BBC World Debate on Trafficking

The BBC World Debate program recently held a debate on Human Trafficking with panelists Laura Agustin, Author of "Sex at the Margins"; Sophie Flak, Executive Vice-President of Accor; Rani Hong, Trafficking Survivor; Siddharth Kara, Author of "Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery"; and Ronald Noble, Secretary General of Interpol. Unfortunately, BBC videos are not embeddable, so I can only link to them here.

BBC World Debate on Trafficking

I have to say, this starts out slow, but the debate picks up quickly. These are really difficult discussions that I think are important for the field to have. There are some quick points that obviously were not settled and it would be great to hear the point of view of our readers:

• For all of the controversy that Agustin creates through her candidly hardened point of view, some of her points are difficult issues that service providers are faced with every day. At one point she stated that people are often educated or trained on the worst possible scenarios of trafficking, but that migration often invokes a range of abuse and exploitation. While some members of the audience disagreed with the premise of debating the definition, without (a more specific) one, do we risk missing potential victims and/or exposing/deporting migrants who then do not meet this "worst possible scenario?"
• Will it ever be possible to have reliable numbers of those trafficked? If not, will that affect the work of advocates and how?
• Just generally, how does the language we use surrounding trafficking affect the way we combat it? When we use numbers we don't fully understand? When we overly associate it with organized crime? Etc.

Thank you for any responses!

Descent Into Slavery, and a Ladder to Another Life

From the New York Times:

He wore a satin suit onstage, so new that a tag was still fixed to the cuff. His 2-year-old daughter wiggled in his arms. The crowd cheered. Lifting his right hand to his lips, Jose Gutierrez seemed to blow a kiss to the audience. But it was more.

Mr. Gutierrez had gotten to the other side of slavery, climbing a ladder of second chances.

More than a decade ago, he was part of the nameless, unseen cast of a horror story. Lured from Mexico on promises of prosperity, he and 56 other people lived as prisoners in two row houses in Queens. By day, they sold key chains and miniature screwdriver kits in the subways, at airports, on roadsides. At night, they turned over every penny to the bosses of the houses.

All of the peddlers were deaf. Mr. Gutierrez, the youngest, had arrived in the United States at age 15, fluent only in Mexican Sign Language.

On Tuesday morning, 13 years after two of the deaf Mexican peddlers walked into a police station in Queens with a letter describing the conditions, Mr. Gutierrez was honored for his diligent work at a company that has cleaning contracts with federal agencies.

Mr. Gutierrez’s assignment: janitor at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

“I remembered playing with a car when I was a little boy, and seeing a picture of her,” he said. “When I found out that I was going to work there, it moved me. Thrilled me.”

There are, it turns out, second acts in American lives. Mr. Gutierrez leaves his home in Astoria shortly after 5 a.m., catches a ferry at 6:30, lands on the island 15 minutes later. He cleans bathrooms, empties trash, dusts a giant globe that shows the journeys of people to the United States.

His own odyssey began in 1995, when he heard from a friend about opportunities for deaf people in the United States. He was the seventh child in a family of eight, the only one who was deaf. “My friend’s father drove us to San Diego,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “I was very awkward. I didn’t know anything. We were supposed to go around and sell things. The money we collected we had to give to the boss.”

After a year in Los Angeles, he moved to a house in New York City that ran under the same terms, led by the Paoletti family, many of whom were also deaf. They would order a box of novelties, like miniature balls and bats, paying $75. The items would be attached to cards explaining that the seller was deaf. The peddlers would spend 12 to 16 hours a day in subway cars, dropping the trinkets in the laps of riders. Each box would bring in $485 in revenue. The bosses would swap bundles of single dollars at Atlantic City casinos for $100 bills, making the money easier to smuggle into Mexico, where it was banked.

Mr. Gutierrez depended entirely on the bosses for a bed and food. They took his money. “We were like slaves,” he said. “It was very frustrating. We couldn’t talk to the cops. It was heartbreaking.”

One day in July 1997, two of the peddlers went into the 115th Precinct station house in Queens, bringing a letter they had composed with help from a couple they had met at Newark Airport. “The police brought interpreters in to get the story told,” said Maria V. Pardo, a job counselor for the deaf with Fedcap Rehabilitation Services. The police found $35,000 in cash in one of the houses and 57 imprisoned peddlers. Federal prosecutors indicted 20 people on charges that included slavery and smuggling, and ultimately, they all pleaded guilty to some wrongdoing.

The peddlers, who were in the country illegally, were subject to deportation, but the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani stepped in; the era of zero tolerance for illegal immigrants had not yet begun. They were put up in a motel by the city, and slowly found places to live, schools to attend, jobs to go to. “They were given special permission to work,” Ms. Pardo said. Nearly 40 people decided to stay in the United States.

