol, a 55-year old Thai socialite and restauranteur, kept three Thai
'maids' in her house. These women were forced to work 18 hours a day, seven days
a week; they were paid an insignificant wage. Veerapol watched their every move,
even censoring their mail and threatening to harm their families in Thailand if they
30: American Slavery
left Veerapol's house. The 'maids' were forced to crawl on their hands and knees
while serving food at Veerapol's parties. They were also denied medical attention;
one woman testified that she had to pull her own tooth with a pair of pliers. In
January 2000 an unrepentant Veerapol was sentenced to just over eight years in
federal prison.

Law enforcement authorities made several arrests in San Francisco and several
other California cities—including Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Anaheim—in the
summer of 2005 after an October raid in San Francisco uncovered 17 young Asian
women working in a massage parlor in an alley way off Mission Street, just steps
from some of the city’s biggest hotels; they were believed to have been trafficked
into the country for sex and slave labor.
Colorado

In August 2006, the Associated Press reported that Sarah Khonaizan, a 35 year-old
woman living in Centennial, was sentenced to two months in jail for holding an
Indonesian woman as a slave for four years. Khonaizan and her husband hid the
woman's passport and forced her to care for their family. According to testimony,
the woman was paid less than $2 a day and slept on a mattress on the basement
floor. In June 2006, Khonaizan's husband was convicted of imprisoning and sexually
abusing the 24 year-old woman. Khonaizan was charged with theft and ordered to
pay $90,000 in restitution. A federal judge also sentenced her to five years'
probation and ordered $26,275 in restitution for harboring an illegal immigrant.

In February 2000 Michael Charles Smith, a 50-year old high school math teacher,
was arrested on charges stemming from the accusation that he smuggled a number
of undocumented Mexican boys into the United States in order to have sex with
them. Further evidence claimed that Smith was part of a ring of pedophiles. Its
members traveled to Acapulco to have sex with the city's street kids; they also
trafficked in child pornography and smuggled Mexican teens across the border.
Smith kept three such boys in his house, one for over a decade. Smith claimed the
whole thing was a misunderstanding, pleaded guilty to a few lesser charges and was
sentenced to just over two years in prison.
31: American Slavery
District of Columbia

A number of slavery cases have been documented here in the nation's capital. Dora
Mortey came from Ghana legally to work as a domestic servant for a World Bank
official. Her employer, however, soon became known as 'The Creature.' Morety was
forced to work 15 hours a day; she was told that if she left the house, she would be
raped or kidnapped. Bangladeshi maid Shamela Begum claims she was enslaved and
beaten by a UN official. And two Kenyan women have claim that they were
imprisoned by a worker at the Kenyan embassy.
Florida

In August 2006, Fernando Pascual, a 22 year-old man from Cape Coral, was
sentenced to 10 years in prison for keeping a 13 year-old girl as his sex slave and
housekeeper. The girl was brought to Cape Coral after being sold in Guatemala.
Pascual's sister and brother-in-law were also given prison sentences for their roles
in harboring the young girl.

The Cadena family, from Veracruz, Mexico, smuggled at least 22 young women from
Mexico to the United States and then forced them into prostitution. The women —
some of them as young as 14 — were lured by promises of good-paying jobs.
Instead, they found themselves as sex slaves in trailer park brothels in Florida and
South Carolina. They were kept in deplorable conditions and regularly beaten. If a
woman got pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. The brothels' clients paid
$20 for sex. For each transaction, $3 was subtracted from the $2000 to $3000
'smuggling fee' that these women ostensibly owed their captors. After a series of
raids and arrests, family ringleader Rogerio Cadena pleaded guilty to a number of
charges. He faces up to 15 years in prison.

In October 2003, authorities uncovered a case of slavery in Cape Coral, Florida
involving a twelve year-old Guatemalan girl who was sold by her parents and
smuggled into the U.S, where she cooked, cleaned, and worked as a sex slave. The
girl was repeatedly raped and beaten so badly that she lost her first child due. Her
story was reported at the hospital while she was pregnant with her second child.
She took refuge in a neighbor’s house, but her report was ignored for a year and a
half.

In March 2005 the Coalition of Immokalee Workers pressured Yum!, a company
selling agricultural goods to businesses such as Taco Bell to increase worker’ wages.
32: American Slavery
Workers were given 40 cents per 32 pound bucket of tomatoes. These wages are the
same as they were 30 years ago. Many workers were incarcerated, and beaten. The
CIW was able to free 1,000 workers by forcing an increase in wages and rewriting
the terms of slavery in Yum!’s supplier code of conduct.
Georgia

Smugglers lured up to 1,000 young women — some as young as 13 — from
Southeast Asia to Atlanta, with the promise of good-paying factory jobs. Instead, the
women were forced to pay off their enormous 'travel expenses' by working as
prostitutes. The women lived in heavily guarded compounds, which ensured that
the women would not leave the brothel. The razor wire and high walls also hid the
squalor in which the women were forced to live. The prostitution ring was finally
busted in 1999.
Hawaii

