Most victims of human trafficking in the United States arrived in the country with a legal work visa, according to a new report by Northeastern University and the Urban Institute, and later became indentured servants after their immigration papers were taken away by traffickers and recruiters. Those who brought the workers to the United States to work on farms, construction sites, in hotels, and as housekeepers or nannies threaten to have the workers deported or keep them in jobs that pay little or nothing after seizing their papers. About 29 percent were smuggled into the United States, and most workers were not abused physically, which may not be the typical image of a trafficked person, said Northeastern criminology professor Amy Farrell, one of the report’s authors. Yet she said she found the level of psychological abuse startling in the 122 case files on trafficked workers that the report analyzed. Domestic workers, for example, “often didn’t have a room in a house, had to eat on the floor, and members of a family were instructed not to use their name or talk to them,” Farrell said. “After a long period of this, they felt less than human and unworthy of anyone finding out what was wrong.” In Massachusetts, more cases involving human labor trafficking, which involves workers who are held against their wills in jobs or forced to pay off debts to recruiters, have become public. Earlier this year, a couple from the town of Harvard were convicted in federal court of abusing and holding their Bolivian nanny against her will and were ordered to pay $150,000. Officials shut down two “farm labor camps” in Western Massachusetts last year after finding migrant workers who were underpaid, overworked, and living in squalor. While policy makers and state officials have taken steps to crack down on the problem, the report found that victims faced deep fears of coming forward and often did not do so until years after they had escaped from a trafficking situation. Also, law enforcement’s response to the problem has been passive and the cases are not a priority for some federal agencies, the report said. Social service and employees’ rights agencies that work with victims in Greater Boston supported the release of the 209-page report. “I welcome any attention to this issue,” said Julie Dahlstrom, managing attorney at Ascentria Care Services, one of a handful of Massachusetts nonprofits that help trafficking victims. “There’s a lack of awareness about the very nature of trafficking among law enforcement, and there’s a sense that if it doesn’t involve physical violence, it’s not trafficking. So there needs to be greater education.” Researchers from Northeastern University and the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan policy research nonprofit in Washington D.C., researched the cases of 122 human trafficking victims at four unidentified social service agencies in the United States, including two in the Northeast. The study also involved interviews with more than 150 people who had ties to the victims, including recruiters. The report cited relationships between human traffickers and US companies that hire foreign workers while often ignoring their circumstances.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 12:17:14 +0000
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