June 1, 2011 • 25 mins
Experts claim that there are more slaves today than at any other point in history. Human trafficking has two major components: sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Join Molly and Cristen as they discuss how victims are sucked into this crime.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From house top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. This might seem
(00:20):
like an odd way to start an episode on human trafficking,
but bear with me, listeners. Molly, last week I felt
the need to send you a picture. Well, I actually
it was a video of a cat hugging a teddy bear,
which was like, yeah, it was great. It was one
of the cutest things I've ever seen. I love cats,
(00:42):
you know that. Yes, I love cats doing adorable things. Yeah,
and this was a cat holding a teddy bear. And
you know, I always like to look at cats doing
cute things when I'm setting down. I think most people,
you know, it's an instant pick me up. Cute animals
and cute things. Yeah. And and I did this specifically
because Molly had out a request for cute animal photos
(01:03):
and videos because she had been in the trenches researching
the article how human trafficking works. Pretty intense topic to
take on. It is. It was not the happiest two
weeks of my life. That I spent researching this because
the stories that you read, as you might imagine, are
so sad um. But it's an important issue specifically for
(01:25):
our podcast because a lot of people um associate human
trafficking with women and children. They can be targets for
for this stuff and actually blowing my mind. And now
before we came into record this Christian and we got
an email request for this one. So it's an important
issue for us to do. I can't promise it's going
to be our happiest podcast, but if in the middle
(01:47):
of listening to this podcast you feel the need to
google kitten holding a Teddy Bear, then you will understand.
You know, service Kristen provided for me. But if you
think that oh h means happing this is this is
gonna be downer, I'm not gonna listen to it. Well
you need to listen to it because of this. People
today there are more slaves than there were ever before,
(02:08):
at any time in human history. I mean a right,
there are a lot of slaves in human history in
every country, but they think that right now there's more
than ever. And I think that we can all remember
like an Arctic we've read about this happening in Cambodia
or Thailand or places like that. But when I was
(02:29):
running this article, I really chose to focus in on
the US because it's this huge problem in developed countries
as well as developing ones, and so um, basically, no
country is immune to human trafficking. Pretty much every country
either has slaves entering or they have slaves leaving from
their shoes, so uh, no one's really exempt, including the US.
(02:50):
In fact, this past year, when the U. S Department
of State released their Trafficking in Person's Report, they ranked
the US for the first time because they had sort
of been like the keeper of the report and they
and included themselves. But finally they're acknowledging, hey, this is
a problem in the US as well, and we've got
to solve it. But I just might imagine it's not
gonna be easy to solve, and maybe that's what's the
(03:10):
most depressing thing of all. But we're going to kind
of talk about what we know so far about this issue, uh,
and where we have to go in terms of eradicating
it from the earth right. And one of the main
reasons why it's such a tough problem to get at
is because it's it's hard to even identify someone who
is has been trafficked, who is a victim of human trafficking,
(03:31):
because if it's labor trafficking, those migrant workers out in
the field, hey, they might have been coerced forcibly into
this job. They could have been trafficked. You know, they're
out among us and we don't know. You know, Yeah,
let's talk a little bit about what labor trafficking is,
what sex trafficking is, and how it all relates to
human trafficking. Those are sort of the two main uh
(03:53):
forms of trafficking is labor and sex trafficking. And sex
trafficking gets all the headlines because what is more scandalous
or salacious and what sells more papers than uh, you know,
the story of a poor girl who was told hey,
I can make you a model, I can make you famous,
or if you know, she lived in a very poor country.
She's like, someone tells her, let's go to the US.
(04:14):
We'll get you a job in a restaurant and it'll
be great. And then they get to, you know, the
place they've been promised to go, and they're like, actually,
you're gonna be a prostitute. All your money will go
to me. I'm going to beat you and control you.
And you know, the stories are horrifying. It's just you know,
so much rape and so much you know, for sex.