In 2004, a man in Waipahu, Hawaii was accused of smuggling seven men from
Tonga, a small island in the Pacific, to Hawaii. The men, who were forced to work for
his landscaping business, lived in shack on a pig farm. The man argued they had
come voluntarily with hopes of bettering their lives and sending money back to
poverty-stricken families. Yet the victims received pay only occasionally and were
frequently beaten. A jury found the man guilty of 34 counts—including involuntary
servitude, forced labor, alien harboring, alien smuggling, and unlawful use of
documents.
Illinois

In 1995 Alexander Mishulovich lured five women from Latvia with the promise of
high-paying jobs. Upon arriving in Chicago, they were instead forced to dance in a
topless bar. Virtually all of the proceeds they made were kept by Mishulovich. The
women were forced to live in a single bedroom apartment; they were beaten and
sexually abused. In 1998 the FBI arrested four of his henchmen, but Mishulovich
remains a fugitive. Recently, Chicago police have looked into a similar scheme
involving a number of women who were smuggled from China into the city and then
forced to work off their $60, 000 'travel fee' as prostitutes.
33: American Slavery
Massachusetts

For four long months in 1992, Vasantha Gedara was kept as a slave just a few
subway stops from downtown Boston. Gedara left her native Sri Lanka because she
was promised a decent-paying domestic job in the US. Her captors — 30-year old
graduate student Talal Alzanki and his wife Abair — picked her up at the airport,
immediately confiscated her passport, and took her to their apartment. She was
forced to constantly clean the apartment, working 13-15 hours a day. Gedara had to
sleep in a hallway and she was fed only bread and water; she was even banned from
sitting on the apartment's furniture. The Alzankis beat Gedara, and told her that she
would be shot if she left the house. Gedara was eventually rescued by a nurse who
was tending for the Alzankis' child. Soon thereafter, the Alzankis were arrested.
Talil's defense — that he was under a great deal of stress and that Gedara was lying
— fell on deaf ears. The jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to a year in
prison.
Maryland

Rene and Margarida Bonetti kept Hilda Dos Santos, a 65-year old illiterate Brazilian
woman, as an unpaid housekeeper for 15 years. She was not only denied a wage, but
also medical treatment and even food — Rene kept a lock on the house refrigerator.
Dos Santos was regularly beaten; Margarida once poured scalding soup on her. She
was saved from her fate only after neighbors took Dos Santos to the hospital for
treatment a stomach tumor that had grown to the size of a soccer ball. Rene was
arrested, but Margarida has apparently fled to Brazil. Despite a brazen defense, in
which he claimed that Dos Santos was a costly and horrible housekeeper, Bonetti
was convicted in August 2000. He was sentenced to 6½ years of prison and forced
to pay Dos Santos over $100,000.

In Silver Spring, Maryland, a Cameroonian woman was exposed for keeping an 11
year-old Cameroonian girl as her domestic slave. The young girl was forced to cook,
clean, and care for the woman’s children. She was also frequently beaten with
various items, including a high-heeled shoe and a broomstick. Though the woman’s
attorney argued using domestic servants like this is accepted in Cameroon, she was
sentenced to over 17 years in prison.
34: American Slavery
Michigan

Joseph and Evelyn Djoumessi invited a young girl from their native Cameroon to live
in their Michigan home. She was promised a better life in America, an opportunity to
get a good education. Instead, the Djoumessis forged adoption papers in order to
hide the girl's real status — she was not a boarder or an exchange student, but a
slave. She was forced to clean the house and look after the Djoumessis' three
children; she was rarely allowed to leave the house. She was beaten several times
and repeatedly raped by Joseph. The girl was eventually rescued by a neighbor and
the Djoumessis were arrested.

Two men were discovered smuggling women from the Ukraine outside Detroit in
February 2005. The women had been promised jobs as waitresses. Instead, they
were locked in the basement of a home the men rented in the neighborhood of
Livonia, beaten, raped and forced to work at a near by strip club. The women
worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and received none of the money they made.
The men claimed the women were simply working off the thousands of dollars they
owed them for visas and work papers.
Minnesota

In September 2000, five people were indicted for running an extensive smuggling
and prostitution ring. The group smuggled women from Asia into the US, and then
forced them to work off their smuggling fee as prostitutes. These arrests — which
involved the execution of thirteen search warrants in three states — were the
culmination of 'Operation Jade Blade,' a two-year federal investigation of this
problem.
New Hampshire

Andrew and David were offered high paying jobs for Bradley Tree Company in New
Hampshire, but when they arrived from Jamaica, their passports were confiscated.
In Linchfield, New Hampshire they were repeated threatened and beaten, forced to
live in a shed, given very little money, yet required to pay $50 per week for rent.
Their “employers” are currently serving five years in a federal prison. Over 200
other cases of slavery are said to have been reported in New England in the past
four years.
35: American Slavery
New Jersey

Noris Elvira and Ana Luz Rosales-Martinez admitted to illegally smuggling dozens of
Honduran women, some as young as 14, into the United States. The women were
forced to work in bars to pay back smuggling fees — some debts were as high as
$20,000. By dancing and drinking with male patrons at bars in Union City and
Guttenberg, the women earned $5 an hour plus tips to pay back the smuggling debt.
Prostitution was encouraged, and the women were beaten if they were disobedient.
One woman was forced to ingest abortion pills after the traffickers found out she
was pregnant.

