Human Trafficking
Marisela Garcia
Workforce Professional Development Academy
Orlando, FL
December 5, 2013
What is Human Trafficking?
• Form of modern-day slavery that involves the
exploitation of persons for commercial sex or
forced labor
• Often involves crossing an international
border but does not require moving a victim
• Traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to
control their victims
Scope of the Problem
• Estimated 500,000 to 2 million people
trafficked worldwide annually (70% of victims
are female)
• Estimated 15,000 to 18,000 persons trafficked
annually into the U.S.
• Approximately 27 million people held in
slavery worldwide
Contributing Factors
• Pronounced international trends contribute to
the rapid growth of trafficking:
• Increased ability by people to cross borders
• Increased poverty worldwide
• Result: Desperately poor people immigrate to
seek work
Children are routinely enslaved in West Africa’s
chocolate agribusiness
Asian women are increasingly trafficked in brothels
around the world
South Asian domestic workers face slave-like conditions
in the Middle East
Migrant farmworkers worldwide face harsh exploitation
It’s Here in the United States
It’s Here in Florida
• Florida ranks number three in the country for
human trafficking cases (following New York
and California)
• Florida has been the scene of both the largest
U.S. sex trafficking and labor trafficking cases
A Lucrative Business
• Yields an estimated $31 billion in profits each
year
• Unlike drugs and arms traffickers, human
traffickers can continue to exploit their victims
after initial point of sale
• Becoming a preferred business for criminal
syndicates around the world
Difficult to Stop
• Trafficking is fueled by economically desperate
victims and by market demands for cheap
labor
– Where there are labor-intensive industries, with little
governmental oversight, human trafficking will often exist
• Trafficking flourishes when end users can
make money or save money through the
exploitation of others
Activities For Which People Are
Trafficked
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Prostitution
Exotic dancing
Agricultural work
Landscape work
Domestic work and
child care (“domestic
servitude”)
• Factory work
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Commercial cleaning
Begging/street peddling
Restaurant work
Construction work
Carnival work
Hotel housekeeping
Criminal activities
Day labor
Traffickers Use Multiple Means
to Control Their Victims
• Beatings, burnings, rapes, and starvation
• Isolation
• Psychological abuses
• Drug or alcohol dependency
• Document withholding
• Debt bondage
• Threats of deportation
• Threats against the victim’s family or friends in his/her home
country
2011 Florida Strategic Plan
• Presented to Florida Legislature by FSU
Center for the Advancement of Human Rights
• DEO and other state agencies involved
Key Findings
• Florida continues to have agricultural brothels
where significant sex trafficking occurs
• But labor trafficking is even more prevalent
than sex trafficking in Florida
• Key Florida Business Sectors for labor
trafficking:
1. The Agricultural Sector
2. The Tourism & Hospitality Sector
Florida Agricultural Brothels
Florida Agricultural Brothels
“The Work Station”
Tools of the Trade
Victim Belongings
Weapons
Agricultural Labor Trafficking
in Florida
Florida Orange Groves: For Tourists
Florida Orange Groves: for Migrant
Workers
2001 Ramos Case
• Field slavery operation near Lake Placid, FL
• Migrant workers transported from Arizona and held
in debt bondage – 700+ male victims
• Ramos brothers were former farmworkers
• Victims held in substandard
housing and worked 10+
hours a day
• Four farm workers escape
with help of the Coalition of
Immokalee Workers (CIW)
The Complicity of Businesses
• Federal judge presiding over the Ramos case
declared that responsibility for the crime clearly
extended to the corporate level of the Florida
agricultural industry
• But noted that current law requiring that prosecutors
show actual knowledge on the part of criminal
perpetrators limited him to sentencing only the
subcontractors (the Ramos brothers)
2005 Evans Case
• Homeless African American men & women
recruited from Florida shelters for exploitation
on potato & cabbage farms near Palatka
• “Company Store” model used to drive up
worker debts
• Workers were paid with alcohol & crack
cocaine
2005 Evans Case
2005 Evans Case
Palatka Investigation
• Investigation begins with Environmental
Protection Agency discovery of human feces in
the St. John River
• Sub-contractor Ronald Evans prosecuted, though
not the farm employers
• 30 year criminal sentence included drug
trafficking, environmental violations, and sale of
unlicensed cigarettes
2008 Navarette Case
2008 Navarette Case
• Navarette family recruits Mexican and Guatemalan
pickers to work their tomato fields in Immokalee
• Navarettes create a debtor system by plying the men
with beer and drugs, adding these costs to their
room & board
• Workers required to perform 10 hour work days and
slashed with knives or tied to posts if they refused
2008 Navarette Case
• Workers locked each night in a truck boxcar
2008 Navarette Case
• Cesar Navarette the recruiter and brother Giovanni
the enforcer
• Six members of the Navarette family ultimately
convicted of human trafficking, Social Security fraud,
and harboring undocumented foreign nationals for
private gain
• Also required to pay $240,000 in restitution to the
victims
CIW Modern Slavery Museum
Bull’s Hit Ranch & Farm
• Hastings potato grower settles human trafficking
lawsuit (October 25, 2012)
Bull’s Hit Ranch & Farm
• Bull’s-Hit Ranch & Farm accused of mistreating
African-American homeless men (including military
veterans)
• Claim that Farm’s sub-contractor Ronald Uzzle hired
men from Jacksonville homeless shelters taking
advantage of the workers’ drug dependence
• Workers then held in overcrowded camp, plied with
drugs, and had their wages garnered by Uzzle
Bull’s Hit Ranch & Farm
• Victims awarded back pay
• Owner of Bulls-hit Ranch Thomas R. Lee agrees to
pay workers directly in the future
• Investigation reveals that Ranch had been sued on
exact same grounds in 2004
Lawsuit Against Ronald Uzzle
Continues
Potential Indicators of Labor Trafficking
• Signs of Physical Control or Abuse
• One person steps forward to try to talk to an
investigator or government official on behalf
of an entire group
• Traffickers may limit victims’ contact with the
public or with customers
Potential Indicators of Labor Trafficking
• Victims often live in the location where they
work
• Victims may lack personal items or forms of
identification
• H-2A workers not working where their visa
stipulates
Potential Indicators of Labor Trafficking
• Victims may lack:
 Personal items/possessions
 Cell phones, calling cards, etc.
 Private space
 Financial records
 Transportation
 Knowledge about how to get around in a community
Labor Camp/Sweatshop Indicators
• Security intended to keep victims confined
 Barbed wire
 Bars or outside locks on windows & doors
 Self-contained camps
 Handlers, guards, and/or guard dogs
• Victims only allowed to shop at “company
store”
Labor Camp/Sweatshop Indicators
Human Trafficking Hotline Numbers
• National Hotline (24/7)
1-888-373-7888
• Florida Abuse Hotline
1-800-96-ABUSE (1-800-962-2873)
• Florida Farmworker Helpline
1-800-633-3572
For More Information
Marisela Garcia
Senior Monitor Advocate
Bureau of One-Stop and Program Support
Department of Economic Opportunity
(850) 921-3207
Marisela.Garcia@deo.myflorida.com