And they threaten these girls that they're going to send
(04:35):
the pictures back to their family. And the poor families
think they're just off living a great life being a
waitress somewhere. Um, but they think that that is not
as common as labor trafficking. So, as Kristen said, you're
passing by fields. Restaurant and service industries attract a lot
of labor trafficking victims. Also sweatshops, construction, minds, um and
(04:58):
even just private home A lot of people are told
they're going to go work as a housekeeper for a family,
and they do. It's just you know, they don't earn
any money, they won't be paid, they're never allowed to
leave the house, and they have to do way more
than any housekeeper ever does. So if they say any
kind of forced labor, be it sex or actual labor,
(05:18):
and uh, and that's what we're dealing with when we
talk about human trafficking. So how do these traffickers, the
ones who are doing all these terrible things to UM
do victims how do they do it? Three main ways?
They use force, fraud, and coercion. With force, someone might
be kidnapped, UM, taken against their will. And then the
(05:42):
fraud aspect comes in by essentially holding the person captive
to debt bondage, especially if you bring someone over to
the United States, say from from another country. They might
force them to have to repay their traveling costs, or
they give them money upfront to lure them into this
deal that of course is going to lead them into
(06:02):
something terrible. Uh, they have to repay this. And then
with coercion, either through threats of physical violence or like
you mentioned, taking photos, compromising photos of girls who have
been forced in the prostitution and saying we will send
these to your family and your family will be shamed
because of you, UM. Using all of these not just
physical coercion, but also you know, put drawing on cultural
(06:25):
issues as well. Yeah, and you know a lot of times, UM,
like I said, a person could have said, okay, I
want to go with you to be a model, and
then they end up as a prostitute. But they think
that they have somehow can sent it to this kind
of life, and that's also key to fraud because a
lot of these people UM can get blamed sometimes for
the situation they get in UM. Or Let's say that
(06:48):
there's a poor family in a developing country and someone
comes in and says, I can take your son and
put them in a really great school and you can
with a really rich family and help a great life,
and the family will consend to that, not knowing that
the kid UM is going to end up in you know,
a labor labor camp, sweat sweatshops. So that's also key
to fraud is if you consent originally you uh if
(07:12):
if the if the deal changes, then it's fraud again
because a lot of people confuse trafficking with migrants smuggling,
And the one of the key differences there is people
who are smuggled agree to be smuggled, right, It's like, yeah,
take me to America. I want to work there, and
the person hides them and gets them across the border.
Totally different from trafficking because even if these people are
(07:32):
like yeah, I'll go with you, they don't know what
they're going to. And we also should clarify that human
trafficking does not have to involve travel. I mean we
often think of, you know, crossing borders illegally and things
like that. But Nicholas Kristoff from the New York Times,
who's done a lot of coverage on human trafficking uh
notes that in the US, American runaways are the number
(07:57):
one target of trafficking in the United States. So there's
staying in the US, but they're still victims of human trafficking.
And I think that that gets to the problem with
why we can't solve it is people don't really know
what to look for. And if you do, if you're
driving down the road and you see a teenager and
you just assume their runaway, you don't think, well, you know,
further deep down into what you know, how they got
(08:19):
to where they are. We think that a lot of
people who are on the streets or who are at
work in this country chose to be there because we
all have the option of choosing, you know, where to
go to work and where to live and all that stuff.
But um, you know, there was one quote I came
across when I was researching this is that a woman
said she'd never met a person who was a prostitute
who willingly chose to do so, and that's a whole
(08:41):
that's an argument for a whole other time. But um,
I think in this country especially, we think that people
on the streets chose to be there. And Chris Stopt
did a really good job of highlighting the fact that
no trafficking exists within this country of US girls to
US men, um, you know, holding them a sense as
sex slaves. And it's only been in the past ten
(09:03):
years that the government has really acknowledged this problem, especially
within within the United States and also as a as
a global issue as well, because it was until two
thousand that the US passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,
and that was also the same year that the U
N past the Palermo Protocols, which essentially calls on you
and member countries to fight human trafficking. But again, it's
(09:27):
such a tough problem to tackle because it's so hard
to even identify who who they are, right And you've
got to always remember this force broad incoercion because a
lot of people are saying, why don't these people just
run away? And there are times when police will bust
up a brothel or um, you know, bust up an
illegal immigration situation and say, you know, what's going on here.
(09:50):
And these people, because they're so scared for their lives
or their families lives, are not good about speaking up
about you know, things that they things have been done
against them that they don't know are legal UM. And
police aren't trustworthy in every country, so if they have
left a country where police bribes are common, they may
not think that the police for people that can trust.