In search of more money for herself and her family, Marjina left her child and
traveled half the earth: from her native Bangladesh, to Dubai to work in a factory,
and then on to New Jersey to work as a housekeeper. But there she only found
misery and pain — soon after arriving in the US, Marjina realized that she was a
domestic slave. Her masters forced her to work 18-20 hours a day, seven days a
week; she was forced to shovel snow while wearing sandals. She was denied
medical treatment and telephone calls home. Marjina was told that if she left the
house, she would be arrested. She managed to escape, but eventually found herself
working for an equally brutal family. Fortunately, Marjina also escaped from that
house, thanks to a kindly busdriver. She is suing the two families for back wages;
they deny all the accusations.

In Hudson County, New Jersey in 2005, federal agents discovered a group of girls
and women from Honduras who were kept in crowded apartments and forced to
dance, drink alcohol, and have sex with male customers at local bars to pay back
thousands of dollars in human smuggling fees. The young, undocumented women—
some as young as fourteen—were from poor, rural villages in Honduras and had
been promised legitimate jobs as waitresses in restaurants in New Jersey. Instead,
they were raped, forced to take abortion-inducing pills, and repeatedly subjected to
physical abuse and threats of deportation or harm to their families in Honduras if
they did not comply with their smuggler’s demands. They were paid approximately
$240 for 48 hours of work a week but were required to pay back nearly all of it to
the ring for their astronomical smuggling fees. Federal Agents finally indicted 10
people, all alleged members of a ring operating in the US and Honduras.

Four girls between 14 and 18 years-old were promised marriage and happiness in
America. Instead, they found themselves forced into prostitution in brothels in
36: American Slavery
Plainfield, New Jersey. The girls each came from poverty and minimal education and
were easily lured by opportunity in the U.S. Local and federal authorities eventually
found the women and broke up the sex ring in March of 2002.
New Mexico

In September 2000, five people were indicted for running an extensive smuggling
and prostitution ring. The group smuggled women from Asia into the US, and then
forced them to work off their smuggling fee as prostitutes. These arrest — which
involved the execution of thirteen search warrants in three states — were the
culmination of 'Operation Jade Blade,' a two-year federal investigation of this
problem.
New York

Beatrice, a girl of thirteen, was recruited from Nigeria to live with an American
family, to help with the housework, and to attend school. Upon her arrival in to the
U.S., however, Beatrice found herself enslaved: locked in a suburban home, working
for up to twenty hours a day, and denied education. Her masters — Prosper and
Ifeoma Udogwu — regularly beat her while forcing her to hold her hands above her
head. In 1998, after being beaten for over an hour, Beatrice screamed so loudly that
neighbors called the police and she was finally discovered.

Between 1993 and 1996, the Paoletti family, headed by Adriana Paoletti Lemus,
smuggled 100 deaf-mute Mexicans to New York City, where they were forced to sell
trinkets on New York's streets and subways. The workers handed people keychains
with tags reading "$1. I am deaf." The Paoletti family, most of whom were also deaf,
made over $1 million from the operation. The workers were housed in Queens, 10
people sharing a room. Those who did not meet the $600-a-week quota and those
who tried to escape were shocked with a stun gun. The operation was discovered
after several of the workers reported their situation to the police. Lemus and 19
others were charged. Lemus eventually pled guilty and was sentenced to 14 years in
prison and ordered to pay $1 million to her victims.

Three men plead guilty to charges of operating a human trafficking ring in New York
City. The men admitted to having smuggled poverty-stricken women and girls from
Mexico and forcing them into prostitution since 1991. The girls were physically
abused and received none of their payment; instead, the $25 to $35 they received
37: American Slavery
from customers was split among the three men and prostitution ringleaders.
Authorities began pursuing the case in 2003, but the men did not plead guilty until
April of 2005.
North Carolina

