Human Trafficking and New Orleans

The human trafficking epidemic affects virtually every part of the world. It does not come as a surprise, therefore, that New Orleans is home to a large portion of traffickers and those enslaved. “New Orleans is a significant source, transit, and destination location for human trafficking” (The Louisiana HumanTrafficking Report). This is for a number of reasons. First, the city’s location, including its use as a major port city, creates easy access. Second, the high rates = of poverty and homelessness create a climate of vulnerability. As people are increasingly desperate for jobs and some form of income, it becomes easier to become exploited. Additionally, New Orleans has especially high rates of homelessness in youth, creating a climate of vulnerability not only for adults seeking employment, but also for the city’s population of minors. Amongst these factors, the high demand for sexual entertainment services adds to this climate, creating a demand for sex workers and a concentration of sex traffickers, as they are aware of the ‘business opportunities’ that New Orleans offers. 

These factors make obvious the near-certain prevalence of human trafficking in Louisiana and the New Orleans area. However, any persons interested in finding information will find early on into their research that there is very little information that has been gathered.  This is one of the many issues that appear in attempting to tackles the vastness of the issue of human trafficking—the lack of research and information that is available, both locally and on the problem as a whole. This is for many reasons, including the hidden nature of modern-day slavery. It is difficult to determine the prevalence of a problem that is almost completely camouflaged.

Nevertheless, steps are being taken in New Orleans itself in order to tackle the problem trafficking. Organizations and institutions are rising up in order to make a dent and begin changing how slavery is viewed and handled. These include homes for victims, where they will receive rehabilitation and assistance to become reintegrated into society as free men and women.  For example, at Eden House, “women receive wrap-around services such as counseling, education, and job training,” and addiction rehabilitation. Other programs include Covenant House, Odyssey House, NewOrleans Dream Center, and Baptist Friendship House.
Organizations, institutions, government entities, law enforcement agencies and New Orleans citizens are also teaming up to effectively put a dent in the trafficking business of New Orleans. With the New Orleans Human TraffickingWorking Group, “a coalition of state, civil society, and citizen organizers” has been created to assist in the prevention of human trafficking “through education, advocacy, and research.” In partnership with the Modern Slavery Research Project at Loyola University New Orleans, the Louisiana Human Trafficking Report has been compiled, the “first-ever report on human trafficking in the New Orleans metro area.” The steps that are being taken by these groups and others are beginning to cause a change that will potentially cause a shift in the momentum of human trafficking in the area, making it more difficult for exploiters to continue in their criminal actions and creating an atmosphere oriented to assisting victims.

Changing the Perspective

            There are many reasons that a family – a mother – would send her child away to work. Most times, it stems from love, a desire for a better life for the child. Traffickers promise poor families that their children will be provided an education, food and water, a safe environment. But unfortunately, that is not always the case, and conditions are worse than their parents could even imagine. Conditions are much worse than what pampered first world residents can imagine. The hardest part is the return, if the children even return to their families and integration back into society. It is particularly worse for girls who return because of the stigmas of the work they were probably forced to do.

            It takes strength to own what you have done, what you once were and put it out there for everyone to see, but that is exactly what Circus Kathmandu is doing. 

Circus Kathmandu is formed of 13 professional performers, and they are growing in fans and audiences across the world. The most significant part of this circus is the performers’ stories. They were all once trafficked as children into different circuses or they were living on the streets. These young adults are taking those talents and changing not only the perception of circuses in Nepal but the perception of trafficking survivors. They empower themselves and take back their lives, and simultaneously they empower other trafficking survivors, especially other children who are trafficked into circuses, that there are possibilities on the other side of the trafficking.

            According to Freedom Matters, it is estimated that 12,000 children and girls are trafficked from Nepal into India each years. Some go to brothels or into labor sites but many go to the Indian circuses. Nepali children are wanted in Indian circuses for their “lighter skin and exotic appearances.”  The children are worked tireless, beaten when they do not correctly learn an act, and many of the girls are sexually abused. Shailaja CM was quoted by Fox News saying that some “young girls are forced to carry out privateperformances to groups of men.”  These children go through so much, and it is the similar experiences of some of the performers of Circus Kathmandu that give them the strength to keep performing.

As they continue to train, perform, and improve in their arts, they are creating a dream for other kids. They are also changing the perspective of trafficking victims. They are taking back their agency in one of the best ways: through the arts. They inspire audiences around the world. It is our job to help make sure they continue because they are changing the world and the perspective one show at a time. The performing arts for everyone: to perform and to enjoy. But this is the best kind. The performers of Circus Kathmandu are amazing in every sense. They train hard because they have a dream. From an interview done by The National, one member said the following comment: “I will become famous one day,you just wait and see. Everyone will know Bijay,” says the young performer. “I will not give up.”

Youth Homelessness and Sex Trafficking

Photo from: http://communities.washingtontimes.com

Drug trade, human trafficking, weapon trade. This is the respective order of the most popular criminal enterprises. How can human trafficking be ranked second? It brings in over $32 billion a year, $9.5 billion coming from sex trafficking alone. And what better place to find girls and boys vulnerable and desperate enough to coax into sexual exploitation than those living on the streets.

