It’s a five-hour trip from Benjamin Skinner’s apartment in Brooklyn to a place where human beings are sold.
Skinner isn’t in the business of human trafficking. He’s a journalist who has traveled the globe, often undercover, to investigate modern-day slavery. During his work, he witnessed the buying and selling of people on four continents. His recent book, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery (Simon & Schuster, 2008), has won critical acclaim.
Before an auditorium packed with college students, professors, and activists at the University of Dayton on November 9, Skinner tells of a barbershop an hour from the airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Five men stand outside. Everyone, including the police, knows why the men are there.
When Skinner pulls up in a rented SUV, one of the men approaches and quickly gets to the point. “Do you want to get a person?”
Like any good salesperson, Benavil, the trafficker, inquires about Skinner’s needs. Does he want his “domestic” to cook for him? To clean? To carry water?
When Skinner requests a 12-year-old girl, Benavil asks if he wants the child as a “partner.” For the vast majority of child slaves in Haiti, sexual abuse and rape are part and parcel of their bondage.
Soon the talk turns to money. The going rate is $100, but within five minutes, Benavil drops the price to $50 — less than the cab fare from Skinner’s Brooklyn apartment to John F. Kennedy Airport.
“I was negotiating for a human life as if I was negotiating for a stereo,” says Skinner.
There are more slaves today than at any other time in human history, according to Skinner. He does not talk about slavery metaphorically; nor does he define it broadly, as hard labor for low wages. Slaves are those “forced to work, held through fraud under threat of violence, for no pay beyond subsistence.”
Human trafficking is the “how” of modern-day slavery. According to the United States Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, it is “the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion.” By this definition, a person doesn’t need to be physically transported from one location to another to be considered a trafficking victim.
Some are trafficked for labor exploitation; others, for sex. Some are trafficked for both. And human trafficking is profitable. According to Call + Response, a 2008 documentary film from Fair Trade Films, at $32 billion a year, trafficking brought in more revenue in 2007 than Google, Nike, and Starbucks … combined.
Modern-day slavery takes many forms, from involuntary domestic servitude and debt bondage to child labor in mines and factories to the conscription of child soldiers in Uganda and Chad.
Staggering numbers
How many adults and children are enslaved at any given time? The International Labor Organization (ILO) — an agency of the United Nations — estimates at least 12.3 million.
That number “undershoots, by almost everybody’s estimation,” says Skinner. Some, including Skinner and Kevin Bales, author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (University of California Press, 2004), put the number at 27 million. That’s more than the population of Australia.
Nearly every nation plays some role in the global trade in human flesh — as importers, exporters, and transit countries. Between 600,000 and 800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders annually. Prosecution is complex, because laws on trafficking, labor, and prostitution can vary widely from country to country.
Poverty doesn’t cause human trafficking, but it creates conditions that make people vulnerable. Parents believe a stranger’s promise to give their child an education or a better life. Others make what Skinner calls a “devil’s choice” — selling one child to save the others from slow death by starvation or preventable disease.
The promise of a better life
Then there’s the pull factor. Sharla Musabih runs a shelter for women rescued from sex trafficking in Dubai — a nation known for its building boom and luxury hotels. Musabih also spoke at the Dayton Human Trafficking Accords on November 9.
Male laborers — many from southern Asia — are recruited with the promise of high wages in the construction industry. When they get to Dubai, the pay is often much lower; the working conditions, horrific. Unscrupulous employers confiscate their passports so they can’t leave the country, and they are told they must work off their debt to the trafficker.
Women and girls come to Dubai believing they will be working in a hotel or shop, Musabih says. Upon arriving, many are whisked to brothels, locked away from the outside world — literally.
One girl from Belarus came to Dubai on the promise of a hotel job, says Musabih. She was met at the airport by two Russian men who took her to a villa, where she was imprisoned and forced into prostitution. During four years of captivity, she was beaten regularly. She had no access to the outside world.
When she became pregnant, she still had to service the customers. With the help of other women and girls in the brothel, she gave birth to a baby boy. “Even right after the delivery, they continued to use her,” says Musabih.
At some point, the young woman found a piece of metal and began to dig under the bars that kept her imprisoned. She escaped with her baby and ran for her life, ending up in Musabih’s shelter.
It took four months of negotiations between the Belarusian embassy and local police before the girl and her child were allowed to leave. Like many who are trafficked into the sex trade, she faced the additional barrier of being labeled a criminal. When she finally made it home, she couldn’t bring herself to tell her parents what had happened, Musabih said.
One of the myths of trafficking, according to the 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report issued by the U.S. State Department, is that people go willingly. But many are recruited under false pretenses, or after they migrate, the conditions change.
Attacking the problem
Besides passing tougher laws, some countries have launched programs to raise awareness among vulnerable groups of the ways traffickers ensnare their victims. Increasingly, faith communities are partnering with government, law enforcement, non-governmental, and social service agencies to prevent trafficking and aid those who come out of trafficking situations.
Moldova is one example. In spite of the government’s approval in 2008 of a strategy for combating trafficking and helping victims, the country remains a major source and, to a lesser extent, a transit country for trafficking in persons, says Rodika Ivtodi of Moldovan Christian Aid (MCA).