Charlotte, N.C. — The Charlotte Observer reported that in 2004 police shut down two
brothels located in houses in northeast Charlotte, North Carolina. The brothels held
young immigrant women from Latin America as sex slaves, giving them only half of
what they earned from dozens of men each night. They were locked in rooms during
the day, and fear of being beaten prevented them from running away. Because most
of these women were illegal immigrants, they were reluctant to report the crimes to
authorities. Police reported many of these women were traded between pimps from
near by cities such as Raleigh and Greensboro for as little as $130 each. Often these
woman were too scared and confused by the constant movement to know what city
they were currently in. Francisco Romero Pina, who operated the brothels in
Charlotte, was arrested on charges related to weapons and fraud, but not for human
trafficking because the women were too frightened to testify against him.
South Carolina

The Cadena family, from Veracruz, Mexico, smuggled at least 22 young women from
Mexico to the United States and then forced them into prostitution. The women —
some of them as young as 14 — were lured by promises of good-paying jobs.
Instead, they found themselves as sex slaves in trailer park brothels in Florida and
South Carolina. They were kept in deplorable conditions and regularly beaten. If a
woman got pregnant, she was forced to have an abortion. The brothels' clients paid
$20 for sex. For each transaction, $3 was subtracted from the $2000 to $3000
'smuggling fee' that these women ostensibly owed their captors. After a series of
raids and arrests, family ringleader Rogerio Cadena pleaded guilty to a number of
charges. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
Texas

In the summer of 2000, federal agents charged seven people with smuggling women
into the US and forcing them into prostitution. The young women, from Thailand
and China, were taken to Houston and required to pay off a $40,000 'transportation
38: American Slavery
fee.' The women were not allowed to write home or use the phone; they essentially
lived in the brothel. Five people pleaded guilty to a number of charges.

In 2005 a couple in Mission, Texas was charged with bringing two undocumented
immigrant women across the border from Mexico with the promise of a good job.
Instead, they were used as slaves at the daycare the couple runs and at the couple’s
home. The victims were forced to work 1,300 hours with no pay and were
constantly threatened and harassed. The couple was charged with human
trafficking.
Virginia

Two Indonesian men living in northern Virginia plead guilty to plotting to traffic
Indonesian women and girls into the U.S. The men admitted to planning to smuggle
women and girls, ages 15 to 23, and force them to work as prostitutes and nude
dancers. They were sentenced in July 2005 to counts of sex trafficking, immigration
fraud, ID document fraud and money laundering.
Washington