So there's a lot of work going on right now
(10:11):
about how police officers in this country can better approach
a situation like a brothel bust or a sweatshop bust
and ask the right questions to help the victims because
right now, you know, they're not being found and traffickers
aren't being prosecuted, and yet our country has spent tons
(10:32):
of money trying to find these people. So you know
why is why is the resources allocated not matching prosecutions
and help for victims? Right And a lot of times
it's going to be the victims people who have been
forced into prostitution or whatever other type of trafficking UM
they got involved with. They're going to be the ones
(10:52):
who are arrested in charge, and not the people who
are actually doing the bad stuff. Trafficking is a very
low risk chiro war crime. Well, and it reminds me
of this is an issue that's come up recently in
here in Georgia, UM, where the government is trying to
tighten up on sex trafficking just within the state. And yeah,
I mean this is like on the state level problem.
(11:14):
But um, it's unfortunate that the bill they passed still
is going to penalize the girls, um, rather than just
the pimps. Yeah, and it's not saying that I'm not
arguing that the prostitution should should not should go unpunished,
but it also creates a chilling effect for girls who
(11:35):
might want to get out of it, but they're risking
legal trouble for themselves too. It's like there, it's a
catch twenty two and the traffickers know that, and so
the traffickers will constantly threaten them with you know, if
you tell anyone, I'm not the one who gets in trouble.
It's really hard to build a traffic in case right now,
just because so if you have been built in the past.
But prostitution is a crime being in the country illegally
that can get you in trouble, and so you know,
(11:56):
there's there's no incentive really for these people. I mean, yeah,
there's huge ins that I'm because their life sucks. But
I mean, like the incentive to come forward is not
much better than the status quo because you know, you've
been conditioned to live this way. I mean, think about
the psychological trauma that they have had to live with. Um,
you know, it's it's not a matter of just walking
(12:16):
out the door one day and not coming back. And
just to give you an idea to put some numbers
around this of how big of a problem this is
and what how difficult it's been to approach it. From
a legal standpoint, they're an estimated twelve point three million
victims of human trafficking around the world. And that's versus
just over four thousand successful prosecutions. I don't know what
(12:41):
the time period for that is, but um, I think
four thousand was one year and twelve point three is total.
And you know it just that's that's an awful fraction. Yeah,
and if we narrow if we narrow that down just
to to New York to give you a better idea,
from two thousand seven to two thousand line, after they
passed this this new human trafficking law. Uh, they'd only
(13:04):
made in two years eighteen arrests related to human trafficking.
That's not including that's just an arrest, that isn't they
could have gotten away without a without prosecution. Yeah, and
you know that's as soon as you start reading about
human trafficking, this issue of numbers comes up because activists
told Congress that it was fifty slaves coming into the
(13:24):
US every year. And obviously you read you only have
to read like two or three stories of what trafficking
involves via sex, trafficking, labor, traffic or whatever to get
really mad and to want to end. So obviously Congress
took action. There were under a lot of pressure, especially
from um Christian groups who wanted to stop this. And
that's how we got the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in
(13:44):
two thousand and you know, Bush, as we said, allocated
a ton of money to find these slaves. And when
they can't find them, people are like, well, how many
people are there? I mean, are we not looking in
the right places? Do we even need to be looking
at all? Maybe this problem is over belogne Um and
it's it's kind of I mean, you can't you can't
count modern slaves if you find them and just try
(14:06):
and take a census of them and then leave them alone.
Then uh, you know that's sort of really silly. So um,
you know, it's impossible to know how big the problem is,
and so people don't know sort of the extent to
which we're failing at solving it or the extent to
which we're not looking in the right place. Well, it
seems like to the that government estimate has dropped pretty
(14:27):
significantly down to around fifteen thousand. But like you said,
I mean, the methodology for actually identifying these people is
completely flawed. And there's actually an organization called the Vera
Institute of Justice that is focusing solely on how to
better count human trafficking victims because it's like it's part
(14:49):
of solving the problems you have to identify and they
don't know how big the problem is. But everyone every
story is very similar in terms of these people who
were you know, sucked in with a promise of something
and then turned into a slave of some sort, be
a sex slave or a labor slave. So you know,
that's sort of the easy part is finding the tales
of that, and the hard part is going to be
(15:09):
obviously stopping it. And so right now, what the State
Department with the U N are using to try and
stop this thing is the three P approach tree PS prevention, prosecution,
and protection, and prevention is maybe the hardest one to
solve because in order to prevent there's one one um
(15:32):
theory that in order to prevent human trafficking from happening,
you would need to eradicate poverty. Yeah, because I mean
a lot of people are are you know, they are
seeking a better life. I mean, we are the famed
holders of the American dream, where through hard work you
can achieve anything. And so that's what these people. These
people aren't coming for free ride. They're coming to work.