MCA, a Week of Compassion partner through Church World Service, supports a multi-denominational effort to mobilize people in the churches. The agency supports a network of projects, including a shop where vocational graduates produce church garments and items; an anti-trafficking educational program for high school students and graduates in Chisinau, Moldova’s capital city; a social theater project illustrating the risks of illegal migration and trafficking; a guide for faith-based personnel assisting vulnerable groups; and several informational and resource centers in regions where trafficking is prevalent.
Ivtodi will speak about MCA’s anti-trafficking efforts at the Disciples Women’s Quadrennial Assembly in Greensboro, North Carolina, in June 2010. She has been invited as part of the Assembly’s focus on human trafficking. Her trip is being underwritten by the Disciples' Council on Christian Unity’s Rosa Page Welch Fund.
Giving hope to victims
Collaboration with non-religious entities is essential when it comes to confronting modern-day slavery. However, there are some areas where the church can lead the way. One of these areas, according to Victor Joseph of Agape International Ministries, is in helping victims regain hope for a future.
Joseph, an Indian activist and educator living in the United States, interviewed 130 young women and girls who were trafficked into India’s brothels. His research was funded by the John Templeton Foundation, which published the findings in a report titled Stolen Lives.
In their stories, Joseph came to face-to-face with an aspect of human trafficking often unaddressed — the spiritual, emotional, and psychological harm it inflicts. Many of the women were angry and ashamed. Often, they blamed themselves, wondering what they had done to deserve such a fate. Some had attempted suicide. Others saw no future beyond day-to-day existence in a shelter.
One obstacle to healing and forgiveness of self and others, Joseph discovered, is the concept of karma, or fate, which leads to fatalism — the belief that one cannot escape destiny. Joseph, a Christian, sees a parallel danger in the notion that being trafficked was God’s will.
The greatest opportunity for people of faith, says Joseph, is to help those who have been trafficked to see their experiences as the result of human wrongdoing, and to know that God wants them to experience love and joy. His message: “Evil is not part of God. God always does good, and through God you can make a difference.”
But without someone they can trust to help them come to terms with what happened, “They won’t seek any guidance from God. They’ll keep everything to themselves,” Joseph says.
Ultimately, healing the wounds of human trafficking means empowering those who have been trafficked to rebuild their identities and envision the future. Many of the women and girls Joseph interviewed said they did not want to be labeled as a victim, a prostitute, or an abused person. “They want to be seen as a person with dignity and value.”
Without this effort to restore dignity and hope, Joseph says, many of those he interviewed would return to the brothels. “They will say, ‘At least I can make money. At least I can live.'”
In our own backyard
Between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year, and more than 100,000 are enslaved there, according to Theresa, who asked Just Women not to use her real name. Theresa works for Opening Doors, a Church World Service partner in Sacramento, California. Opening Doors provides refugee resettlement and small business funding, but expanded its programs in 2003 to work with trafficking victims. Traffickers have been known to target employees who work for organizations that help those who have been liberated, she says.
Sacramento ranks high among U.S. cities in terms of human trafficking and child prostitution. Much of it goes unnoticed.
“It’s surprising to me that it’s so close to home,” says Neal Kentch, minister at Cottage Way Christian Church and a member of Opening Doors’ Advisory Committee.
Many of Theresa’s clients are men — working in agriculture, restaurants, and manufacturing. Anti-immigrant sentiments run high in the region, complicating matters. She frequently meets legal immigrants who didn’t know the laws and were coerced into trafficking situations.
In the U.S., immigrant trafficking victims who assist law enforcement in investigating or prosecuting traffickers may be eligible for special visas that can lead to permanent residency, says Jennifer Riggs, director of Refugee and Immigration Ministries at Disciples Home Missions.
Even though trafficking can be complex, once people know how to spot the signs, they can help fight it, says Theresa, of Opening Doors. Some cues are easier to notice — malnutrition, physical injuries, and inappropriate sexual behavior, for example.
Others are subtle, says Theresa. If a person is trying to sell something and seems nervous or paranoid, or if a person is working but cannot take a break, he or she might be in a trafficking situation, she explained. Sometimes, trafficked persons with limited English skills will repeat a story about who they are and what they are doing but will get the details wrong. Others have been moved around so often and kept in such isolation that they may have no concept of where they are or what day it is.
A toll-free, multi-lingual national hotline run by the Polaris Project — 888-373-7888 — takes anonymous tips and relays information to local agencies. Calling the hotline helps to make organizations like Opening Doors aware of situations, Theresa said. Victim-centered case management is essential to making sure trafficked persons are not treated like criminals and get help rebuilding their lives.
The process begins with the most basic of needs — safety. Once people know they are safe, Opening Doors helps them with other basics — food, shelter, counseling, and legal representation. Much of the work is similar to refugee resettlement. Churches can help by donate furnishings, household goods, and other essentials.
At a recent retreat, women in the Disciples’ Northern California/Nevada Region filled more than 50 backpacks with personal items for adults and children. Something as simple as a backpack can make a lasting impact, says Theresa.
“You can honestly make the difference.”
Between 14,000 and 17,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year, and more than 100,000 are enslaved there.
Often victims blame themselves, wondering what they did to deserve such a fate.
“I was negotiating for a human life as if I was negotiating for a stereo.”
— Benjamin Skinner
Human trafficking brought in more revenue in 2007 than Google, Nike, and Starbucks … combined.