In Lynnwood, the FBI accused a Washington couple of using a Kenyan woman as a
modern-day slave. The couple allegedly locked the woman in their home, forced her
to work 15 hours a day, and paid her between $70 and $180 a month, instead of the
$500 she was promised. The story was reported by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in
2005.
© 2010 American Anti-Slavery Group. All rights reserved.
http://iabolish.org/slavery_today/usa/states.html
39: American Slavery
What Is Being Done
Troop Training
Congressional Law
40: American Slavery
Human trafficking training mandatory for
overseas troops
By Allison Batdorff, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, October 22, 2006
YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — If you take nothing else away from the military’s
Trafficking in Persons training, remember this:
“No buying, selling or renting people,” said Yokosuka Seaman Nicole Katic.
She hears about human trafficking in every foreign port as a U.S. sailor with Navy’s 7th
Fleet. And she has taken the 45-minute course mandated for all overseas personnel.
Some 450,000 servicemembers and civilians with the Defense Department had taken the
online TIP course as of June, according to Maj. Stewart Upton, a spokesman for the Office of
the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs.
The course hits four major points: origins, detection, U.S. and DOD policies, and regulations
governing human trafficking, he said.
The practice has been called “modern-day slavery” and is defined as the “recruitment,
harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through
the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary
servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.”
The State Department estimates 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked annually, with 80
percent of them women and girls — up to 50 percent are children — as of 2006. And the
majority of transnational victims were trafficked into a growing, global commercial sex
trade.
“Whether people realize it or not, most women involved in prostitution are there against
their will,” said 7th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Ike Skelton.
“Even by going to a strip club or bar that is a front for prostitution supports the worldwide
human trafficking industry. If you spend money there, you may be giving money to the
traffickers, and traffickers are criminals.”
TIP training is a way of “looking our folks in the eyes and reminding them what behavior is
acceptable and what is not,” Skelton said.
For the most part, servicemembers say the training is working.
41: American Slavery
Staff Sgt. Mark Freeman of the 374th Maintenance Squadron at Yokota Air Base, Japan said
he went through the Web-based training several months ago.
He encountered a few real-life training scenarios during a Thailand stop on his way back
from a recent deployment to Kuwait, he said.
“You run into a lot of those situations there,” Freeman said. “There’s not quite as many in
Japan.”
He said he believes the training, if conducted periodically, can help guide servicemembers’
behavior outside the gates.
Sgt. Michael Mitchell, who organizes training for his battalion on Camp Kinser, Okinawa,
said he thinks the training is helpful “especially for Marines deploying to places like Korea
and the Philippines and Singapore.”
The class would have the most value if done as part of pre-deployment training, he added.
Seaman Benjamin Saylor, assigned to the USS Blue Ridge, said he’d like to see more
situations presented in training that mirror the average servicemember experience.
“It makes it seem like the all the women are being held hostage,” Saylor said. “The reality is
more like prostitutes at the bar.”
Stars and Stripes reporters Vince Little and Megan McCloskey contributed to this
report.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=39956&archive=true
42: American Slavery
Federal Efforts to Combat Interstate Sex Trafficking of Minors
It has been a federal crime to transport minors over state lines for the purpose of
committing illegal sex acts since 1910. The most recent initiative to combat this crime has
been sponsored by the FBI Crimes Against Children Division in conjunction with CEOS and
with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Operation Innocence Lost,
announced in early 2003, is a nationwide initiative to focus on child victims of interstate
sex trafficking in the United States.
Four primary statutes, 18 U.S.C. § 1591 and 18 U.S.C. §§ 2421-2423, criminalize
prostituting minors in interstate commerce.
In summary, 18 U.S.C. § 1591 makes it illegal to recruit, entice, obtain, provide, move or
harbor a person or to benefit from such activities knowing that the person will be caused to
engage in commercial sex acts where the person is under 18 or where force, fraud or
coercion exists. This statute does not require that either the defendant or the victim
actually travel.
The statute defines "Commercial Sex Act" as any sexual act for which something of value is
given or received. 18 U.S.C. § 1591(c)(1). "Coercion" is defined as: 1) Actual threats of
harm; 2) scheme intended to cause the victim to believe harm would result; or 3) threats of
legal repercussions against the victim 18 U.S.C. § 1591(c)(2). Statutory penalties for
violating section 1591 are quite severe. In instances where no force, fraud or coercion is
used and in which the victim is between 14 and18 years of age, the statutory maximum
penalty is up to 40 years imprisonment. If the victim has not attained the age of 14, or in
instances when force, fraud or coercion can be proved, the statutory maximum penalty is
any term of years or life imprisonment.
An individual who engages in interstate sex trafficking of minors may also be charged with
violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2421 - 2423. In order to obtain federal jurisdiction, the statutes
require proof of actual travel in interstate commerce, or a specific use of the channels of
interstate commerce for illegal sexual activity.
Eighteen United States Code, Section 2421 criminalizes the knowing transportation of any
individual in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the
United States, with the intent that such individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual
activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense. The maximum term of
imprisonment under this statute is 10 years.
43: American Slavery
Eighteen United States Code, section 2422 applies to defendants who coerce or entice
either adults or minors to engage in illegal sexual activity:
(a) Whoever knowingly persuades, induces, entices or coerces any individual to travel in
interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, to
engage in prostitution or in any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a
criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more
than 20 years, or both,
(b) Whoever, using the mail or any facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce or
within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States knowingly
persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any individual who has not attained the age of 18
years, to engage in prostitution or any sexual activity for which any person can be charged
with a criminal offense, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned
not less than 5 years and not more than 30 years.
18 U.S.C. § 2422. The PROTECT Act, passed in April 2003, raised the maximum sentence
under section 2422(a), and both established a mandatory minimum sentence and raised
the maximum sentence under section 2422(b).
The statute criminalizing interstate or international transportation of minors for illegal
sexual activity is 18 U.S.C. § 2423. This statute, too, was recently amended in the PROTECT
Act. The newly revised statute provides:
(a) Transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. – A person who
knowingly transports an individual who has not attained the age of 18 years in interstate or
foreign commerce, or in any commonwealth, territory or possession of the United States,
with the intent that the individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity for which
any person can be charged with a criminal offense, shall be fined under this title and
imprisoned not less than 5 years and not more than 30 years.
(b) Travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. – A person who travels in
interstate commerce or travels into the United States, or a United States citizen or alien
admitted for permanent residence in the United States who travels in foreign commerce,
for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct with another person shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.
(c) Engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places. – Any United States citizen or alien
admitted for permanent residence who travels in foreign commerce, and engages in any
44: American Slavery
illicit sexual conduct with another person shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not
more than 30 years, or both.
(d) Ancillary offenses. – Whoever, for the purpose of commercial advantage or private
financial gain, arranges, induces, procures, or facilitates the travel of a person knowing that
such a person is traveling in interstate commerce or foreign commerce for the purpose of
engaging in illicit sexual conduct shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than
30 years, or both.
(e) Attempt and Conspiracy. – Whoever attempts or conspires to violate subsection (a), (b),
©), or (d) shall be punishable in that same manner as a completed violation of that
subsection.
(f) Definition. – As used in this section the term "illicit sexual conduct" means (1) a sexual
act (as defined in section 2246) with a person under 18 years of age that would be in
violation of chapter 109A if the sexual act occurred in the special maritime and territorial
jurisdiction of the United States; or (2) any commercial sex act (as defined in section 1591)
with a person under 18 years of age.
(g) Defense. – In a prosecution based on illicit sexual conduct ad defined in subsection
(f)(2), it is a defense which the defendant must establish by a preponderance of the
evidence, that the defendant reasonably believed that the person with whom the defendant
engaged in the commercial sex act had attained the age of 18 years.
The PROTECT Act specifically implemented several amendments in connection with sex
tourism and commercial sexual exploitation: (1) in the area of sex tourism, new provision
2423(c) makes it sufficient to show that a United States citizen or lawful permanent
resident traveled abroad and engaged in any illicit sexual conduct with a minor, regardless
of what his intentions may have been when he left the United States; (2) the addition of
2423(d) specifically reaches any person who knowingly "arranges, induces, procures, or
facilitates the travel" of an individual they know is traveling for the purpose of engaging in
illicit sexual conduct, when they engage in facilitating the travel for the purpose of
commercial advantage or private financial gain; (3) new provision 2423(e) punishes an
attempt or conspiracy to violate any of the provisions in 2423; (4) the definitions contained
in 2423(f) broaden the prohibited conduct under the statute to include commercial sex acts
(as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1591(c)(1)) with persons under 18; and (5) for defendants
charged under the sex tourism provision, 2423(c) an affirmative defense was added for
defendant who "reasonably believed" that person who had engaged in the commercial sex
act was 18. The defendant bears the burden of proving the affirmative defense by a
preponderance of the evidence.
45: American Slavery
The PROTECT Act also changed the sentencing scheme for 18 U.S.C. § 2423. For 18 U.S.C. §
2423(a)(traveling for criminal sex act) the maximum sentence was upgraded to 30 years
imprisonment. Formerly, the equivalent provision had a maximum sentence of 15 years. A
mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years was also enacted. In the revision to section
2423(b), the maximum sentence was also upgraded from 15 to 30 years imprisonment.
http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/prostitution_fedefforts.html
46: American Slavery
U.S. Senate Approves Bill Assisting Abandoned Alien Children
October 11, 2004
On October 11, the Senate approved, by unanimous consent, a substitute amendment to a
bill (S. 1129) that would set standards for the treatment of unaccompanied alien children.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the measure on June 3 (see The Source, 6/4/04).
Sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act
would require immigration authorities to transfer the custody of unaccompanied children
to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within 72 hours. The measure would authorize such
sums as necessary for the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and Health and
Human Services to comply with the bill.
S. 1129 would require that every unaccompanied alien minor be given access to legal
counsel, but would specify that the federal government would not pay for the child's
attorney representation. The bill also would require that states be reimbursed for the
expenses they incurred while providing assistance to unaccompanied children. The
measure would require the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement to develop a
witness protection program for children who are victims of trafficking or alien smuggling.
Finally, the bill would require the State Department to include an assessment of foreign
countries' efforts to protect children from traffickers and smugglers in its annual report on
human rights.
The substitute amendment would lower from 21 to 18 the age at which immigrant children
who have become wards of the state could apply for special immigrant visas.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has introduced a comparable bill (H.R. 2261) in the House.
The Source on Women's Issues in Congress. Women's Policy, Inc. Volume 10, No. 31.
2004.
1