You know, they're coming to be the waitress with the
(15:53):
housekeeper whatever. It just turns out to be such a nightmare.
So you know, you'd have to eliminate the situation and
circumstances that would make someone think I should leave this
podunk little village and go to America and make someone
motivate someone to actually do this to people to run
these brothels because they are making a ton of cash. Yes,
I mean supply and demand. So that's another theory is
(16:14):
that some people think we should go, Um, we should
either legalize prostitution or make it illegal. No one can
really decide what's going to cut down on the demand.
But right now there is a demand to have sex
with young girls. So how do we solve that, man,
boys and boys? I mean, it's not an easy question
to answer. So prevention is never going to be a
simple thing. Yeah, let's eradicate poverty and eliminate the need
(16:34):
for an underground sex slave trade. And so you let
me know how to do that. Well, and here's another
another interesting thing too. Um, when we think about sex
trafficking especially, we probably imagine these pimps being a bunch
of no good, rotten men. But come to find out,
there are actually more female pimps in a third of
(16:57):
the countries that we're we're human trafficking is the most prevalent,
So women are getting in on this game too. Yeah. Well,
I mean, you know, I think it was. One country
is Bulgaria, where, especially in Eastern Europe, sex trafficking is
really a huge problem right now, and the annual salary
there is but a prostitute in that country can make dollars.
But you know, it's so funny. We've talked before about
(17:17):
how women are viewed in developing world and how they're
their opinions aren't valued as much. And you know a
lot of people who are exploited for this are people
who don't have any value in society until you turn
them into a worker for you. So it's very sad
to see how uh devaluing of life, particularly if you
are a woman or a child, can make your life
(17:38):
a living nightmare. So the third p that we haven't
touched on is this aspect of protection. Obviously, you want
to UM protect people's basic human rights. You want to
protect the rights of the victims. You don't want to
drive this even more underground um by like like we said,
setting up so many legal obstacles to them actually getting
out breaking this cycle and and getting out of trafficking.
(18:01):
Because what often happens in the attempt to protect the
three d s pop up, which our detention, deportation, and disempowerment,
which does nothing to solve the problem. Yeah, if you
view the victim of human trafficking as a criminal, then
you know they tend to be deported, they tend to
be UM, they serve jail time, and UH often when
(18:22):
they're deported, they end up right back with the same traffickers,
and the trifers will just send them right back and
it's a vicious cycle. So um, it's really about stopping.
And you know, I think that we've all been guilty
of passing, you know, people on the street and thinking, oh,
they have no one to blame with themselves, and understanding
that worldwide there are a lot of people that we
look at like that, that we look at is lower
(18:43):
than us or deserving of an awful thing, and realizing
that they may not be in control of their own situation.
And as just everyday folks, you know, we're not we're
not working for the government cracking down on human trafficking.
You and I are not yet co presidents of the
United States of America, Molly. But there are things that
(19:04):
we can do, just um in in the every day
to help with one of those p's help with a
with a prevention and the protection I'd say to some
to some extent um. And this comes from a two
thousand eight book by Benjamin Skinner called a crime So monstrous,
And since we keep relying on since everything's coming in threes,
(19:27):
three p s, three d S and here how about
well these skinners three steps, Yes, skinners, three steps, thank you, Molly.
So he says that people should educate themselves about trafficking.
So past yourself on the back listener, because that's what
you're doing, right and if you made it all the
way there, so helps only two more steps to go.
