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Stop Human Trafficking (Modern-Day Slavery)!
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Stop Human Trafficking (Modern-Day Slavery)!'s Interests
General
Making videos that show people the real truth about the dangers of sexual slavery, meeting with people from Polaris Project, talking with Senators to stop this problem and protect our country. Meeting new people and educating them about the Dangers involved with Human Trafficking.
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To help take a stand go to the International Justice Mission Website and sign their petition to help fight Human Trafficking. Also be sure to read the stories of young girls and see how you can help better their lives.
A recent article from the Boulder Weekly
****The Slave Trader Next Door*****
Officials and community members join forces to face human trafficking in Colorado
by Joel Warner
According to police records, the South Korean women were forced to have sex in filthy massage-parlor rooms amid stained sheets, drug paraphernalia and bags of prophylactics. The women apparently never saw any money; all profits were fed into a complex international network that ended in the hands of a South Korean criminal investigation. If caught by authorities, the women were instructed to swallow the condoms of their clients.
Usually stories such as these are set amid the neon-hued squalor of Thailand or Singapore. Maybe it's a special international investigation wired to National Geographic or Mother Jones. Heart-rending stories, to be sure, but silently tempered by that little voice in the back of your head that whispers reassuringly, "Don't worry, it's over there."
Unfortunately, this time that little voice is wrong. There is no Bangkok or Hong Kong dateline on the story of these South Korean sex slaves. The locations of their illicit prisons are all too familiar: Denver. Aurora. Longmont.
Many Colorado natives were no doubt shocked to read of these sex slaves in their own back yards when the news first hit the newspapers two years ago. Many others where likely similarly flabbergasted this summer by newspaper reports of an Indonesian woman who was allegedly forced to live in an unheated, unfurnished basement in Aurora for four years while she cooked and cleaned seven days a week for less than $2 a day and was repeatedly sexually assaulted. But the fact is that, while often unrecognized, stories like these are just a small example of the flourishing, and by all accounts, growing human-trafficking industry here in Colorado, all part of an international skin trade that's reached epic proportions. This is a grisly part of Colorado that could soon hit the limelight: Local government agencies and nonprofits have created an interagency task force to gauge the extent of human trafficking in Colorado and what can be done to stop it. It's the first step in what many foresee to be a long and messy war against modern-day slavery.
"It's a dark, dirty subject," says state Rep. Alice Borodkin, D-Denver, who helped establish and heads the statewide Interagency Task Force on Trafficking in Persons. "One of the things we will find in Colorado is that there is more [human trafficking] than we know about."
The task force, comprised of law-enforcement officers, state officials and nonprofit organizations, will meet regularly to study the extent of human trafficking in the state and report its findings to the state legislature in 2007. Colorado is one of the first states to establish such a task force, and some say this is because the Centennial State could be turning into a hotbed for slave traders.
While no one knows the full extent of human trafficking in the state, "Colorado is quickly becoming a major center," says Claude d'Estreé, visiting law professor at the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies and chair of a separate DU Task Force on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. There's an estimated 23 to 27 million slaves worldwide, more so than any other time in history, says d'Estreé. Between 14,500 and 17,500 of these slaves are trafficked into the United States each year, he says, adding, "This does not even begin to take into account the internal sex trade. It overwhelms even the foreign numbers."
According to d'Estreé, Florida, Texas and California are considered to have the greatest concentrations of forced laborers. But Colorado's relative proximity to the latter two states, plus Denver's role as a transportation hub and the state's strong agriculture industry, makes it high on the list of human-trafficking destinations.
"The sex-slave trade is already pretty well established in Colorado," says d'Estreé. Often involving women or children sold or tricked into servitude in thinly disguised brothels, sex slaves are different than prostitutes in that they are not paid for their work and are owned outright by the people keeping them. In Colorado there are also domestic slaves, often illegal immigrants who are forced to live and work in households with no remuneration or freedom of movement. Finally many of the foreign shepherds in the mountains may also be slave labor. Unlike the slaves of Antebellum America, these "disposable people" aren't often bound by chains—instead they're imprisoned by threat of deportation, debt, violence and fear.