http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/57
47: American Slavery
US Legislators Introduce Sex Trafficking Bill to Congress
April 2005
The End Demand for Sex Trafficking Act of 2005 introduced by U.S. Senators John Cornyn
and Arlen Specter, and by U.S. Representatives Deborah Pryce, Carolyn Maloney, and Bobby
Scott, Kay Granger, Thelma Drake – seeks to combat sex trafficking by targeting and
reducing demand.
The bill expresses Congress's commitment to reducing the U.S. domestic demand for sex
trafficking, which disproportionately victimizes women and children.
Section 4 of the Bill focuses on prosecution of purchasers, sex traffickers, and exploiters.
This provision establishes a new federal grant program to encourage the development and
implementation of demand-side strategies for the enforcement of laws against sex
trafficking. The bill would authorize the appropriation of $15 million per year for fiscal
years 2005 through 2007 to fund the grant program. Grants could be used (1) to focus
prosecution efforts on purchasers of unlawful commercial sex acts – such as through
educational programs, shaming penalties, the use of decoys, and other demand-side law
enforcement strategies, (2) to focus prosecution efforts on traffickers and exploiters of
unlawful commercial sex acts – such as through surveillance efforts, prosecutions for rape,
sexual assault, and tax evasion, and civil actions for restitution, and (3) to fund NGOs
specializing in providing services to victims of commercial sex activities, including
protection, education, food, and shelter.
Section 5 strengthens prosecution and punishment of sex traffickers and purchasers and
exploiters. This provision strengthens and clarifies federal criminal law by amending the
1910 Mann Act. The original 1910 version of the Mann Act prohibits the transportation of
"any individual" across state or national lines, with the intent that such individual engage in
prostitution or some other criminal sexual act. The bill would make clear that "any
individual" includes the transportation of consumers across state lines, as well as the
transportation of persons used for prostitution across state lines. This alteration would
ensure that the Mann Act can be used to combat sex tourism. (The sex tourism provisions
of the PROTECT Act apply only to sex tourism involving minors.)
Section 6 ensures that federal agencies involved in combating sex trafficking coordinate
with the Senior Policy Operating Group established by the Trafficking Victims Protection
Act of 2000.
Section 7 contains a number of reporting requirements to strengthen future efforts to
combat unlawful commercial sex. It would require the Attorney General to release an
annual report on best practices for reducing the demand for unlawful commercial sex at a
48: American Slavery
national conference sponsored by the Justice Department. The report would review the
outcomes achieved by grant recipients and examine the Department's use of the Act's
amendments to the Mann Act. The bill would also require the Attorney General to
undertake a biennial comprehensive statistical review and analysis of the incidence of
unlawful commercial sex nationwide.
http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/75
49: American Slavery
What’s Needed
Criticism of Against Human Trafficking Funding
Failure of United States to Keep Corporations Accountable
50: American Slavery
US Efforts Against Human Trafficking Criticized
August 18, 2006
The US government's $375-million effort to fight international human trafficking has
lacked coordination and been plagued by an inability to determine which actions are
actually working, according to a government study released Monday. The report prepared
by the Government Accountability Office also said the United States doesn't have an
effective method of estimating the number of people taken illegally across international
borders annually. The GAO said the U.S. estimate of the global trafficking flow -- currently
pegged at 600,000 to 800,000 people yearly -- is of doubtful reliability because it was
prepared by one federal employee who wasn't able to document his work.
Human trafficking -- the migration of people who are forced to work as prostitutes, factory
workers or domestic servants -- has been a growing concern in law enforcement,
particularly in New York City, with its large immigrant communities. The Police
Department is close to announcing creation of a human trafficking unit to uncover cases
and work with federal investigators. Over the years, estimates of global human trafficking
victims have gone as high as 2 million persons.
In 2000, a Central Intelligence Agency-commissioned report said about 45,000 to 50,000
trafficking victims came to the U.S. yearly, and that number drove policy debate and law
enforcement priorities for years. Recent estimates put the number at around 17,000
trafficked persons annually. The GAO report was requested by Reps. James Sensenbrenner
Jr.(R-Wis.), chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.),
chairman of the Committee on International Relations. In a statement, Sensenbrenner
expressed concern and called for action by President George W. Bush.
"I am deeply concerned about the stark deficiencies highlighted by this report,"
Sensenbrenner said in the statement. He said preparation of the trafficking estimates
should be taken from the intelligence community and given to a different agency. Special
Ambassador John Miller, the State Department official in charge of anti-trafficking efforts,
criticized the report. "I think this proves the office of Congress can come up with a
bureaucratic report just as well as a bureaucracy," Miller said. He said the focus should be
on helping trafficking victims and putting traffickers in jail.
Thomas Melito, director of the GAO unit that prepared the study, told Newsday the data
collection process needs to be improved at the individual country level and subjected to
some kind of academic peer review process. Melito said the GAO study lauded the U.S.
government for the way it has taken the lead, through the Department of State, in putting
trafficking on the international agenda and pushing other governments into action. The
51: American Slavery
department is required by law to rank country efforts on trafficking. But Melito said the
study found the annual report prepared by the department had no clear, consistent way of
preparing the rankings.
Anthony M. Destefano. "U.S. Efforts Against Human Trafficking Criticized." NEWSDAY. 15
August 2006.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Better Data, Strategy, and Reporting Needed to Enhance U.S.
Antitrafficking Efforts Abroad
http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/409
52: American Slavery
Groups Report to UN on US Human Rights Failure to Hold
Corporations Accountable for Human Trafficking, Child Labor,
Torture
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
April 19, 2010, New York – Human Rights organizations submitted a report to the United
Nations in Geneva today on the United States failure to hold corporations, including private