Second one, put pressure on elected officials and candidates about
(19:50):
what steps they should take to solve the problem. And clearly,
since this issue is going on, for instance, in our backyard,
Molly with a capital building a mirror, are well, that'd
be a long stone stir maybe baseball baseball bat hit
away though Braves, Um, you know there are things that
you can do because this is happening everywhere. This is
(20:11):
not just like on a national, federal level problem. And
then also support advoca advocacy groups like Free to Slaves
and Anti Slavery International that are working there on the
front lines, helping the victims, helping people regain their lives,
helping prevent, helping protect and I think just changing your
world view and not looking at this as someone's faults, right, uh,
(20:35):
to look at people and wonder are these people, as
one one, are glide redards, people walking around in invisible chains. Yeah,
and and also remember that poverty piece, um, because a
lot of people are just you know, they're motivated by
the same thing we're all motivated by, and that's to
put a roof of our heads and food in our mouths,
and or that you need money. Well, on that note,
(20:56):
should we open it up to our listeners and perhaps
read a listener mail lootly and we will read something
that has come into our email address, mom stuff and
also like works dot com. All right, I have one
here from Mark and it's on the soap Opera podcast.
He writes. I thought I would let you know about
the soap opera that I watched and have watched since
(21:16):
I was a young lad back in the seventies. It's
called Coronation Street and has been running into England since
nineteen sixty. It just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary and to
commemerate that, the show is aired live. It is not
like most of the American soaps that feature over the
top characters and storylines, but has characters who reflect working
class characters in the North of England. It also features
strong female characters and these have been a mainstay from
(21:38):
the inception of the show. It is dealt with many
social aspects of life from the beginning and portrays them
in a realistic and compassionate manner. I am so passionate
about the show that myself and a few of my
friends formed an organization to host events for fans of
this show. We host four events each year. Our biggest
event is in April, where we bring one of the
actors or actresses from the show over to Canada for
(21:58):
our event. We've been bringing the stars to Canada for
the last nine years and the big event is usually
attended by over seven hundred fans. We just hosted an
actress at Miss Vicky Bens, who plays a character named Molly,
and last year our national TV broadcaster CBC aired a
documentary on the fans of Coron Nation Street which featured
our group. Very cool. Well, I've gotten an email here
(22:20):
from Chris in Canada who says that while growing up
in the Canadian Prairies, she had a female role model
that we had mentioned before and given super and given
the super Heroine podcast, I think she deserves to mention
villainouses are generally depraved, dressed in black, the whole nine
yards quite evil, but don't even have their own Wikipedia page.
(22:43):
Is that possible? They're usually not terribly sophisticated, but enjoy
wielding power over others, especially over other women. They aren't
generally valued, And that's why I want to bring up
Carmen San Diego. Where in the world is shame? Where
in the world is that kindle? Love that game and
this kid. You've mentioned her before, but I don't think
she's done justice. She's a strong, independent, wealthy, intelligent, athletic,
(23:05):
resourceful and wise character and also well dressed. That was
my aside. While she's quite dastedly, she isn't violent, and
she never looks to put whoever is chasing her in
real danger, and if they are in danger, she will
help them out of it. She plays the game for
personal enjoyment and knows that she has all the cards.
She is also not dressed skimpily, but not unattractively. Like
(23:26):
every part of her character, she strikes a balance that
makes her mysterious. She cannot be in any way portrayed
as using her sexuality to her advantage, but she does
not try to adopt a male identity or be anything
other than what she is. I hope you'll hear podcast
on Villainous Is sometimes and give a good mention to
Karenman san Diego because she inspired my love of history
(23:47):
and geography which has irrevocably changed my life. And also
note to another podcast on Halloween costumes. Carmen san Diego
is a great Halleen costumes that you know any one
can do, but you have to give me credit for it.
So if you want to email us our addresses mom
Stuff at how Stuff Works dot com. As always, you
(24:08):
can find us on Facebook, on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
and on our blog Guess what It's called. You're right,
it's stuff Mom never told you, and you can also
go there to find the fantastic article companion piece to
this episode. Article is titled how Human Trafficking Works and
(24:29):
it's written by ms Molly ed been sitting right here
across from me. It is chuck full of information, so
head over there. How Stuff Works dot Com is your destination.
Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The
(24:51):
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two thousand twelve Camrey. It's ready, Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom never told you?
