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Sister Barbara Paleczny, SSND, was the first speaker on the topic, “Trafficking 101: Modern-Day Slavery.” Coordinator of the School Sisters of Notre Dame’s Shalom Network, promoting peace, justice and the integrity of creation, she is founder locally of the South Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking.
She holds Ph.D.s in Socio-economic Ethics from St. Michael’s College and in Sacred Theology from Regis College, both in Toronto, as well as three master’s degrees, and has attended briefing sessions at the United Nations, taught theology and ethics at several universities, and is a noted artist, author and speaker. A story on Sister Barbara and her art, which is informed by her social justice pursuits, was featured on the front page of the Jan. 20 issue of Today’s Catholic.
“Trafficking is the illegal trade in human beings through abduction, through the use of force, fraud or coercion,” she said, noting that this coercion can be psychological as well as physical threats. It is done for the purposes of sexual exploitation or forced labor and is a multi-national organized criminal industry, second only to drugs, according to the CIA.
“But they figure by the year 2015 it is going to be the largest organized crime ring in the world,” she said. Generating billions of dollars in revenue each year, it is fueled by human greed. Its victims are considered disposable people, dispensable commodities, and are typically recruited not by force but by the promise of a better life, “the allure of the American dream.”
Approximately 25 to 27 million persons worldwide are held in slavery today, she reported, with around 17,000 of these trafficked into the United States every year. They are bought for as little as $35 in some countries and then re-sold for thousands of dollars.
In our own country, if someone “disappears,” Sister Barbara noted, they may easily be held as slaves in another part of the city or transported to other states for exploitation. Most frequently exploited are women and children, with half the slaves in the United States being children or minors, although men and boys are abused this way as well.
Victims come from around the globe — Asia, East Europe, Latin America, Africa, Central America and the Caribbean — and are trafficked for prostitution and labor. With the Free Trade Agreement having plunged many deeper into poverty by taking away their livelihood, it is in desperation they seek work in the United States in order to send money home to their families. This year alone, 2,200 unaccompanied minors in this pursuit were apprehended in Texas, Sister Barbara noted, and their numbers are increasing.
She told of a 14-year-old girl, held in a small bedroom in Florida, being raped by 30 men a day and of an African boys’ choir touring the country who, in reality, were found to be enslaved children, held against their will, with no money being sent back to their homes. “It’s carnival work, it’s agricultural work, landscape work,” she said. “Restaurants, dishwashing, waiters, domestic work, childcare, factory work, hotel housekeeping, criminal activities and daycare.” Exotic dancing is tied in with the prostitution.
Next to the podium a painting of Sister Barbara’s, Tatya’s Babies, depicted the anguished face of a young Romanian woman held as a sex slave in Italy. Denied contraceptives, her babies were taken from her at birth and, though told they had died, she was agonizingly aware of their fate. “There’s a whole trafficking trade not only to sell children in adoption, but to sell the organs,” said Sister Barbara.
“The sisters in Mozambique are facing death threats regularly because they have found mass graves of children without the organs. They are talking about it internationally, and their lives are on the line.”
She paused to speak directly to the students in the audience. “I am deeply, profoundly sorry for the violence and the pollution that my generation and other generations have handed on to you,” she said. “Please forgive us. The good news is that millions of us are working with our entire lives. We are focused, we are working in solidarity around the globe, using all means at our disposal to create a world of peace and justice and nonviolence for you and your children, and to care for the earth.”
She called on the students to reach into their own hearts and focus their gifts and talents “not for the greed that will destroy you and eat you up,” but for a meaningful life.
Looking hopefully at the challenges ahead, Sister Barbara commented on the good being accomplished by the federal government’s Rescue and Restore program, which focuses on prevention, protection and prosecution. She also praised the collaboration of law enforcement and social services providers who have joined forces in the South Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking (COAHT), whose Web site is www.coaht.net.
Integral in the above-mentioned prevention, she noted, is changing society’s attitude of acceptance towards the demand for brothels and cheap labor, which creates the need for “slaves.” Also called for, she believes, is a deep look into relationships and “the healthy sexuality that makes marriage such a gift and such a treasure,” providing safe homes for children. “All this goes with the whole economic picture of our globe,” she said, “for fair wages and working conditions all fit together.”
A positive factor is that our law enforcement authorities are working to protect victims even if they do not have documentation, she said, something victims are not aware of, making them hesitant to speak out.
She urged the audience to commit to memory “888-3737-888,” the coalition’s hotline number, and to use it if they suspect someone is a victim of human trafficking, noting victims could be found doing hairdressing or restaurant work, in bus stations or the fields and throughout the community. “Certainly in the brothels,” she said, adding, “We have our homework to do.”
