Human Trafficking and Forced Labor:
The Thriving Business of Modern Slavery
When people think of “human trafficking,” they usually think of the sex trade and young women and children forced into prostitution and forced to work in the porn industry. While the sex trade accounts for an estimated 15% to 20% of human trafficking, approximately 70% to 80% of human trafficking victims are victims of what is known as “forced labor,” according to the April 2015 “Shortwave” podcast on the PBS News Hour website. These men, women, and children, as reported by the International Labor Organization, are typically forced into domestic work, agriculture, construction, and manufacturing. They are paid nothing or next to nothing, and forced to work double or more the normal 40-hour week.
According to the International Labor Organization, about 21 million people worldwide are victims of forced labor, and almost half of them are men and boys. The vast majority of these individuals are exploited by private individuals and companies.
According to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, forced labor means the employer uses “force, fraud, or coercion to maintain control over the worker and to cause the worker to believe that he or she has no other choice but to continue with the work.”
Traffickers lure their victims by promising them a good job and educational opportunities.
Traffickers then physically and sexually abuse the victims, imprison them, prohibit them from communicating with the outside world, prohibit victims from getting treatment for work-related injuries, deprive them of necessities, threaten to harm their families, threaten to deport them, and intimidate them by claiming they owe the trafficker money for transportation and “placement” in a job.
Because of the nature of domestic work, it is especially easy to exploit workers in this industry. Usually the work is in a private home. The environment as well as the exploited workers are therefore isolated and below the radar of the labor laws it breaks, such as number of hours worked, safety of the work environment, minimum wage, and discrimination. Many domestic workers live in the employer’s home and never leave that environment.
Most exploited domestic workers in the United States are undocumented women who live in the home of their employer.
Sofia was one of those workers.
Forced Labor And Dashed Dreams
Sofia came to the US from Central America when she was 16. A family friend in her poverty-stricken native country convinced her that she could get a job as “personal assistant” to a wealthy woman in the US.
He showed Sofia pictures of a beautiful home with a woman in an expensive business suit and beautifully styled hair sitting at a computer and smiling while she managed her employer’s menus, appointments, and daily schedules. Some of the pictures depicted a beautiful young assistant driving an expensive SUV to a private school, where she dropped off and picked up the family’s children. Others depicted a smiling assistant sitting in a nicely decorated home office with her employer as they discussed the household budget or planned a large dinner party.
The family friend explained that since the family could not pay Sofia’s passage to the United States, Sofia could pay it back in installments once she began working. And it wouldn’t be long, he promised, before Sofia got a promotion from “Personal Assistant” to “House Manager” if she worked hard. The family friend then showed Sofia a picture of the large, beautifully decorated bedroom suite that would be hers, rent free, and of the high school she would attend, after which her employer would contribute half of her college tuition as part of the “benefit package” that also included free room and board and coverage under the family’s health insurance policy.
Sofia’s family urged her to leave their two-room shack to seek a better life in the US, and Sofia had stars in her eyes as she looked at the photographs and listened to her trusted family friend describe how the American Dream was just a signature away. Sitting at their tiny kitchen table, Sofia and her parents signed a contract agreeing to pay pack the “recruitment fee” and “transportation costs” out of her wages.
Sofia left for the airport in a large panel truck with the family friend. But they never went to the airport. They drove for three days and nights, picking up nine additional young men and women, all of whom rode in the back of the cramped truck with no food and very little water. When they arrived in the United States, they were unloaded and herded into a small, dirty apartment with no furniture, running water, or heat, where they stayed for several more days awaiting transportation to their new jobs. Sofia never saw her family friend again. She saw only strange men and sometimes women who brought in new “recruits” or took waiting “recruits” to new jobs.
She felt frightened and confused because this was nothing like what she had been promised. When she asked to call a neighbor who had a phone and lived near her family, she was told to shut up. After a day or two, she was told to get into a waiting car, which brought her, several hours later, to an enormous, beautiful home like the ones she had seen in the pictures, and she was full of hope again.
But her nightmare was just beginning.
Sofia’s family friend did not “place” her in the employ of an American family. He sold her to an unethical American family looking for free domestic help.
There was no business suit or computer. Sofia was given a white smock and an apron, told to change into it in the bathroom, and was put to work immediately scrubbing floors and toilets, cooking the family’s meals, vacuuming, dusting, washing windows, and washing, drying, ironing, and folding clothes.
There was no beautiful bedroom suite for her. She slept on the floor in the pantry.
There was no expensive SUV or high school. Her employer took her passport and Sofia was forbidden to leave the house for any reason. She was told that she should feel lucky just to be in this country and have a decent job.
Every day was the same. She worked seven days, including Saturdays and Sundays, from 6 AM until at least 6 PM and often as late as midnight.
Out of her pay each week, for an average of 84 hours of work a week, her employer had deducted money for health insurance (which didn’t exist), rent, meals, federal and state taxes (which were never, of course, reported), the “recruitment fee,” and the “transportation costs.” Her pay each week was $75, less than $1 an hour.
Once, her employer deducted $10 from Sofia’s pay because, she told Sofia, “You didn’t get the spots out of my favorite shirt” when Sofia did the laundry. Another time, she didn’t pay Sofia at all because Sofia had fallen asleep two nights during that week before mopping the kitchen floor.
When Sofia fell ill, her employer told her, “Stop whining, it’s just a cold,” and refused to take her to the doctor. Sofia had pneumonia. When she collapsed and fell down the stairs during a cocktail party, the employer was finally forced to call an ambulance.
Hospital personnel reported their suspicions when they saw bruising and evidence of rape, injuries which Sofia refused to discuss. During the subsequent investigation, officials learned that the 20-year-old son of Sofia’s employer had attacked Sofia several times, raped her, and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.
Sofia was sent to a safe house and eventually chose to return to her home in Central America with less than $700, her entire earnings for working over 1,070 hours of hard labor.
The bottom line is that human trafficking could not thrive if there were no market for it. Most cases involving human trafficking are discovered because someone reports their suspicions, putting an end to one person’s misery and injustice, and contributing to ending the entire morally bankrupt industry.
Below we have provided resources to help you recognize and report human trafficking.
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Forced Labor and Human Trafficking Resources:
National Human Trafficking Resource Center
Polaris: Freedom Happens Now – Labor Trafficking Information
United Nations International Labour Organization – Forced Labour
Further Reading