Mr. Gutierrez, 17 at the time that the slavery ring was broken up, went to the Lexington School for the Deaf. “The support I got there was wonderful,” he said, and he also fell in love with another student, Christina Gonzalez, who was born in the United States. “I had no family here; her family has been so good to me.”

She pointed him to Fedcap, which provides training and employment for people with disabilities. In 2007, Fedcap sent him to work on Liberty and Ellis Islands under a janitorial services contract administered by AbilityOne, a federal program. He makes $20 an hour plus benefits, and now has a green card.

So on Tuesday, Mr. Gutierrez was brought back to receive a special honor at the Fedcap graduation ceremony.

With him onstage were Ms. Gonzalez and their daughter, Gloria. He lifted his fingers to his mouth, as if he were blowing a kiss. His audience knew better: it was a symbol from American Sign Language, repeated over and over.

“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”

What an absolutely fantastic story. This case, for all of its particular depravity for targeting people with disabilities, is one that was important for the creation and passage of the TVPA; we reference it often during trainings. It is hard to imagine in today's climate around immigration, what would have happened to the survivors in this case if there were no relief options for survivors. As the article mentions, the Mayor's office (and I'm sure other advocates) had to step in and prevent their deportation and luckily, that was more feasible at the time because "zero tolerance" had not yet begun.

I think the story is important as well, because when people are quick to assume that victims are weak individuals and that is why they are "so easily manipulated," we see the personal strength and determination in so many survivors who go on to achieve great things.

The Slave Across the Street

When people in the US think of sex slavery and sex trafficking, the first image is likely to be of a young woman in another country, perhaps in Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. Even people who are aware of trafficking in the US are most likely to picture a sex trafficking victim as someone who matches the traditional signs of being "at risk": a runaway, someone who was abused at home, or someone from an impoverished background. Theresa Flores defies all of these stereotypes.

In The Slave Across the Street, Flores' new book published to coincide with National Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day, she recounts her experiences of sex slavery as a teenager living in suburbia in the Midwest. Flores came from an affluent background that valued education and hard work. Her family moved around frequently to allow her father to advance in his career. Because of the frequent moves, Flores lacked a strong support network when her family moved to Michigan.

When she was 16, she was sexually assaulted by a classmate. The assault was an initiation into the world of sex trafficking. For nearly two years, Flores' classmates used threats and violence to control her as a sex slave. Though she had friends, a long distance boyfriend, and continued to attend school and extracurricular activities, no one ever noticed the red flags or changes in her behavior. Eventually, her family moved, which helped her to escape the situation. Truly, though, it was her own incredible strength that allowed her to survive. In her book, she notes that physically leaving the situation was only one small piece on her journey to healing and true escape.

Flores went on to attend college, and is now a licensed social worker with a master's degree in counseling education. Flores recently founded Gracehaven House, a group home for girls under the age of 18 who are victims and survivors of commercial sexual exploitation. In addition to recounting her experiences, The Slave Across the Street also includes information about domestic minor sex trafficking/commercial sexual exploitation of children (DMST/CSEC), and information for parents, educators, and others who work with youth on recognizing sex trafficking and working to prevent slavery and support victims.

I first met Flores at an anti-trafficking conference in Missouri two years ago. I remain completely awed and inspired by her and her work. As a survivor, Flores has dedicated her life to helping other survivors through sharing her story, raising awareness, challenging stereotypes and complacency, and providing direct support to other survivors. I recently spoke with her about her new book and her perspective on sex trafficking and the anti-trafficking movement.

When I asked her about what needs to be done to ending sex trafficking, particularly CSEC, Flores stated that she believes that US laws are inadequate and misdirected. She pointed out that people who buy sex are not penalized, while prostitutes face arrest, even if the commercial sex involved a minor or someone who was coerced. She would advocate for a model like Sweden's, where the purchase of sex is illegal, thus targeting the demand side of commercial sex.

Flores also noted the extreme need for increased services for survivors, pointing out that there are only 39 beds in the country for DMST/CSEC survivors, though the FBI estimates that 100,000 American children are victims each year and 300,000 are at risk. According to Flores, people wishing to support survivors should advocate for increased services as well as increased awareness. One of the challenges she has faced in telling her story has been the victim-blaming attitudes and comments she has encountered from people. She argues that challenging victim blaming as well as cultural attitudes that glamorize pimps are vital for supporting survivors.

I also asked her about who motivates her to stay involved in anti-trafficking work and what keeps her going despite these challenges. She said, "I do this to save girls who are going through [what I went through]. I want to give hope to other survivors. You can heal from this, there's another life out there. I tell survivors 'that part of your life, when you went through that, is one small part of you, it's not who you are, it's not all of you.' I survived because I was bound and determined to not let them win the rest of my life. I was going to take over my life from that moment on so that they couldn't win."

