Slave Next Door (40 page)

in the criminal justice system”—exactly the same characteristics used

most frequently by police to help them identify trafficking victims.39

TA S K F O R C E S

The study also set out to assess the federal antitrafficking task forces.

Funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the forty-two task forces

were designed to incorporate specific government agencies—the DOJ,

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the FBI, and in some

instances, the Department of Labor—along with state, county, and local

law enforcement and various service providers and victim advocates.

The idea was to bring all the players together in order “to ensure a

victim-centered response to human trafficking locally.”40 The research

found that the size, composition, and degree of success of each of the

forty-two task forces varied depending on the number of service

providers, victim advocates, and government agencies available, the

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amount of trafficking activity in their area, and the level of interest and

commitment of the participants.41 But it was clear that they had a sig-

nificant effect on prosecutions. Law enforcement agencies affiliated with

the antitrafficking task forces “were more than twice as likely to file fed-

eral charges (55 percent)” as those who were not (25 percent).42 And

with greater experience under their belts, they were also more likely to

recognize human trafficking as a problem in their community, and to

identify and pursue more cases, than non–task force agencies.43

The importance of these research results is that they show how ini-

tially local, state, and federal governments took action against human

trafficking in a vacuum. There was little understanding of the crime,

much less how best to attack it. It was and is a steep learning curve. This

study is the first benchmark of clear results at the local level. Take, for

example, the stories of three task forces, each addressing a “different

dynamic of human trafficking.” The Boston Police Department created

its own system of identifying minors at risk of being trafficked for sexual

purposes—a process that resulted in the rescue of several girls and the

identification of many more. The Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance of

Harris County, Texas, which focuses largely on the Houston area, estab-

lished a set of rules designed to direct activity
after
victim identification

has been made, thus getting the victim to the right place in the shortest

time. They also agreed on an “emergency protocol”—for both law

enforcement and service providers—that comes into effect when “imme-

diate rescue of potential victims” is needed. And the Phoenix Task Force,

responding to the severe human smuggling problem in their area, created

a training program geared to understanding the differences between

human trafficking and human smuggling, and how smuggling can easily

become trafficking. This training program is now used nationwide.44

While there are success stories, the research also found that “multi-

agency task forces struggle to overcome a number of obstacles,” espe-

cially the sort you get when very different organizations with different

goals start to work together. Other problems reflect the vague percep-

tions of human trafficking. Police, as Farrell says, will tend to look for

the types of trafficking cases they expect to find. Law enforcement on

the Washington, D.C., task force, for example, is represented by vice

squad detectives, who generally look for and uncover sex trafficking.

Adds Farrell, “Give someone a hammer, they’ll find a nail.” Also, there

is the issue of “who’s in charge.” As Farrell puts it, “The degree of suc-

cess relates directly to the level of leadership.”45 Local law enforcement

is funded to convene the task force, but the leadership tends to fall to

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1 9 0 / T H E F I N A L E M A N C I PAT I O N

the DOJ, who are the ones who can direct activity from ICE, the FBI,

and the other government agencies and NGOs in the group. If DOJ

leadership is weak, little can be expected from the group. The strength

of a task force reflects the commitment of each state’s U.S. attorney, as

demonstrated by those members whom they assign. Farrell points to the

Connecticut task force as one with strong direction, through the active

participation and guidance of assistant U.S. attorney Krishna Patel. But

there are task forces whose members have lost interest and who meet

infrequently and perfunctorily. And since it falls to local law enforce-

ment to select the NGOs for task force membership, it is also possible

to choose the wrong organization, one with little street experience or

perhaps with a distrust of government or other NGOs.

Farrell points out that while “everybody hates slavery and wants to

save victims,” task force members often can’t agree on what human traf-

ficking is or how to define a victim. Not uncommonly, there is friction

between groups. Someone from an immigrant rights group might share

task force membership with an ICE representative and at the same time

be protesting an ICE raid. Perhaps a service provider is seeking victim

information from a U.S. attorney or FBI or ICE agent who is reluctant

to provide it for fear of jeopardizing or compromising his or her case.

And sometimes government agencies themselves are less than cordial

toward each other. There is a generic problem of differing expectations

of what the people on the task force should know and when they should

know it. Service providers lean toward the victim support side, while the

goal of a prosecutor or an agent begins with securing a conviction.

Certainly there are shades of gray, but old job patterns are hard to break.

