Sexual Slavery In Southern California Today?
Epidemic, Say Officials
She was a teenage girl from an impoverished village in Bangladesh. The American couple offered her transport to America and a better life: a nice job as their nanny and housekeeper, wages and opportunity. The dream offer dissolved into a nightmare as soon as she reached sunny Southern California. The couple informed her she owed them a huge sum for bringing her into the country and forced her to work without wages for years in their home, where she was repeatedly raped and beaten by the husband and abused by the wife. After three failed attempts, and with the help of good Samaritans, she finally escaped.
This is just one of the stunning, real-life anecdotes recounted in Santa Monica at Friday’s “Slavery Today“, a public panel discussion on the multibillion-dollar human trafficking industry which is epidemic in Southern California.
The event was sponsored by the Human Rights Department of the Church of Scientology International, Freedom Magazine and Youth for Human Rights International. Speakers and sponsors included (left to right) Freedom Magazine Editor Tom Paquette; Caitlin McShane of Friends of the United Nations; Michal Toftness of Youth for Human Rights International; Leisa Goodman, Human Rights Director, Church of Scientology International; volunteer Alexis Matthes, director Mary Shuttleworth and volunteer Johnny Kumangi of Youth for Human Rights International; Carol Wittcoff, U.S. Department of Justice, LA Office; and Claude Victory, Los Angeles County Probation Officer. Also speaking was Janet Olsen of Arizonans for the Protection of Exploited Children and Adults.
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Speakers brought to life for an audience of community and religious leaders, journalists and students the controversial and little-known global scourge of modern slavery: the illegal recruitment, transport, harboring, sale, receipt or transfer of women, children and men into enslavement for forced prostitution, labor or sexual servitude.
An estimated $19 billion growing industry, the marketing, sale and exploitation of human beings, including tens of thousands of children every year in every country, ranks with the international trafficking of drugs and weapons as the world’s most pervasive crime. It reaches into every echelon of society, from the lowest to highest economic and social strata, assuming many forms and guises.
And from California and Arizona, the slavery works in both directions, according to Janet Olson of Arizonans for the Protection of Exploited Children and Adults. Child sex tourism, she told the conference, is the practice of adults traveling to another country specifically to have sex with a child. She said the business is booming in Mexico, with underage females held captive by trafficking rings.
The victims consider themselves powerless. Usually illegally smuggled into the country from Mexico, Russia, Eastern Europe or Asia, they do not speak English and have no idea of their geographical location. Their captors may tell them the police or immigration officials cannot be trusted and will kill them or deport them if they try to run away.
According to panelist Caroline Wittcoff of the L.A. office of the United States Department of Justice, human trafficking is a complex crime whose perpetrators are difficult to prosecute. “Under-reporting is the main problem in apprehending and prosecuting human traffickers“, she said. “Victims are afraid to run away or report their captors to authorities out of fear for their own lives or the lives of their loved ones. As trafficking rings have ties all the way back to their home countries, this is a very real danger.”
In addition to public awareness campaigns and stricter legal penalties for the perpetrators, “most needed,” said Wittcoff, “are more resources and services to help the victims before and after they escape their captors.” So far, community-based organizations have been the most responsive to the issue and provided the most assistance to victims.
The event was held at Ken Edwards Center in recognition of the United Nations International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition. It was co-sponsored by the Human Rights Department of the Church of Scientology International, Freedom Magazine and Youth for Human Rights International. Visit http://www.youthforhumanrights.org
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