According to Lieutenant Raymond E. Foster, LAPD (ret.) of Criminal Justice Online
Florida Couple Charged in Forced Labor and Document Servitude Conspiracies
April 28, 2010 – WASHINGTON – Sophia Manuel and Alfonso Baldonado Jr. have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges arising from a human trafficking scheme to hold Filipino nationals in forced labor in country clubs and hotels in Southeast Florida, the Justice Department announced.
According to the indictment, defendants Manuel, 41, and Baldonado, 46, owners of Quality Staffing Services Corporation of Boca Raton, Fla., conspired to obtain a cheap, compliant and readily available labor pool. The indictment details the defendants conspired to hold the workers in their continued service, for little or no pay, and housed them in substandard conditions without adequate food or drinking water.
The indictment alleges that the defendants used false promises to entice the Filipino nationals to incur debts to pay up-front recruitment fees; and then compelled the workers to remain in the defendants’ service, despite inadequate work or income to pay off the debts, using a scheme of threats to have the workers arrested and deported with no way to repay their debts, confiscation of the workers’ passports and rules and controls restricting the workers’ freedom of movement and communications with outsiders.
But wait, from the same website there’s more
Arlington, Texas Couple Convicted of Forced Labor and Other Crimes for Holding Nigerian Woman in Domestic Servitude
February 3, 2010 – WASHINGTON—A federal jury has convicted an Arlington, Texas husband and wife Emmanuel and Ngozi Nnaji of engaging in a nine-year scheme to compel the labor of a Nigerian victim as their domestic servant, the Justice Department announced today. The jury found the defendants guilty of conspiracy, forced labor, document servitude, alien harboring and false statements. Ngozi and Emmanuel Nnaji each face a maximum sentence of up to 55 years in prison.
According to the evidence at trial, Emmanuel Nnaji and Ngozi Nnaji enticed a widowed Nigerian mother of six to come to the United States to be their domestic servant by falsely promising a salary and support for her children, who she was struggling to support.
“Holding other human beings in servitude against their will is a violation of human rights that will not be tolerated in our free society,” stated Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “This prosecution demonstrates our commitment to combating human trafficking in all its forms, vindicating the rights of trafficking victims and bringing human traffickers to justice.”
But wait, there’s still more
Two Brothers Plead Guilty in Conspiracy to Hold Thai Workers in Forced Labor in Hawaii
Defendants Alec Sou and Mike Sou, co-owners of Aloun Farm, pleaded guilty on Jan.13, 2010, in federal district court in Honolulu, to conspiring to commit forced labor. The two defendants, who are brothers, each face up to five years in prison for their respective roles in a labor trafficking scheme that held Thai agricultural workers in service at Aloun Farm through a scheme of debts, threats, and restraint.
During their respective plea hearings, the defendants acknowledged that they conspired with one another and with others to hold 44 Thai men in forced labor on a farm operated by the defendants, using a scheme of physical restraint and threats of serious harm to intimidate the workers and hold them in fear of attempting to leave the defendants’ service.
“Holding other human beings in servitude against their will is a violation of individual rights that is intolerable in a free society,” stated Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “This prosecution demonstrates our commitment to combating human trafficking in all its forms, vindicating the rights of trafficking victims, and bringing human traffickers to justice.”
Now why, you might ask, would I be talking about all this domestic, agricultural, sexual, and labor servitude, a.k.a. human trafficking on a nice morning in May, 2010?
One big reason derives from a companion piece to the Dreams Die Hard documentary about trafficking and involuntary servitude in the United States from Free The Slaves. The companion piece is called the Dreams Die Hard Study Guide. In the section “What Happens to Slaves?” the following bullet point really stood out.
When they turn to officials, trafficking victims may get harsh treatment if the police officer or immigration staff regards the escaped victim as an illegal immigrant. Although some law enforcement officials have immediately rescued and protected people in slavery, there have been tragic situations where police simply failed to recognize slavery. Proper training is crucial.
It just made me wonder how much better off Arizona’s de facto slave owners are now that the state legislature has made it even more illegal to be an undocumented immigrant. And, given the gleeful promises of ever-more draconian enforcement by sadists like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, how much further is this law going to shift the balance of power even further in the direction of those who already abuse trafficked people.
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Note: I was inspired to write this post by search results that showed up while I was trying to verify whether the authors of the website Citizens Against Trafficking were living up to their claim that they’re “a broad based coalition formed in 2009 to combat all forms of human trafficking.”
The short answer appears to be no: they instead appear to have been primarily opposed to prostitution, which they say is a hotbed of trafficking, and only in the state of Rhode Island. They were particularly opposed to a loophole in Rhode Island that made some forms of prostitution legal there.
The law has recently been amended, with much applause and support from the website’s authors: it’s now as illegal to be a sex-worker in Rhode Island as it is to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona. With what will turn out to be, I’m afraid, similar consequences for sex workers.
As I’ve mentioned relatively often I personally don’t care much for sex work in the current dominant paradigm since I believe, strongly, that it reinforces rather than relieves our expectations that all sex between men and women is ultimately transactional. And I strongly regret when people cross borders illegally. On the other hand I don’t think either sex work nor immigration ought to be illegal primarily because it increases rather than mitigates the underworld environments serious anti-traffickers are concerned puts victims most at risk — whether they’re “massage parlor” workers in Rhode Island, or “nannies” in Maryland, or “lettuce pickers” in Arizona.