Speaking next on the issues of trafficking was Dottie Laster, director of the human trafficking program for Saving Lives through Alternative Options (SLAO) in Houston and coordinating producer for Compassion Films. Previously program coordinator for the YMCA International Services, she has worked with a number of other social service organizations, including the South Texas Coalition Against Human Trafficking.
She studied mediation at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and international arbitration in Paris at the Cardoza School of Law. Her master’s degree in International Relations is from St. Mary’s University (StMU).
Laster noted her involvement with the issue of human trafficking began while serving on the President’s Peace Commission at StMU. Later, working for YMCA International Services in Houston in a well-funded program to provide direct services to victims of trafficking, she was dismayed when only one such victim was found in two years. As a result, a special task force was established which included representatives of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Texas Rangers, the Houston Police Department, the Harris County Sheriff’s Department and other organizations.
In its one year of existence, the task force has rescued over 130 victims, 100 coming from a single case. “It’s really amazing what you can do when you work together,” said Laster, who pointed out the pervasiveness of slavery. “It happens here in San Antonio; it happens in countries far from here,” she said. “It happens in rural areas, in urban areas.”
While the patterns are the same, “It’s exploitation. It’s power over someone else. It’s very demeaning,” she said. Many victims have actually jumped out of windows to escape.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act, passed in 2000, defines a victim as a person held in service of another by force, fraud or coercion, Laster noted. While threats can be physical, often it is the threat of harm coming to their loved ones back home or deportation that keeps these persons in bondage, she related. “Remember, deportation for some people means death,” she said.
The other defining characteristic of human trafficking is the ongoing nature of the relationship. While smuggling itself is a crime, it is one in which both participants part ways. “Slavery doesn’t end,” Laster said. The crime of rape may also be involved but, again, does not by itself fall under human trafficking legislation.
“But if they were smuggled, held in service, forced to work or put into commercial sexual exploitation,” she said, “then you’re talking about trafficking.” If a minor (anyone under the age of 18) is involved, they are automatically considered a trafficking victim and this holds true whether or not they are U.S. citizens or were moved within or into the country. She pointed out sexual exploitation can also be pornography.
Forced labor exploitation is quite prevalent in restaurants and Laster recalled dining in a well-known Houston area restaurant and feeling her “radar” go off regarding one of the workers. She casually questioned him, but his answers allayed her suspicions. Two months later a worker from that restaurant was in her office, telling how the chain had forced him into slavery. Laster learned the employee she had spoken with earlier had been carefully coached to avoid detection.
She also warned against stereotypical thinking. One of her victim/clients was a well-educated school teacher with a master’s degree. Another case involved a Central American girl whose family was not on the poverty level, but who fled home at the age of 14 when her family did not believe a cousin was raping her. Lured by the promise of a good job, her trafficker led her, along with others, on a journey by foot to the United States. Any who became sick or injured were left to die along the way, a horror the girl has never forgotten.
When she finally arrived in Texas she was unknowingly given as a gift from one brother to another for his smuggling success and became his domestic servant. Here she was brutally raped and beaten regularly by the man, then further brutalized by the man’s wife when she learned of this.
“She sees no way out,” says Laster. “There’s absolutely no hope in her mind that she will ever survive this — and she doesn’t want to. She’s really, really tired of being beaten. She sleeps on the floor. They kick her to wake her up.” Eventually the girl attempted suicide, being saved at the last minute by the touch of the couple’s baby, who was in her care, and the girl’s concern that the little one would be left unattended.
She finally escaped while grocery shopping with the wife, devising the ruse of going back for some forgotten produce and instead grabbing the first customer she could find and begging them for help. Luckily they were good people and whisked her to safety, but it was several years before she came to Laster’s office with her story. As a result, the girl was granted a “T” visa, one given only to victims of trafficking following a rigorous process.
“We have great help from the government,” said Laster, noting the high priority placed on such cases by law enforcement and other humanitarian organizations, such as the Ricky Martin Foundation. But while there are many organizations focusing on helping the victims, help is needed finding these victims, she said. “They’re here, but they’re not going to bump into an FBI agent,” she said, “and if they do, they’re not going to self-identify.”
Also needed are volunteers, and Laster directed the audience to visit the SLAO Web site, www.slao.org, to find what expertise they can personally bring to this issue. “Maybe it’s printing, maybe being in communications, maybe it is being a volunteer or a mentor or tutoring or you have some language skills. All these things are needed,” she said, “and all these things can really mean the difference between life or death. You could truly save a life.” |