Slave Next Door (17 page)

whose Web site promises, “The men and women of the Moffat County

Sheriff’s Office believe that our fundamental duty is to serve and protect

the citizens of Moffat County. . . . We will uphold the law fairly and

firmly. . . . We believe that life and individual freedoms, as guaranteed

by the Constitution of the United States, are primary guidelines in per-

forming our duties.”95

Obstruction by local law enforcement is not all that uncommon. In

referring to another rural agricultural trafficking case, one federal agent

commented, “You had to be careful because sheriff’s offices are sheriff’s

offices. . . . You know, in small communities—loyalties run deep in some

of those places.”96

The federal government declined to prosecute the Vermillion Ranch

case. The problem, according to Colorado Legal Services attorney Patricia

Medige, lies in the fact that “federal law enforcement in general—FBI,

ICE . . . is still adjusting to the concept of ‘psychological coercion.’

Because there is a subjective element to it, I think it makes law enforce-

ment uncomfortable. . . . To them, sex and violence are more tangible

than ‘abuse of the legal process’ or threats.”97 As Mary Bauer understates

it, “Most of the time we don’t see the government as an ally.”98

The Bush administration expressed its intention to expand the Guest

Worker Program. However, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Close

to Slavery” report concludes that the “H-2 guestworker program is

fundamentally flawed. Because guestworkers are tied to a single

employer and have little or no ability to enforce their rights, they are

routinely exploited.”99 CIW member Laura Germino puts it succinctly:

“There are two ways to keep [the workers] down on the farm; one is by

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force, and the other is by a government-sanctioned program that locks

the worker to the employer.”100 The report goes on to suggest that the

Guest Worker Program as it now exists “should not be expanded or

used for a model of immigration reform.”

The program could be brought closer to the spirit and letter of the

law with structural changes to the H-2A agricultural category and the

H2-B visa program that covers other labor categories, such as seafood

processing, landscaping, and construction.101 Flexibility could be woven

into the program to allow workers to choose to work for another

employer. Above all, diligent monitoring by responsible government

inspectors is vital to ensure that the workers whom we have welcomed

into our country are housed, fed, paid, and cared for as the law stipu-

lates. Otherwise, expanding the Guest Worker Program will simply per-

petuate a situation that invites abuse and enslavement.

S L AV E RY I N Y O U R FA C E

At the very beginning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade some Africans

were tricked into slavery.102 A slave ship might sail upriver and find an

isolated village; if the people didn’t run away, the slaver might trade with

them and invite them on board the ship. He might tell them about the

land on the other side of the water where food was abundant, land was

there for the taking, and everyone lived like kings. Excited about the

chance to see the enormous “canoe” up close, villagers would flock

aboard, and while they were being shown the lower decks, they would

be captured, beaten, and chained. The trap was set with lies and sprung

with violence, and the new slaves would be on their way to the fields of

North America. Once sold to farmers, the slaves who survived would

usually be put to work growing and gathering crops: cotton, sugar, fruit,

vegetables, timber, all to supply the growing nation’s demand for food,

clothing, and building materials. All over the United States, in slave

states and free states, families would eat the food grown and picked by

slaves in the South.

Today, the same things occur. Farmworkers are being ensnared by

deception and enslaved through violence. And we Americans oblivi-

ously munch away on the slave-picked fruit and vegetables we bring

home from the grocery store or order in fast-food restaurants. The slaves

tend to come from Asia and Central and South America instead of

Africa, but they are tricked with the same sorts of lies and promises. And

while the U.S. government tended to just ignore the illegal antebellum

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slave trade, today it swings through the bipolar reaction of prosecuting

some cases while propping open the door to human trafficking through

the Guest Worker Program.

The idea of putting slave-grown food in the mouths of our children

should make us sick. Putting a stop to this travesty should be an imme-

diate concern. The good news is, we know how to bring this slavery to

an end—through greater public awareness, an enhanced system of

government inspection, a complete overhaul of the Guest Worker

Program, a governmental willingness to root out and prosecute cases of

trafficking in the fields, and—most vital—a solid respect for the rights

and humanity of the people whom we put to growing and harvesting

our crops. But none of this will happen until we all decide that slave-

picked food is just too bitter to swallow.

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4

S U P P LY A N D D E M A N D

O F D I F F E R E N C E S A N D S I M I L A R I T I E S

Thousands of women and children are trafficked into prostitution and

other forms of sex slavery in the United States. Many are immigrants.

They come from every corner of the world, by plane, car, truck, bus,

van, boat, or on foot. They share few outward characteristics. Some are

Russian high school graduates; others are Mexican indigenous women

who have spent more time in farm fields than in school. Others are

Cameroonians whose main interest is in attending college. Some have

legitimate papers, others falsified documents, and still others no papers

at all. Yet what they do share is the hope and the promise they felt at the

beginning of their journey. In story after story, a trafficker, often a

known member of the community, a friend of the family, or sometimes

a relative, offers a better life in America. He or she promises steady

work with enough pay to send some back to the family, a good home,

maybe an American education: in short, all the things we as Americans

assume as our birthright.

