New York City: Point of Entry for Human Trafficking in US

By Gidon Belmaker
Epoch Times StaffCreated: Mar 22, 2011Last Updated: Mar 22, 2011

NEW YORK—Officially, slaves in the U.S. were freed in 1865, but a modern form of slavery, human trafficking, is still prevalent. New York City is one of the centers of this modern form of slavery.

New York City is both an entry point for people who are trafficked into the United States, and a destination for it, said Sonia Ossorio, executive director of the National Organization for Women in NYC and a leading member of the New York State Anti- Trafficking Coalition.

It is hard to get a clear picture of the scope of this crime. Statistics are difficult to track; most are rough estimates. Some estimates claim that 18,000 people are trafficked into the United Stated every year, said Ossorio, adding that other statistics claim that approximately 3,000 minors are trafficked in the sex industry in the city. Most of the trafficked people are women.

There are several kinds of modern day slavery. The main form is labor trafficking, where a person is forced or threatened to perform a job. This type of trafficking is common in the restaurant industry and agriculture. Sex trafficking is another major category within labor trafficking and it is one of the main forms of human trafficking in the city.

The life of trafficked people varies greatly depending on their situations, said Ossorio. Some, lured by traffickers, pay a large sum of money to come to the United States. The debt is then used to chain them to the traffickers. “While those people are walking around town, they won't be running to a police station. They are victims of trafficking none the less,” she said.

For others, life can be harsher, said Ossorio. In the city there are Asian operations that keep women imprisoned in cramped apartments, where no one can leave. Every few days, the women will be hauled into a van and taken to a different part of the city, or beyond, to perform sex services in brothels.

A TOUGH BATTLE

Fighting human trafficking is made difficult by virtue of the fact that it is not always clear whether a crime is human trafficking or not. Fighting this type of crime, on a large scale, requires the cooperation of many agencies: local, state, and federal.

Since 2006, New York City has had an anti-human trafficking task force, which serves as a way to share information between city agencies and relevant nonprofits. According to the city, the task force has, in cooperation with the mayor's office, partnered with enforcement entities to provide services to trafficking victims; conducted multiple citywide multidisciplinary training sessions; helped pass the groundbreaking New York State Anti-Trafficking law passed in 2007, and created a resource directory for victims and service providers.

Last year, the city launched an awareness campaign for human trafficking. Through the city's website, one can find the different organizations that provide assistance and services to victims of human trafficking. These are community and faith-based organizations throughout the city.

Safe Horizons for example, provides assistance to victims—women, men and children —of human trafficking. It is a hard battle, even for Safe Horizons, the largest anti-human trafficking service in the east coast.

Safe Horizon's anti-human trafficking has managed to help only 360 people in the New York metropolitan area since 2001. These 360 victims originate from more than 60 countries.

“A lot of the victims do not describe themselves as trafficking victims. They don't even know that,” said Ossorio, describing one of the many reasons fighting human trafficking is difficult.

Foreigners who have paid large sums of money for a chance to come to the United Stated, and are then trapped, do not know they are victims, said Ossorio. Even American girls, lured by pimps and then abused and beaten for not reaching a quota, do not consider themselves slaves, she added.

An indication of the veiled nature of the crime can be found in the number of people who seek assistance from the national trafficking hotline. The Polaris Project operates a nationwide, 24-hour hotline for victims of human trafficking and concerned citizens who want to report a tip.

In 2010, calls to the hotline from New York State—including victim calls and tips, but also general information inquiries, totaled 409.

“We really all need to take part in it,” said Ossorio. “It is going to take civic participation to open people's eyes to the fact that human trafficking is happening. I am optimistic because a lot of work had gotten under way. But there are still a lot of hearts and minds to change,” she said

How To Recognize Human trafficking

There are a few red flags that might indicate a case of human trafficking:

1.Restrictions on freedom of movement of the worker

2.Especially long work hours

3.Little or no pay

4.Harsh working conditions

5.Security measures in the work area

6.Worker exhibits fear, anxiety

7.Poor physical health

8.The worker has signs of physical or sexual abuse

9.The worker is not in control of his money or identification documents

10.The worker cannot speak for himself

11.The worker has numerous inconsistencies in his or her story

If you observe some of these signs please call the Polaris Project's National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-3737-888.(source: Polaris Project)