Homeless youth end up on the streets for a variety of reasons. Some are discharged out of foster care with no place to go, others are released from juvenile correction facilities and have cannot find jobs and have no means of support. Some youth run away from home because of the emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse they receive at home. Some were kicked out for being pregnant or because their family did not agree with their sexual or gender identity.

Traffickers see homeless youth as easy prey. They normally had hard lives, often including some kind of trauma. Their parents beat them, kicked them out, they have a criminal record, etc. They are vulnerable; give a girl some food and place to stay and she will begin to trust. And that's when the traffickers turn on them. In other cases, the victims have no other choice, because they have no way to support themselves. The only thing they have to sell is their body. The homeless youth will often look for escort services or welcome a pimp in hopes of making a living.

One in four homeless people interviewed at the Covenant House were at some point victims of trafficking or had engaged in sex acts in order to have food or shelter. The appropriate term for this is survival sex. Homelessness leaves people feeling vulnerable enough that they are willing to do things that they would not normally do and open enough that they can be forced into acts they may not otherwise perform. Homelessness is more than a matter of not having food and shelter. It affects the person as a whole: mind, body, and soul.

Why She Stayed

When many people hear about victims of trafficking and domestic violence, their natural response is, “How could those people let themselves stay in that situation? If it were me I would do x, y, and z to get away!” Abuse is a much more complex issue than any person outside of the situation can possibly understand. A person who stops fighting her abuser is not any less of a victim.

There are countless reasons why someone might stay in an abusive situation. Some of the most common reasons are fear, reliance on the abuser for financial support, pregnancy, distrust of authority, and threats. In many trafficking cases, the victims have their passports or other forms of identification taken from them, and they are often toldthat if they try to escape they or their family will be killed or they will be deported. Many of the victims aren't chained up in a basement, yet they are still unable to escape. Fear is a powerful motivator. Fear is paralyzing.

F is an Albanian woman who was forced into prostitution after she refused to marry her neighbor’s cousin (who most likely had plans to prostitute her whether they married or not). One day she was approached by and forced into a car with violence. As F recalls how she was forced into prostitution she says, “For sure, I refused to work; but you would never believe what kind of people they are and what methods they use to keep you feeling as a prisoner, as a victim.” F later admits that she eventually stopped fighting the sex work after her traffickers threatened to kill her family and kidnap her three younger sisters.

 Contrary to popular belief about victims of domestic violence or human trafficking, F is not any less of a victim because she eventually stopped fighting her captors. Instead, F should be seen as a strong woman who did what she had to do to survive.  

Additional Sources: Survivors of Slavery: Modern-Day Slave Narratives by Laura T. Murphy

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Thai Prawn Aquaculture

Front Page of an EJFoundation report and film on the Thai Trafficking Isuue

       When it comes to the harvesting of shellfish an American may call to mind the fishing industries of such areas of the Gulf South,coastal New England, Alaska, and various other areas of America where such aquaculture has great economic impact. However, it is no mystery that supermarkets don’t often carry foods that are procured locally, but rather from greatly distant areas. For example, the world’s top four retailers all buy shrimp raised on a particular product from Thailand, the country with the third most valuable seafood exports in the world. And this seafood industry, what the whole GDP is essentially built on, is made on the backs of enslaved (mostly)migrant workers.

       These four retailers all make claims to abhor slave labour, and yet when pressed on such issues usually make claims that large supply chains make it hard to tell what is going on, let alone be accountable for it. And this is why there can still be a slavery problem here. The research is done; the retailers know about it. The only excuse to buy the fruit of slave labour is because to not do so would inflate the price of prawns because workers that are paid a living wage(or any wage at all) would cost more. The government, while it does not have a finite figure, estimates about 300,000 people work in its fishing industry, 90% of which are migrants vulnerable to being trafficked and sold.

     While it is the government’s responsibility to tackle this problem, it is a problem that’s creation is largely a result of commercial interests, and thus, if large scale retailers greatly limit dealings with such companies involved in trafficking, and push for change in the industry, change will start to become viable. In terms of what the average American can do, while changing one’s shopping list to not have prawns entirely, or only getting locally sourced prawns, to do so would be to actively not contribute to products that are a result of, and therefore support, slave labour.

Information used, in addition to work pictured above also from The Guardian, here and here.

The Other Side

Often times, human trafficking is seen as a one sided story.  We hear the man’s, child’s, woman’s story of being trafficked, but not the trafficker’s story. Which leaves a lot of questions unanswered. How can we get a full story about a world problem, if we only understand one perspective? Not to mention, are we ever going to have a full, complete, unbiased comprehension of modern day slavery? Depending on the stories that are told, it is very difficult to have a full view on this social issue. My goal is to describe two of the reasons that human traffickers do what they do.

Researching this, my stomach was in knots. I was curious and nervous about what I may find. Are these people as cruel as they seem? Do they really have as twisted morals as we believe? Will what I find affect my views and opinions on human trafficking?