On the plus side, task forces generally see working with victim service

providers as necessary to making their cases, whereas non–task force

law enforcement members tend to view NGOs as service providers

whose job stops before the courthouse door. Says Farrell: “Task forces

change the way the members of the law see NGOs.”46

Some clear recommendations for local action on human trafficking

come out of the research. One is that there should be a “national human

trafficking training curriculum targeting local law enforcement agen-

cies.” The aim would be to get everyone on the same page, following

successful procedures and learning the investigative techniques shown

to be the most effective.47 Even before training arrives, the research sug-

gests that “model protocols”—plans and rules for dealing with traffick-

ing cases—be sent to police around the country. Some of the existing

task forces have these plans ready to go.48

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Looking deeply into America’s clumsy response to modern slavery

shows that some basic ideas still need serious thought. The complexities

of human trafficking cases can be confusing, all the more so when the

definition of who is and who isn’t a trafficking victim is still unre-

solved.49 But if anyone is going to answer this question, according to the

research, it will be the multiagency task forces that bring together all

the players, know the problem from the ground up, and get the most

prosecutions.50

E N D I N G S L AV E RY I N T H E N E I G H B O R H O O D

All over the world, communities are ending slavery. In the developing

world, where slavery can be extensive in cities, towns, and villages and

the national government is weak or uninterested, the task of ending

slavery falls to the local community. Rich and successful countries have

a lot to teach the developing world, but we need to remember that often

they have a lot to teach us too. Every time a community rids itself of

slavery or brings freedom to others, the movement grows. It might be

through someone too persistent to ignore, it might be because Good

Samaritans have shown the way, it might be because a local cop just had

to keep pushing. A conscious and collective decision has to be made to

bring slavery to an end, and this is more effectively accomplished at the

community than the national level. Remember what Margaret Mead

said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens

can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Eradicating slavery in our communities is achievable. We don’t face the

tough obstacles that exist in other countries: our police are honest, we

have viable resources, and while those in power might be slow to act,

they oppose slavery. Five steps seem to be needed for communities to rid

themselves of slavery. First, whether by neighborhood or community, a

conscious and collective decision has to be made that slavery will not be

allowed in this place. Second, the community, through a task force or

other arrangement, must work together to find the right mix of aware-

ness raising, investigation, and care for survivors that addresses the

type—or types—of trafficking and slavery found there. Third, successful

community-based solutions need to be
scaled up
as much as possible. To

do that, local law enforcement, antitrafficking groups, and their funders

need to be always thinking about forming and growing new strategies.

Once a successful strategy is tested, it should be proactively offered to

other communities as a freely available, “open-source” program.

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Fourth, as the research on task forces has shown, antitrafficking

groups need to join together and cooperate, forming a wider movement

with a shared identity. Collaborating in the world of human rights can

be difficult because groups often feel themselves to be in competition for

recognition and resources. Like all of us, even the most altruistic anti-

slavery workers have egos that can make cooperation difficult. Fifth,

scaling up successful antislavery programs also means shifting more of

the responsibility to government at all levels.
Government accountabil-

ity
for the enforcement of antislavery and antitrafficking laws and for

provision of preventive and rehabilitative services needs to be intrinsic

to antislavery strategies. If government is truly on board, it can adopt

the successful methods and extend the effects of local projects.

The collective decision making of communities is crucial to throwing off

the yoke of slavery. Some of the causes of slavery, however, go beyond the

reach of any individual community. A community may be able to drive out

traffickers, but it needs to join with other groups to change government

policies, such as loose visa and guest worker regulations, that may support

slavery. Another such policy concerns the treatment of women enslaved in

prostitution. Too often women found in circumstances of forced prostitu-

tion are arrested and locked up. Clearly, treating a victim of slavery and

serial rape as a criminal is not the way to deal with the problem.

No matter what laws are passed, slavery can end only when local com-

munities first decide it will end and then take action. Slavery is woven into

the fabric of life at the most intimate levels of our neighborhoods. It has

to be cut out of that fabric by those who best understand where its threads

are hidden and how they are knotted together with the strands of corrup-

tion, indifference, racism, or greed. If you or I live in a community with-

out slavery today, it is possibly because someone in the past turned to his

neighbor and said, “This must end.” Slavery is too big to be stopped by

any individual, no matter how powerful, charismatic, or clever. However,

by working together as a community, we can find the slaves in our neigh-

borhoods, and we can set them free. The choice is ours.

H O W T O M A K E Y O U R C I T Y A S L AV E - F R E E C I T Y

Ending slavery in America means making it impossible for slavery to take root

anywhere. Once slavery is stopped in a community, region, or country, that place

must be “slave-proofed.” There is slavery in more than one hundred American

cities today. The “Slave-Free Cities” plan shows how we can work together to

stop slavery in our communities and make sure it never comes back.

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How do you slave-proof a whole city? It takes ever yone working together, and

it takes leadership. The quickest way to a slave-free city is through community

leaders
leading from the front.
But slave-proofing begins with a single citizen.

The following are steps to making your community a Slave-Free City:

1. Community leaders have a lot of demands on them; it will take a dedicated

citizen to bring the idea of a slave-free city to her or his community. It can

begin when someone raises the idea in a letter to the local newspaper, in a