Trafficking Tres

A young lady in a village in Nicaragua, or maybe Haiti, or Mexico, sees a notice on a billboard. A job! She hasn't had a lot of school, and job opportunities in her part of the world are rare indeed. And - could it be - "It's in the U.S.! El Norte!" She gets on a plane with visions of making enough to live on, having something left to send home, maybe go to school, get educated. . .

She arrives at her destination, gets off the plane, and is met by her charming host/employer and is driven to the same closet that the girl from our last installment found herself in. Her getting any money to live on is up to the mercy of her captor (they usually have none). School? Well, in a manner of speaking. She's now in The Life.

Why, you ask, don't they just walk away from all the garbage? For those trafficked within their home country, there's the threat of harm to them or to their families. Since among the first things the slavers do is take away any form of I.D., it can be devilishly hard to even prove who you are. Sometimes you even lose track of who you are. If you are taken into slavery by an organization you will almost certainly not be plying the trade in your hometown. The organization (more properly, The Organization) has a kind of circuit that they use. A girl works in Atlanta for about two weeks, then gets moved to - L.A.? Omaha? - before anyone makes a real connection, not a sexual connection, but a real, human connection. A connection that connects with heart and mind and spirit, not body. Slavers want none of that. Besides, one of the holds that the slaver has on the girl is, "So if you leave, where would you go? You don't know anybody here."

About the use of terms like "slavers", "slavery", a short and simple defense. If you are not free to leave without fear of harm, and if you are not paid for what you do, is that not slavery? Is there a better term for it? The myth has grown that, if a girl makes some money, she has a split with the pimp. No, she doesn't. She very probably gets to keep none of it.

It's in the field of slaves being brought from overseas that the domestic servitude and the sex slaves bear some resemblance. Often - almost always - when people are trafficked for domestic service, sexual favors for the employer is part of the package. Gee, when I answered that ad, no one told me. .

And, if you're sold into sex slavery from overseas, not only do you not know anyone, not only do you not know where to go, you don't even speak the language. The saddest thing of all is, almost anywhere in the U.S., help is only a phone call away, maybe even right next door. Yes, for Spanish speakers. If they only knew. . .

We need to discuss solutions. It might help to think in terms of not going after the prostitute without going after the pimp (it probably wasn't her idea); in terms of more uniformity of state laws, and stronger federal laws. More training for law enforcement. More caring, involved groups like the one St. Alban's in Davenport has working. TVPRA (Google it, then contact your Congresssional representatives. That's where we take up the next time we're on the topic.

Thanks for hanging out.