When I found my first story, a story about a Thai human trafficker, Noi, I was engaged in hearing her reasons for trafficking these people. Her belief is that she is rescuing the people that are fleeing from their home country. Let me provide background: in Myanmar, an ethnic cleansing of Muslim Rohingyas is occurring. The people of that ethnic group are trying to escape to save themselves, their families, and their friends. They are trying to reach Malaysia, a country highly populated by Muslims that would accept them as their own. The problem is that most of the Rohingyas travel by boat, and in doing that, they have to pass through Thailand. Since they are trespassing illegally, no one is willing to help them. Through this process, it makes Noi believe that she is working a sort of charity, to help them escape “unjustified detainment, alleged sexual abuse, or death.”

In this story, a viewpoint that isn’t normally seen or thought about is presented. The fact that a trafficker feels like they are helping a person by trafficking them is a surprising thought. It is a perspective that is also probably less common than the next I am about to present, which is for business purposes.

In an interview with Inge Bell, a human trafficker, Grigorij.* Grigorji was a brothel owner and he describes what he does as a business. He states, “When there is a demand, a job gets done. […] Suddenly, more stores opened because there is this demand for girls, dancing girls, strippers, go-go girls, whatever we call them…” here it is obvious that he treats running a brothel as a means to make money. Owning it, making sure things are going smoothly, and filling a social need.

In Grigorji’s story we see that being a trafficker is a business venture, a way to make money. The reason why this perspective is so much more popular and prevalent is because of the usual saying that trafficking has a high profit, but low costs. In many countries, traffickers have built relationships with people in law enforcement, therefore the risks of obtaining consequences are low.

In just these two stories, we can see that trafficking from the trafficker’s standpoint can be either because they feel like they are doing something necessary to help out troubled people, or because they find it a way to make good, albeit dirty, money. Needless to say. They’re probably many more reasons that this practice occurs, but the documentation on these reasons are not prevalent. The only way we can fully understand the global problem of human trafficking is if we are able to get as many viewpoints as possible. From the trafficked, the traffickers, the buyers, the overseers, the law enforcement – all these positions have to be heard from to be able to make the appropriate decision to end this growing epidemic. 

*Survivors of Slavery: Modern-Day Slave Narratives, Dr. Laura T. Murphy

Picture: www.capitalnews.ca

Often times, human trafficking is seen as a one sided story.  We hear the man’s, child’s, woman’s story of being trafficked, but not the trafficker’s story. Which leaves a lot of questions unanswered. How can we get a full story about a world problem, if we only understand one perspective? Not to mention, are we ever going to have a full, complete, unbiased comprehension of modern day slavery? Depending on the stories that are told, it is very difficult to have a full view on this social issue. My goal is to describe two of the reasons that human traffickers do what they do.

Researching this, my stomach was in knots. I was curious and nervous about what I may find. Are these people as cruel as they seem? Do they really have as twisted morals as we believe? Will what I find affect my views and opinions on human trafficking?

When I found my first story, a story about a Thai human trafficker, Noi, I was engaged in hearing her reasons for trafficking these people. Her belief is that she is rescuing the people that are fleeing from their home country. Let me provide background: in Myanmar, an ethnic cleansing of Muslim Rohingyas is occurring. The people of that ethnic group are trying to escape to save themselves, their families, and their friends. They are trying to reach Malaysia, a country highly populated by Muslims that would accept them as their own. The problem is that most of the Rohingyas travel by boat, and in doing that, they have to pass through Thailand. Since they are trespassing illegally, no one is willing to help them. Through this process, it makes Noi believe that she is working a sort of charity, to help them escape “unjustified detainment, alleged sexual abuse, or death.”

In this story, a viewpoint that is not normally seen or thought about is presented. The fact that a trafficker feels like they are helping a person by trafficking them is a surprising thought. It is a perspective that is also probably less common than the next I am about to present, which is for business purposes.

In an interview with Inge Bell, a human trafficker, Grigorij. Grigorji was a brothel owner and he describes what he does as a business. He states, “When there is a demand, a job gets done. […] Suddenly, more stores opened because there is this demand for girls, dancing girls, strippers, go-go girls, whatever we call them…”* here it is obvious that he treats running a brothel as a means to make money. Owning it, making sure things are going smoothly, and filling a social need.

In Grigorji’s story we see that being a trafficker is a business venture, a way to make money. The reason why this perspective is so much more popular and pravalent is because of the usual saying that trafficking has a high profit, but low costs. In many countries, traffickers have built relationships with people in law enforcement, therefore the risks of obtaining consequences are low.

In just these two stories, we can see that trafficking from the trafficker’s standpoint can be either because they feel like they are doing something necessary to help out troubled people, or because they find it a way to make good, albeit dirty, money. Needless to say. They’re probably many more reasons that this practice occurs, but the documentation on these reasons are not prevalent. The only way we can fully understand the global problem of human trafficking is if we are able to get as many viewpoints as possible. From the trafficked, the traffickers, the buyers, the overseers, the law enforcement – all these positions have to be heard from to be able to make the appropriate decision to end this growing epidemic. 

*Survivors of Slavery: Modern-Day Slave Narratives, Dr. Laura T. Murphy

UPC picture: sunandshield.wordpress.com