Trafficking in Humans Isn't Behind Us Yet

The recent coverage of Chinese "smuggling" in cargo containers fails to address the critical issue of these cases as examples of trafficking in human beings for slavery and slave-like practices, a growing problem in the United States. Angelenos may remember the 1995 case of the El Monte "slave shop," a classic trafficking case, in which 75 Thai garment workers were held in slavery, sewing clothes for some of the top U.S. manufacturers. The only difference between the recent Chinese trafficking and El Monte is that the Chinese workers never made it to their destination.

Trafficking in human beings is not particular to the Chinese community. It is a highly organized global phenomenon. Reps. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) and Sam Gejdenson (D-Conn.) have proposed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 1999 (H.R. 3244), a comprehensive anti-trafficking bill that would provide protection to trafficked persons, strategies for prevention of trafficking and more effective prosecution of traffickers.

Traffickers actively recruit workers, facilitate their migration and deliver them to a site where they will be held in bonded servitude for many years working for little or no pay, seven days a week. Workers often come from underdeveloped regions experiencing war, economic collapse, environmental degradation or ethnic conflict. Workers who are smuggled generally know what they're getting into and the arrangement upon arrival. Workers who are trafficked, on the other hand, are easily recruited, based on deceptions about the nature and conditions of the work situation. Upon arrival in the destination country, their identification papers are confiscated, and they live and work in subhuman conditions. Through violence or the threat of violence, employers control every aspect of the workers' lives.

Trafficking in human beings is highly profitable because of the length of time workers can be held in servitude paying off enormous debts. Trafficked persons work in garment factories, restaurants, agriculture and other informal labor sectors where they may be subjected to serious physical and psychological abuse by their employers.

These people are victims of human rights violations. Trafficking is a crime against the individual. Even though a person may have initially consented to go with a trafficker, at some point the purported terms and conditions of the initial work contract disappear. The workers then are coerced or forced into slavery or subjected to slave-like practices. The issue of consent is irrelevant because no one willingly consents to slavery.