Behind Closed Doors, a Life of Abuse, Fear

They are often called modern-day slaves. Women, men and children from around the world are lured into the United States with promises of jobs and then held against their will and forced to work long hours for little or no pay. Many are coerced to work as prostitutes and domestic workers or to become indentured servants in the agricultural and garment industries.

Ten years ago this month, in one of the most notorious human-trafficking cases, 71 Thai workers were freed from virtual slavery in an El Monte sweatshop. The workers had spent years sewing for less than 60 cents an hour before authorities raided the factory Aug. 2, 1995.

Over the last decade, spurred by the El Monte case and others, legislators and law enforcement agencies nationwide have dedicated more resources to battling human trafficking. Social service organizations have raised awareness of the problem. Prosecutors have investigated and charged more traffickers. Since 2001, 260 traffickers have been prosecuted -- a threefold increase over the previous four years, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Of those, 149 were prosecuted since October 2003.

As of July, nearly 200 trafficking investigations were underway.

Last year, the Department of Justice awarded more than $7.6 million in grants to local police agencies and social service organizations nationwide to combat trafficking. Los Angeles received $450,000 to set up a task force to help reach victims and to train officers on how to recognize trafficking victims.

A state bill would make human trafficking a felony.

Despite the progress, the crimes continue to occur. Assistant U.S. Atty. Heidi Rummel, who works in Los Angeles, specializes in human trafficking and discussed some of the challenges involved in investigating and prosecuting these cases. Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas O’Brien, chief of the criminal division, also discussed the issue.

Question: What is the difference between human-trafficking and human-smuggling cases?

Answer: In a smuggling case, a smuggler is hired to bring someone into the United States illegally. Once the person arrives in the United States and pays the fee, that’s the end of the business relationship. In a trafficking case, the person is lured into the United States and then forced to work against his or her will by threats or physical force.

Q: Who are the victims in human-trafficking cases?

A: It’s hard to describe a typical victim, but there are some common threads. Almost always, the victims are vulnerable. They often come from impoverished countries, don’t speak English and don’t have any friends or relatives in the United States. They don’t understand the U.S. legal or criminal justice system, so threats of arrest and deportation are sometimes enough to hold them in an involuntary-servitude situation. They are also susceptible to threats of harm against their families in their native countries.

Q: Where are the victims from?

A: They are from all over the world. Most of the time, they are poor and have come to the United States out of financial desperation. In recent cases, there have been numerous victims from Mexico, but there have also been cases involving victims from Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and Egypt.

Q: What type of work are the victims usually compelled to do?

A: Many cases involve prostitutes or domestic workers. There are also trafficking cases in which people were forced to work in factories or in the fields. In one case, Kil Soo Lee, the former owner of a garment factory in American Samoa, was sentenced in June to 40 years in federal prison. The owner had been convicted of involuntary servitude and other charges for using food deprivation and physical beatings to force more than 200 Vietnamese and Chinese laborers to work in his factory.

Q: Who are the traffickers?

A: The traffickers are usually part of large-scale criminal organizations that bring women and children into the country to work. They treat the victims as commodities. Occasionally, traffickers are couples or families who bring workers from their native countries to their homes and then hold them under extreme conditions of involuntary servitude.

In one of the most publicized local cases, an Indonesian woman, Supik Indrawati, was forced to work as a maid for a family in Rancho Palos Verdes for more than two years, earning a monthly salary of $150 for working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Her employer held her passport. In April 2000, the employer, Robert Lie, was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison and ordered to pay Indrawati $51,411.40.

Q: Has there been an increase in these types of cases in recent years?

A: There is definitely an increase in reported cases, open investigations and prosecuted cases. Each year, 14,500 to 17,500 victims are trafficked into the United States, according to federal authorities. There has also been more media coverage of the problem, more funding from Washington, D.C., and more law enforcement resources devoted to trafficking.

Q: What kind of resources have been dedicated to battling human trafficking?

A: Before the El Monte case, human trafficking wasn’t an issue that was on anybody’s radar screen. After the case, the nonprofit organization Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking was established to provide services to trafficking victims. In 2000, Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which expanded the scope of liability for trafficking cases, made it easier to prosecute the cases and also provided social services for victims. Since 2001, more than 750 victims have received benefits under that act.

This year in Los Angeles, federal authorities allocated funding to train 10,000 officers on what trafficking is and how to recognize it. The training will consist of lectures and videos demonstrating how to identify human-trafficking victims in the officers’ day-to-day patrols. The U.S. attorney’s office is working with local law enforcement officers and social service organizations to increase publicity, through fliers and radio public service announcements, of the problem of human trafficking.

Q: How do you reach the victims?

A: It is a hidden crime, so the cases are difficult to discover. And because of the nature of the crime and the threats from the traffickers, the victims are usually reluctant to trust law enforcement or to report the crime. Typically, the victims’ contact with the outside world is limited. They are often not permitted to leave the house. Occasionally, though, they do go to church or to healthcare centers.

So authorities try to reach out to those places where the victims might be. Sometimes the victims are able to escape their situations on their own and through friends and they make their way to one of the nonprofit organizations aimed at helping trafficking victims.

Q: What are the challenges in prosecuting trafficking cases?

A: Typically the physical or sexual abuse and the threats that keep the victims in the situation are committed in private. As a result, there are not a lot of eyewitnesses and the cases are difficult to corroborate. So oftentimes, prosecutors have only the victims’ account and it becomes a case of he said, she said. A vast majority of the cases end with the perpetrators pleading guilty before trial, sometimes to immigration violations rather than trafficking charges.

Q: What is required to prove that it is a federal crime?

A: It has to be demonstrated, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the alleged victims were forced to perform the work either through physical or sexual abuse or by threats of abuse. In the El Monte case, the Thai workers were held in the sweatshop by guards, razor wire and spiked fencing.

But workers do not have to be locked or gated inside a house or factory. If the threats or abuse make them too afraid to leave or stop working, that alone violates the federal laws against trafficking.

Q: What services are available to victims?

A: Victims of a severe form of trafficking who are willing to cooperate with law enforcement are entitled to a U.S. visa that allows them to live and work in the United States legally for three years.

Victims can also receive legal services, job training, education and shelter.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Support groups

Where to go for help:

Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking

(213) 365-1906

www.castla.org

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles

(323) 801-7991

www.lafla.org

The African Community Resource Center

(213) 637-1450

www.africancommunitycenter.org

U.S. attorney’s office