Human trafficking is America’s dirty not-so-little secret. It’s all around us. Here are but three examples:
Domestic workers are easy prey for exploitation because they don’t have legal protections regulating overtime pay, a safe work environment, or workplace discrimination. Traffickers control them with threats of deportation or physical harm to them or their families, by confiscating their documents, by restricting their movements and who they communicate with, and by trapping them into debt.
Sex trafficking (NOT the same thing as prostitution). UNICEF estimates that some two million children in the U.S., mostly girls, are sexually exploited in the commercial sex business, which is a $9.5 billion a year American industry.
Agricultural workers. Like domestic workers, migrant and seasonal farm workers are commonly exploited because they, too, lack basic labor protections enjoyed by workers in other industries.
January is National Human Trafficking Awareness Month. It’s an important enough issue for you to learn more about it and act when you see people being forced to work against their will for the benefit of others. If you observe such a situation, please call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center’s 24/7 Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.
These are very important issues to get out to the public. The Grateful Garment Project is now involved in Human Trafficing through a group in Oakland. The need for help is overwhelming. That is only one group.
This is slavery, pure and simple. Most of us see it from time to time but “don’t want to get involved.” This problem will take a nation-full of people to eradicate. We can do something on our own, like reporting cases we see, or we can volunteer as an individual at an organization dealing with the issue, or, as Grateful Garment is doing, encourage a group, club, etc. we belong to to help such an organization. But each of us MUST become aware, concerned, and involved.