government contractors, accountable for human rights abuses ranging from human
trafficking to murder.
The United States’ compliance with international human rights—as required under the UN
Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights treaties--will
be reviewed for the first time in November as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR)
process undertaken by the UN Human Rights Council. The peer review process is intended
to review the degree to which all 192 UN member states have fulfilled their human rights
obligations and commitments, as well as identify progress, challenges and areas for
improvement. Countries are to be reviewed every four years. The UPR will look specifically
at the level of each country’s implementation of the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, the human rights treaties to which the country is a party, and each
country’s voluntary pledges and commitments, as well as applicable international law.
As part of this process, human rights organizations can submit reports concerning the U.S.
and its human rights record. The Center for Constitutional Rights, EarthRights
International, the International Network for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ESCRNet) and the Western Shoshone Defense Project today submitted a report concerning the
U.S. human rights record in the context of business activities. The report examines the
degree to which the U.S. is upholding its duties to respect, protect and remedy human
rights abuses involving business actors both domestically and abroad.
The report cites numerous examples where private companies have been alleged to be
responsible for serious human rights abuses, such as:
• the use of forced labor and child labor by Bridgestone in Liberia;
• human trafficking of Nepali laborers by Kellogg Brown & Root;
• nonconsensual medical experimentation by Pfizer; and
• extrajudicial killings and torture committed by private military contractors in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
• complicity in war crimes by Chiquita
53: American Slavery
The human rights organizations also point out that in many instances there is no adequate
recourse or means of redress for such abuses committed by companies which fall under
U.S. jurisdiction --itself a human rights failure. The report contains a series of
recommendations which, if followed, would bring the U.S. closer to compliance with its
human rights obligations.
Said Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, Legal Counsel of the Western Shoshone Defense Project, “We
believe that this submission is essential to the overall review on human rights. In Western
Shoshone territory and other indigenous areas, devastating environmental and cultural
impacts are caused directly by corporate activities permitted by the government.
Government officials and businesses alike must be held accountable.”
“The United States must seriously rethink its relationship with private military and security
companies, and end its outsourcing of core governmental functions to contractors,
particularly in the context of military operations. The Stop Outsourcing Security Act is a
good first step in the right direction,” said Center for Constitutional Rights attorney
Katherine Gallagher “Those contractors who have been implicated in serious domestic and
international law violations such as torture and murder must be investigated, and where
appropriate, prosecuted for their conduct – their status as a government contractor must
not be used as a shield to bestow immunity or allow for impunity.”
“The Obama administration needs to repudiate the radical anti-human rights approach of
the Bush administration with respect to litigation against corporations," said Marco
Simons, Legal Director of EarthRights International. “Although there are some signs of
progress, the United States cannot fulfill its international obligations without embracing
remedies for victims of human rights abuses in U.S. courts.”
“Human rights require human remedies. Everyday the U.S. extends special protections to
private companies from all over the world. Yet, paradoxically, those individuals and
communities whose human rights are repeatedly abused by U.S. businesses are often
actively denied any possibility to exercise their right to remedy—sent to the door and told
to seek justice elsewhere. If the U.S. government is intent on living up to its solemn
obligations under human rights law, it must take serious steps now to reverse this
tendency to protect corporations over people.” Said Niko Lusiani of ESCR-Net.
http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/rights-groups-report-un-us-humanrights-failure-hold-corporations-accountabl
54: American Slavery
Bibliography
Batdorff, Allison. "Human trafficking training mandatory for overseas troops." 22 October
2006. Stars and Stripes. 18 March 2010
<http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=39956&archive=true>.
"Child Prostiution: Federal Efforts to Combat Interstate Sex Trafficking of Minors." U.S.
Department of Justice: Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS). 17 March
2010 <http://www.justice.gov/criminal/ceos/prostitution_fedefforts.html>.
Destefano, Anthony M. "U.S. Efforts Against Human Trafficking Criticized." 18 August 2006.
humantrafficking.org. 25 March 2010
<http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/409>.
Freedom Center. 2010. 16 March 2010 <http://freedomcenter.org/slavery-today/>.
Goldman, Russell. "Modern-Day Slavery in America." 26 March 2007. ABCNews. 17 March
2010 <http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2981327&page=1>.
"Groups Report to UN on US Human Rights Failure to Hold Corporations Accountable for
Human Trafficking, Child Labor, Torture." 19 April 2010. Center for Constitutional
Rights. 20 April 2010 <2010>.
iAbolish: American Anti-Slavery Group. 2010. 17 March 2010
<http://iabolish.org/slavery_today/usa/states.html>.
Kahng, Grace. "Sex Slaves, human trafficking ... in America?" 3 Dec 2007. MSNBC: Today. 16
March 2010 <http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22083762/>.
Lendman, Stephen. "Expose: Modern Slavery in America." 6 March 2009. Baltimore
Chronicle & Sentinel. 17 March 2010
<http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/030609Lendman.shtml>.
Polaris Project: For A World Without Slavery. 16 March 2010
<http://www.polarisproject.org/content/view/60/81/>.
Polaris Project: For A World Without Slavery. 6 March 2010
<http://www.polarisproject.org/content/view/61/82/>.
"U.S. Children are Victims of Sex Trafficking." 24 March 2008. humantrafficking.org. 16
March 2010 <http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/801>.
55: American Slavery
"U.S. Senate Approves Bill Assisting Abandoned Alien Children." 11 October 2004.
humantrafficking.org. 18 March 2010
<http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/57>.
"US Legislators Introduce Sex Trafficking Bill to Congress." April 2005.
humantrafficking.org. 18 March 2010
<http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/75>.
56: American Slavery