Human trafficking is obtaining a person through means of recruitment, harboring, transportation, or provision, for the purpose of labor or sexual services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. OR if a commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, for any person under 18. (By legal defintion, any sexual explotiation of a minor is considered human trafficiking.)
Here is a break down of what we have learned from week one.
Day 1:
This day was really about getting to know the people in our group, why we were there, and what we hoped to accomplish. I knew that these people existed, but meeting them, sharing ideas with them, and being inspired by them has been an amazing experience. There are 24 of us total. There are quite a few from California, a handful from the Midwest, a few down South, a couple out East, some from Canada, and a lonely Australian, South Korean, and Japanese. We have one still in high school, and two fresh out, about half are college students or recent graduates, and the rest are professionals already involved in the field or itching to get in.
After we all got to know each other a bit, we talked a lot about Smart Activism. This basically means that we aren't going to raid brothels and bust down doors. Things aren't that simple now a days. The victims that truly need our help are hidden. Traffickers are utilizing the latest technology available in the United States to buy and sell people. Therefore, we need to be just as savy if we want to make a difference. If victims aren't reported to authorities who know what trafficking is and what a victim needs, then they are likely to be imprisoned for prostitution (even if it wasn't by choice), be deported back to their country (even if it was their own family who sold them and they have nothing to go back to) or simply not be provided the appropriate aftercare treatment that they deserve.
This class is all about investigation cases of human trafficking, and utilizing Smart Activism by taking advantage of resources and services in the community to ensure the victim is treated like a victim, and not a criminal.
Day 2
First thing in the morning we dove into a website that we would soon get to know very well. www.slaverymap.org. This website documents cases of human trafficking in the United States that have already occured. The purpose of this is to raise awarness of the issue and also to impact legislation or community providers into creating services for trafficking victims, especially in high probability areas.
Later in the day we got to meet two FBI officers who came in to talk about human trafficking. One thing that they emphasized was that us as citizens cannot obtain evidence for the FBI to be used in a court of law because that evidence would be considered tainted. Tainted evidence is when a private citizen acts with a greater authority to obtain evidence. If it is discover that the evidence used in court is tainted the trafficker could walk away without any conviction which would put the trafficking victim at an even greater risk. If you think that you know of a business that is likely to have trafficking victims, keep your distance, but build up your evidence through public sources such as advertisements and reviews and then report the information to the authorities. As long as you don't act with more authority than an average citizen to obtain your information, the evidence can be used.
The FBI officers also spent a lot of time explaining the coercion aspect of modern day slavery. Even if the doors are open and the a person may physically be free to walk out the doors, it does not mean that they are free. The trafficking builds this "Culture of Fear" in the victims head. This can develop from a wide range of things such as the if the victims are from a foreign country they often can't speak English, the trafficker convinces them that the police are evil, the trafficker may threaten their lives or the lives of their families back home, the trafficker has fabricated a debt that they put over the victims head, or even use the victims culture of voodoo magic to control them. It is important for everyone to realize that just because a person may not be in chains, doesn't mean they aren't a slave.
Day 3
We started off the day with a visit from the San Jose Police Department. Because San Jose is a very high probability area for trafficking victims, they have become the first task force in the country to develop a protocol for handling a trafficking situation. Also, the Bay Area is considered a "safe haven" for immigrants that were trafficked into the United States. If it can be proved that they are a trafficking victim they will not be deported. The police department is focusing on educating their entire staff on trafficking so that when victims are discovered they are provided with proper care.
The police also talked about how traffickers are rarely prosecuted for human trafficking because it is much harder to prove compared to other crimes such as rape or kidnapping. Also, a single count of human trafficking will only be about 6 years in prison while other crimes are likely to put the trafficker behind bars for longer periods of time.
Later in the day we the Asian Anti-Trafficking Collaborative spoke to us, which is a collection of various service providers that is focused on transforming a victim to a survivor. This is done through victim-centered approach which provides legal representation, social services, shelter service, and cultural and language assistance. They emphasized that they are very concerned with asking the survivors what they feel that they need in order to help them recover.
Day 4
This day was one of my favorites, we went to the Mission District which is an area with a high Hispanic population, to visit Carecen which is a community outreach program for street children that got involved in gangs. Our excentric and passionate speaker, Henry helped explain that street kids form gangs in order to protect themselves. Kids come here from Latin America because the conditions of their country are so bad, some of them are from war torn areas or from famalies that simply couldn't provide for them. Once they get here, gangs convince them to sell dope in order to make money. Once kids agree to this (because they usually don't have many other opitions) they start accumalting a debt because they owe the trafficker for the dope they are borrowing to sell. The trafficker builds intrest on the drug to the point where the child can't afford to pay it off. A lot of times this kids are put into prision, and the system is not built for rehibilitation. Kids come out worse then they came in. On top of that, the school system is "set up to fail them." They are not taught the skills that are necessary to surive in our modern society. Because of this, Henry and others have stepped up to protect and assist the kids on the street.
Carecen is an effective method of rehbilitation and intergation mainly because it is organized by people who were former gang memebers themselves, and realized that the drug trafficking that was happening in their community was only destroying their society. These kids that come to Carecen know that they can trust the people that work there because they have been in the same situation and they know what they're going through. Carecen teaches kids how to effective communicate with one another, encourages them to stay in school, and helps get them out of gang situations. Henry personally goes up to gang leaders and convinces them to let kids go becuase they are turning themseleves around.
A unique service that Carecen provides is tattoo removal. When kids become part of a gang, they often get the symbol tattooted on them. Because they have decided to change their lives around, they need these tattoos removed. Otherwise, they could be killed on the spot from an opposing gang member.
Henry recomeded the new movie Sin Nombre, (Without Names) to help us understand what it is like to come here from Latin America. I haven't seen it yet but I hear it's very good.
Day 5
Today was a work day all about mapping. Not For Sale has developed the public mapping system of www.slaverymap.org for cases that have already been closed. Our group was working on an internal mapping system (which can only be viewed by those involved with Not For Sale) that investigates sites which are high probabilty for trafficking.
Now to be honest, all you from Eau Claire, our region is not of high probabilty, especially compared to California, Texas, or New York. Even though this is true, according to a report from the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance called "Hidden in Plain Sight: A Baseline Survey of Trafficking in Wisconsin." There have been cases of sex trafficking of minors in the Eau Claire area. This report analyzed past cases of sexual and domestic abuse by surveying police force and serivce provides. From these surveys they discovered that there have been about 200 CASES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN WISCONSIN that have not been report or classified as human trafficking. And that's just all the cases we know about form this simple survey. That's 200 too many.
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