Despite its two task forces and the prospect of additional federal funding for the issue this fall, many point out that Colorado is far from winning the war against the "snakeheads," the frighteningly violent and internationally connected slave traders. While the feds have some ammunition against the traders in the form of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, more federal and state legislation, plus additional funding and improved law-enforcement cooperation, will be needed to take on a problem that isn't limited by state and national boundaries. Law officers need to be taught how to differentiate between a prostitute and a sex slave and between a family maid and an indentured servant. Victims need to be connected with aid organizations, not just deported. And while so far the human-trafficking issue has transcended party lines, some fear politicians like U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., could lasso the subject into the immigration debate.
But possibly the biggest challenge of all will be getting the American public to realize they live in the same country as slaves. Since most victims of slavery aren't willing to splash their story on the cover of Newsweek, it may be difficult for people to understand the problem. Or maybe people just don't want to understand it. In a statement that has since been corrected by the FBI, Special Agent J.B. Robert Espinoza told the first meeting of the Colorado interagency task force in July, "Sure we know people are here illegally, but being induced or coerced into forced labor—that hasn't come to our attention."
"You can agree it's a problem, but it's harder to get people to realize it's a problem in their back yard," says Amanda Finger, a member of the interagency task force and coordinator for the Colorado chapter of the Polaris Project, a nonprofit dedicated to building grassroots opposition to human trafficking. "Do we choose not to look? Do we drive past these massage parlors and decide not to think twice?"
d'Estreé, for one, says he knows human trafficking won't be stopped in his lifetime. He knows it's an issue that doesn't fit easily into a sound bite. But he's optimistic that once people realize this is a problem that isn't just over there, hopefully they will do their part to fight it. Maybe this means only buying rugs that are certified to have been made without slave labor. Maybe it's working to spread the word through organizations like the Polaris Project. Maybe it's knowing what to look for to make sure that quiet girl they see peeking through the windows next door is where she ought to be.
"The American public needs to say, this is simply unacceptable," he says. "I want everybody to be outraged that there is even a single person who is a slave."
To find out more about fighting human trafficking in Colorado, contact the Polaris Project at 720-227-0542, or go to
Polaris Project Website.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
Heroes
Anyone that has come forward and not been afraid to speak, those who give voice to the ones who can't or will not speak for themselves. Everyone who is part of the solution and not the problem.
Stop Human Trafficking (Modern-Day Slavery)!'s Details
We are a group of CU Denver Students who want to educate people about the Human Trafficking problems going on right here in the United States, specifically Colorado. Most people believe that human trafficking only happens in foreign countries but it is right here in the United States. Women and even some children as young as 12 years old are being lured into this business with promises of money or fame. Our goal is to educate people so that we can stop modern day slavery.
The actual number of victims in Colorado is unknown there have been many studies done however no specific numbers have come out. We do know that 1 out of 3 runaways will be approached by human traffickers. That is a scary number. They also lour their victims in by scams of becoming models or actresses. They hire them at massage places to which any normal person would assume is a reputable company however in the back is a brothel, which is where these women are forced into sexual slavery.
The problem that police are having is that these victims refuse to speak up for themselves. The owners of these places usually threaten their lives or their families’ lives. So these woman say they are there by their own free will making it really tough to catch these traffickers. They guys make millions if not more by exploiting young women especially. They tend to pray on Korean, Hispanic, Chinese, and foreign women in general.
These traffickers are on Myspace as well, they are all over and it is not hard to pick out. We encourage all women to be very careful and to pay attention to promises of modeling contracts or making lots of money.
Colorado in America’s Midwest is a popular destination for tourism and immigration. In the dreams of many immigrants, the Rocky Mountain state is a garden of opportunities for success. But some newcomers to Colorado find nightmare instead of the American dream. They are isolated, beaten, raped, and dehumanized in the most unimaginable ways. Their rights are violated on a daily basis as they are forced to overwork as prostitutes or other laborers. They are sometimes as young as 12 years old. They are from the most vulnerable parts of the world, often from single parent families who live in poverty and have no hope for a better future. These families are usually approached by nicely dressed women who promise parents their children will work as waitresses and nannies in the west. In Colorado, they are often forced to work in massage spas and apartment brothels serving dozens of men against their will every day.
According to the State of Colorado Human Trafficking Task Force January 2007 report, “[Human trafficking] victims are charged a fee for transport and citizenship arrangements. Once in the United States [their]… passports… are confiscated. Often the victims are immediately raped or brutally beaten… then transported to trailers or makeshift living quarters for purposes of forced labor, domestic servitude or sex trade. They are typically [hungry] and sleep deprived which weakens them psychologically, and armed guards watch them at all times. Dissenters are brutally raped and beaten or threatened with violence to their family. Commonly, victims are afraid that they will be in trouble or go to jail even if they do escape or locate a connection to authorities. At this point, they are made to work long hours, day in and day out to pay off their ‘debts’ which consist of money they agreed to pay for transport into the United States.”