Flores said that if there is one thing that people take away from her book, she hopes it is that sex trafficking can happen to anyone, and it is happening in the US. As we commemorate National Global Human Trafficking Awareness Day, I hope that her message of awareness, strength, and hope reaches survivors and advocates so that we can end slavery and exploitation.

Trafficking Survivors Speak Out at the United Nations

From the AP:

UNITED NATIONS — A father of two from Nepal who thought he was going to America wound up in Iraq, forced to work at a U.S. airbase. A 14-year-old Ugandan girl kidnapped by rebels spent nearly eight years in captivity as a sex slave and human shield. And a young Venezuelan woman lured to New York by the man she loved wound up in a brothel his family was running.

The three victims of human trafficking spoke Thursday at an event organized by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay who said it was "pressing and urgent" not only to listen to their stories of survival but to get their recommendations on how the international community can help end the growing global scourge.

"In every part of the world, countless individuals are callously exploited for profit," Pillay said. "While trafficking may be a problem related to migration and to transnational crime, it is also — and fundamentally — an attack on the dignity and integrity of the individual. Trafficking involves practices prohibited in every country including slavery, debt, bondage, forced labor and sexual exploitation."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who opened the event, said the global economic crisis "is making the problem worse." He urged governments to heed his "call to action" and step up efforts to prevent exploitation, protect victims and pursue traffickers whose conviction rates in most countries "are microscopic compared to the scope of the problem."

The U.N. Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking estimated last year that annual profits from trafficked, forced labor is around $31.6 billion. Some experts say it is now the second-largest illicit business in the world after drugs.

Buddhi Gurung, who calls himself a poor Nepali man, described how he was unable to get a job to support his wife and two sons during fighting by Maoist rebels and the army in 2004. When an agent promised him a job in America for $500 a month, he said he borrowed about $2,800 to pay him — but instead of going to the United States, he was taken to Jordan via New Delhi.

After a month in Jordan, he said he was put in a van with 11 others and driven to Baghdad. Twelve Nepali friends in the van that left just before his were abducted, paraded on television and eventually beheaded. Gurung said he wound up at the U.S. Al Asad Air Base where he was forced to work and paid less than the promised $500 a month.

"We would hear bomb blasts nearby and we knew our life was at risk," Gurung said. "I always wanted to go back to Nepal but neither my passport was with me, nor did I have any money or knew any other way to go back. ... Finally, after 15 months, I was permitted to go back to Nepal. ... This is how my life was saved."

Gurung and the families of the 12 Nepali men have filed a U.S. federal lawsuit accusing Houston-based defense contractor KBR Inc. and a Jordanian subcontractor, Daoud & Partners, of human trafficking.

Gurung urged the "big people" at Thursday's event "to develop a mechanism to save people like me from such traps of human trafficking."

Charlotte Awino described how she and 138 other girls were abducted from a boarding school in 1996 by rebels from the Lords Resistance Army, marched for three months into southern Sudan, and used as human shields during fighting against Uganda soldiers.

"As usual, we girls suffered more," she said. "We were distributed to rebel commanders, as objects without rights, and we were sexually abused. ... I was given to a man who had 20 other abducted girls, and he was a brutal man. I had two children with him."

Awino, who escaped in 2004 when the rebels went back to northern Uganda, urged the U.N. to "try to get back the children who have been trafficked through war, some as young as 6."

She also called for victims to be given counseling, health care and education, for countries to better protect their citizens during war, and for improved methods to track and trace missing people. She also urged understanding for the plight of victims.

"One day I was at home. The next day I was among the rebels," Awino said. "Is everyone going to call us rebels or terrorists?"

Kikka Cerpa described falling in love with a man named Daniel while working at a hotel in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, when she was 17 years old. A few years later, she said, Daniel moved to New York and eventually she went to join him, only to discover that his family ran a sex trafficking ring.

Cerpa said her passport and money were taken, she was put in a basement and told she owed the family a lot of money, and the only way to pay it off was to work in a brothel.

"The first night was the worst," she said, her voice quavering. "I have to service 90 men."

Cerpa said she was trafficked from brothel to brothel over the next three years. Sometimes police would raid the brothels, but "instead of rescuing us, they demand that we perform sexual services on them." After her best friend in the brothel was murdered by a customer, she said, she knew she had to leave — so she married a customer, but he beat her and threatened to have her deported.

Finally, she escaped and was helped by an organization to get a divorce and legalize her status in the U.S.

"I'm telling my story to help all the trafficking victims around the world," she said. "We need to pass and enforce laws that will protect us from traffickers like Daniel."

Cerpa said customers should also be held accountable and "treated like a criminal, like they are," and police officers and prosecutors should be trained to identify and protect victims.

You can find a video of some of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's speech here as well as some of the victims' testimonies.