From house top works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly. This might seem
(00:20):
like an odd way to start an episode on human trafficking,
but bear with me, listeners. Molly, last week I felt
the need to send you a picture. Well, I actually
it was a video of a cat hugging a teddy bear,
which was like, yeah, it was great. It was one
of the cutest things I've ever seen. I love cats,
(00:42):
you know that. Yes, I love cats doing adorable things. Yeah,
and this was a cat holding a teddy bear. And
you know, I always like to look at cats doing
cute things when I'm setting down. I think most people,
you know, it's an instant pick me up. Cute animals
and cute things. Yeah. And and I did this specifically
because Molly had out a request for cute animal photos
(01:03):
and videos because she had been in the trenches researching
the article how human trafficking works. Pretty intense topic to
take on. It is. It was not the happiest two
weeks of my life. That I spent researching this because
the stories that you read, as you might imagine, are
so sad um. But it's an important issue specifically for
(01:25):
our podcast because a lot of people um associate human
trafficking with women and children. They can be targets for
for this stuff and actually blowing my mind. And now
before we came into record this Christian and we got
an email request for this one. So it's an important
issue for us to do. I can't promise it's going
to be our happiest podcast, but if in the middle
(01:47):
of listening to this podcast you feel the need to
google kitten holding a Teddy Bear, then you will understand.
You know, service Kristen provided for me. But if you
think that oh h means happing this is this is
gonna be downer, I'm not gonna listen to it. Well
you need to listen to it because of this. People
today there are more slaves than there were ever before,
(02:08):
at any time in human history. I mean a right,
there are a lot of slaves in human history in
every country, but they think that right now there's more
than ever. And I think that we can all remember
like an Arctic we've read about this happening in Cambodia
or Thailand or places like that. But when I was
(02:29):
running this article, I really chose to focus in on
the US because it's this huge problem in developed countries
as well as developing ones, and so um, basically, no
country is immune to human trafficking. Pretty much every country
either has slaves entering or they have slaves leaving from
their shoes, so uh, no one's really exempt, including the US.
(02:50):
In fact, this past year, when the U. S Department
of State released their Trafficking in Person's Report, they ranked
the US for the first time because they had sort
of been like the keeper of the report and they
and included themselves. But finally they're acknowledging, hey, this is
a problem in the US as well, and we've got
to solve it. But I just might imagine it's not
gonna be easy to solve, and maybe that's what's the
(03:10):
most depressing thing of all. But we're going to kind
of talk about what we know so far about this issue, uh,
and where we have to go in terms of eradicating
it from the earth right. And one of the main
reasons why it's such a tough problem to get at
is because it's it's hard to even identify someone who
is has been trafficked, who is a victim of human trafficking,
(03:31):
because if it's labor trafficking, those migrant workers out in
the field, hey, they might have been coerced forcibly into
this job. They could have been trafficked. You know, they're
out among us and we don't know. You know, Yeah,
let's talk a little bit about what labor trafficking is,
what sex trafficking is, and how it all relates to
human trafficking. Those are sort of the two main uh
(03:53):
forms of trafficking is labor and sex trafficking. And sex
trafficking gets all the headlines because what is more scandalous
or salacious and what sells more papers than uh, you know,
the story of a poor girl who was told hey,
I can make you a model, I can make you famous,
or if you know, she lived in a very poor country.
She's like, someone tells her, let's go to the US.
(04:14):
We'll get you a job in a restaurant and it'll
be great. And then they get to, you know, the
place they've been promised to go, and they're like, actually,
you're gonna be a prostitute. All your money will go
to me. I'm going to beat you and control you.
And you know, the stories are horrifying. It's just you know,
so much rape and so much you know, for sex.
And they threaten these girls that they're going to send
(04:35):
the pictures back to their family. And the poor families
think they're just off living a great life being a
waitress somewhere. Um, but they think that that is not
as common as labor trafficking. So, as Kristen said, you're
passing by fields. Restaurant and service industries attract a lot
of labor trafficking victims. Also sweatshops, construction, minds, um and
(04:58):
even just private home A lot of people are told
they're going to go work as a housekeeper for a family,
and they do. It's just you know, they don't earn
any money, they won't be paid, they're never allowed to
leave the house, and they have to do way more
than any housekeeper ever does. So if they say any
kind of forced labor, be it sex or actual labor,
(05:18):
and uh, and that's what we're dealing with when we
talk about human trafficking. So how do these traffickers, the
ones who are doing all these terrible things to UM
do victims how do they do it? Three main ways?