These women and children share a dream, and when it all goes

wrong for them, it usually does so in heartbreakingly similar ways as

well. Anyone who has ever felt the sudden cold stab of panic can

imagine the first moment when a woman or child realizes the true

nature and the hopelessness of his or her situation. It is often a

moment of brutal shock involving beating and rape, often gang rape,

intended to remove any resistance. As the body is subjugated, in

shock the psyche follows, leaving the victim without the will to

resist. Traffickers know this. They are expert at their work, and they

use the victim’s disorientation, inability to communicate in English,

and fear of the outside world to drive the message home: I control

your body now, and your life. If you try to reassume control, you will

be punished.

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F R O M G U AT E M A L A T O H E L L

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), based in

Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, works with survivors of sexual slav-

ery. In their training sessions and public seminars, they present the story

of a young girl whom they call “Maria.”1

According to LIRS records, Maria grew up in a small country town

in Guatemala. Her father, a farmer, struggled but failed to provide ade-

quately for his family, and they often went hungry. For years, an uncle

occasionally came by to bring some food—and to sexually abuse Maria.

Her parents refused to believe the girl when she complained.

When Maria was sixteen, a man met with her parents and offered to

send their children to America, where steady work awaited. They

selected Maria because of her “maturity” and ability to work hard. At

this juncture, the man treated her well. He flattered her, bought her

gifts, made her “feel special.” With her natural beauty and his contacts,

he told her, he was certain he could make her a successful model. The

prospect of removing her uncle from the picture by sending money

home, and hopefully sparing her sisters the pain and shame of being

molested as she had been, pleased the young girl.

The dream died abruptly. The night Maria was scheduled to make

her journey north, the man picked her up in his truck, drove her to a

border town, and rented a motel room. For the next four days, she was

locked in the room and raped again and again. Then, she and four other

girls were driven into the United States; their first stop was a ravine,

where Maria was forced to have sex with nine men. Her “sponsor” told

her that if she attempted to leave or speak to the authorities, she would

be jailed as an illegal immigrant. In addition, he threatened the lives of

her family. She was trapped, and it was about to get worse.

The trafficker sold the shell-shocked teenager to a Mexican organ-

ized crime group. They took her further north and installed her in an

apartment with three other girls, to be sold for sex all day, every day.

Sometimes she was forced to walk the streets under a trafficker’s watch-

ful eye. Not surprisingly, she contracted several sexually transmitted

diseases (STDs) and was beaten regularly.

In time, the apartment was raided, and Maria was victimized yet

again—this time by the authorities, in a “sting” operation. Maria

should have been freed and helped toward the mental and physical heal-

ing she so desperately needed. Instead, she was arrested for illegal pros-

titution and eventually released back to her “uncle”—the trafficker who

paid her bail. She was returned to her life as a sex slave.

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There were several opportunities for Maria to be freed; all of them

were missed. They came when she was taken to the health clinic for her

STDs; when she was brought to the emergency room after a particularly

vicious beating by a sadistic john; when a naive social worker failed to

question how the trafficker’s “wife” had fallen down a flight of stairs;

and when she was picked up by the police. Training, sensitivity, and

awareness would have made all the difference. A suspicion that all was

not right, a few carefully phrased questions, and Maria’s story would

have ended differently. She could have received counseling, an educa-

tion, and the chance to become a
free
resident of the United States. As

it is, after her long-delayed rescue in another raid on the brothel, she

was briefly placed in a foster care program, from which she ran away.

This is not a story with a happy ending; the overwhelming majority of

sex slavery stories aren’t.

H O M E G R O W N S L AV E S

The government tends to quote only the estimated numbers of victims

trafficked
into
the United States. For many people, it is somehow less

jarring to think of all victims of forced prostitution as immigrants, but

this is not the case. True, many of those sexually enslaved have come

here from other countries. But some of the women and children traf-

ficked into sexual slavery are Americans born and raised. Certainly

there are similarities, but there are also major differences in the way

domestic cases are approached and in the agencies empowered to

address them. In the words of Kevin O’Connor, U.S. attorney for

Connecticut, “These are cases of
domestic
trafficking victims; they’re not

about immigration, and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]

is not involved. There are no issues involving the threat of deportation.

Here, you’re looking at straightforward coercion—either physical or

psychological.”2

Recently the federal court system in Connecticut dealt with two

major cases, involving both the prostitution of minors and the forced

prostitution of adults, in which all the victims were American by birth.

In one case, involving a trafficking and prostitution ring, ten defen-

dants were charged. Nine struck a plea bargain; the tenth, Dennis Paris,

chose to try his luck in court. We decided this was a trial we should

attend.

On a rainy late-spring morning, we entered the Federal Building in

Hartford, Connecticut, to attend the first day of the trial of Dennis Paris.

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Paris, whose street name is Rahmyti, had been indicted on sixty-four