Sweat shops, Housekeepers, Farm Laborers, Prostitutes and Strippers

Had a tough day? Worked 12 hours at a job that doesn’t love you back? Straining to make ends meet? I sympathize, but there are folks who have it a lot worse. There are people all over the world who are working off labor contracts (not exactly legal labor contracts) in exchange for getting a job in another country, women lured to another continent by the promise of lucrative work, marriage or education only to discover that they are locked up and forced to prostitute themselves, housekeepers who travel with their “owners” to work 365 days a year, never to be allowed out of the home. They don’t speak the language, their passports (when they even have them) have been confiscated, the doors are locked, the windows (where there are any) are barred, and the loved ones they left behind are often at the brunt of threats to keep the undocumented slaves quiet. How about children sold for forced labor or “marriage” by their parents? Did I mention shame as a motivator of silence? Mind numbing drugs? Beatings? Vigilante immigration enforcement for those who seek help?

This is not just a story of the Ivory Coast or some Middle Eastern kingdom with harem girls “imported” from Russia, although those regions have more than their fair share of workers forced to work for low or no pay, viciously held captive against their will. There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the modern world, and there are almost no countries on earth that are immune from this pernicious activity: “The only places around the world where Free The Slaves co-founder Kevin Bales and his team couldn’t find cases of modern day slavery was Greenland and Iceland.” Ted.com, March 3, 2010. An estimated 800,000 people cross international boundaries every year to enter lives of slavery (ABCNews.com, March 26, 2007); internal statistics where no borders are crossed are hard to come by.

Yes, the United States is also a haven for slavery, According to FreetheSlaves.net, “Slaves in the US come from 60 countries and have been found in 90 cities. They are enslaved cleaning houses, working on farms and coerced into the sex industry. Smuggling involves [the] migrant’s consent. Trafficking involves deception and ongoing exploitation – both marks of slavery. Must be from exploiters that hide in the darkest shadows in obscure locations, right? Not exactly. Try Beverly Hills, California. “In its largest farm labor trafficking case ever, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on [April 20^th] charged a Beverly Hills-based firm and eight farms with severe abuse and discrimination involving more than 200 Thai farmworkers.

“Federal attorneys alleged that Global Horizons Manpower Inc., a labor contracting firm headed by Israel native Mordechai Orian, subjected workers in Hawaii and Washington to violence, inadequate pay and nutrition, rat-infested housing, and other illegal conditions based on their national origin and race…. Global Horizons recruited Thai men to the farms under a legal farmworker program from 2003 to 2007 with false promises of steady, high-paying jobs — then confiscated their passports and threatened t hem with deportation if they complained about work conditions, according to two civil complaints announced Wednesday in Los Angeles. To secure the jobs, the workers were charged recruitment fees as high as $25,000, forcing many of them to take on staggering debt, according to Anna Park, regional attorney for the commission's Los Angeles office.” Los Angeles Times, April 21^st.

That’s what they do with farmworkers. The overall skew is more interesting. “An estimated 50% of slavery in the United States is in the commercial sex industry and the other 50% is in agriculture, domestic service, manufacturing and other industries… [It is estimated that over] 14,500… slaves are trafficked into the United States annually.” FreetheSlaves.net.

Try this much more dramatic statistic on for size: “The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that 50,000 people are trafficked into or transited through the U.S.A. annually as sex slaves, domestics, garment, and agricultural slaves.” Gvnet.com. With runaways, homeless and abandoned children feeding the cycle, there are an estimated 300,000 youngsters employed in the U.S. in the sex trade (alternet.org, May 19, 2010). While some of this is “voluntary” (can a child really give consent to such practices?), it sure looks like a form of slavery to me.

The November 6, 2009 Baltimore Chronicle gives a more detailed breakdown of American slavery:

• 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.

That such practices exist on this planet is outrageous, that it happens in my country is intolerable and unforgivable.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we don’t talk about it and hunt down the perpetrators with an unyielding force, we are as guilty as the traffickers themselves.