According to the U.S. State Department, between 14,500 and 17,500 foreigners are trafficked into the United States every year. They are mostly women and children, and many of them become sex slaves serving dozens of American men against their will every single day. Their violators, according to U.S. intelligence, make over 9 billion dollars worldwide a year. In December of 2006, local police in a suburb of Colorado’s capital Denver initiated “Operation Jaded Promise” – an investigation on international human trafficking that involved the owner of Boulder’s “China Town Express” restaurant. According to the Trafficking Task Force Report, as of January 2007, “Operation Jaded Promise” is one of over three dozen cases from 2005-2006 made available to the public. But an undercover investigator from the Denver Police, who interviewed off camera with the condition of anonymity, said their department alone is investigating possible cases of human trafficking on a daily bases. Such investigations sometimes take up to six months, raising the concern whether identified victims must be left to suffer that long.
But victims themselves often do not cooperate with enforcement agencies. Their families are typically threatened back home and coming from the third world they have little knowledge of their rights and have no trust for authorities. According to the Denver Post, in January of 2007 the Lakewood police in greater Denver arrested Chinese women in a massage parlor who claimed they sold their bodies with their own free will. Their female pimps soon arrived at police headquarters and bailed them out of jail. In a letter to fellow legislators dated February 12, 2007, Colorado State Representative Alice Borodkin expressed concern for trafficking victims by saying, “The women are arrested as prostitutes and jailed. Within an hour they are released by their captors and hustled off to parts unknown. They are not criminals, but victims. Some as young as twelve years old.”
Federal and state governments have tried to address helping victims. Under a $450,000 federal grant some 800 police officers and social workers have been trained in Colorado to identify and help trafficking victims. Since most victims don’t speak English, there is an on-call network interpreters who speak Korean, Chinese dialects, Russian and Spanish. The federal government also offers visas for identified human trafficking victims to legalize their stay in America and get assistance. Salvation Army provides shelters to rescued victims in Colorado and helps them to apply for “T Visas” – documents, created by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, to eventually help victims become permanent American residents. Although 5,000 T Visas are available each year in the Unites States, less than 700 have been issued in the past seven years.
From July 2005 to July 2006, according to tracking by agencies like the Salvation Army and Lutheran Family Services, only 25 human trafficking victims were identified in Colorado. Although most individuals we interviewed had no idea about the number of human trafficking victims in Colorado and declined to make guesstimates, an estimate of numbers can be made based on the data of identified victims. If the data, that only 1% of foreign nationals in human trafficking have been identified in the United States, is correct then the available information on identified victims concludes that as of July 2006, there are 2,500 human trafficking victims in Colorado. But the number is perhaps higher, given that Denver has one of North America’s largest international airports and that two nationwide highways, I-25 and I-70 intersect here. This makes Colorado both a destination and transit state for human trafficking. The numbers of women and children in sex slavery may be even higher given the large number of local runaway and homeless youth in Denver, over 30% of whom are lured to prostitution within 48 hours of being on the street. The undercover investigator we interviewed said most international victims in Colorado are Korean and Latino women, because there are large communities from both groups. There is also a growing number of Chinese women trafficked to the Centennial State.
We interviewed two random women in downtown Denver who thought Human Trafficking meant “too many people walking on the street.” As we explained them what human trafficking is and how people don’t realize it happens in their neighborhoods, they were shocked and said they never thought it is happening in America. The editor of a local Russian newspaper, set for urban Colorado’s 60,000 strong Russian speaking community, told over the phone they are no talks within the community about women being trafficked from Russia to Colorado. A young member of the Vietnamese community, on the other hand, told us that her community is aware of human trafficking in their neighborhoods. This problem needs to be stopped so be a part of the Solution.
Who I'd like to meet: People that are willing to stand up and help join the fight against Human Trafficking. It is an increasing problem throughout the United States. It is estimated that there is more slavery going on today than there was 200 years ago. Most people do not believe it, however these women are in danger. Men are also included in human trafficking but on a much smaller scale. Help your sisters, cousins, and friends not fall victim to this increasingly growing operation.
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