They use force, fraud, and coercion. With force, someone might
be kidnapped, UM, taken against their will. And then the
(05:42):
fraud aspect comes in by essentially holding the person captive
to debt bondage, especially if you bring someone over to
the United States, say from from another country. They might
force them to have to repay their traveling costs, or
they give them money upfront to lure them into this
deal that of course is going to lead them into
(06:02):
something terrible. Uh, they have to repay this. And then
with coercion, either through threats of physical violence or like
you mentioned, taking photos, compromising photos of girls who have
been forced in the prostitution and saying we will send
these to your family and your family will be shamed
because of you, UM. Using all of these not just
physical coercion, but also you know, put drawing on cultural
(06:25):
issues as well. Yeah, and you know a lot of times, UM,
like I said, a person could have said, okay, I
want to go with you to be a model, and
then they end up as a prostitute. But they think
that they have somehow can sent it to this kind
of life, and that's also key to fraud because a
lot of these people UM can get blamed sometimes for
the situation they get in UM. Or Let's say that
(06:48):
there's a poor family in a developing country and someone
comes in and says, I can take your son and
put them in a really great school and you can
with a really rich family and help a great life,
and the family will consend to that, not knowing that
the kid UM is going to end up in you know,
a labor labor camp, sweat sweatshops. So that's also key
to fraud is if you consent originally you uh if
(07:12):
if the if the deal changes, then it's fraud again
because a lot of people confuse trafficking with migrants smuggling,
And the one of the key differences there is people
who are smuggled agree to be smuggled, right, It's like, yeah,
take me to America. I want to work there, and
the person hides them and gets them across the border.
Totally different from trafficking because even if these people are
(07:32):
like yeah, I'll go with you, they don't know what
they're going to. And we also should clarify that human
trafficking does not have to involve travel. I mean we
often think of, you know, crossing borders illegally and things
like that. But Nicholas Kristoff from the New York Times,
who's done a lot of coverage on human trafficking uh
notes that in the US, American runaways are the number
(07:57):
one target of trafficking in the United States. So there's
staying in the US, but they're still victims of human trafficking.
And I think that that gets to the problem with
why we can't solve it is people don't really know
what to look for. And if you do, if you're
driving down the road and you see a teenager and
you just assume their runaway, you don't think, well, you know,
further deep down into what you know, how they got
(08:19):
to where they are. We think that a lot of
people who are on the streets or who are at
work in this country chose to be there because we
all have the option of choosing, you know, where to
go to work and where to live and all that stuff.
But um, you know, there was one quote I came
across when I was researching this is that a woman
said she'd never met a person who was a prostitute
who willingly chose to do so, and that's a whole
(08:41):
that's an argument for a whole other time. But um,
I think in this country especially, we think that people
on the streets chose to be there. And Chris Stopt
did a really good job of highlighting the fact that
no trafficking exists within this country of US girls to
US men, um, you know, holding them a sense as
sex slaves. And it's only been in the past ten
(09:03):
years that the government has really acknowledged this problem, especially
within within the United States and also as a as
a global issue as well, because it was until two
thousand that the US passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act,
and that was also the same year that the U
N past the Palermo Protocols, which essentially calls on you
and member countries to fight human trafficking. But again, it's
(09:27):
such a tough problem to tackle because it's so hard
to even identify who who they are, right And you've
got to always remember this force broad incoercion because a
lot of people are saying, why don't these people just
run away? And there are times when police will bust
up a brothel or um, you know, bust up an
illegal immigration situation and say, you know, what's going on here.
(09:50):
And these people, because they're so scared for their lives
or their families lives, are not good about speaking up
about you know, things that they things have been done
against them that they don't know are legal UM. And
police aren't trustworthy in every country, so if they have
left a country where police bribes are common, they may
not think that the police for people that can trust.
So there's a lot of work going on right now
(10:11):
about how police officers in this country can better approach
a situation like a brothel bust or a sweatshop bust
and ask the right questions to help the victims because
right now, you know, they're not being found and traffickers
aren't being prosecuted, and yet our country has spent tons
(10:32):
of money trying to find these people. So you know
why is why is the resources allocated not matching prosecutions
and help for victims? Right And a lot of times
it's going to be the victims people who have been
forced into prostitution or whatever other type of trafficking UM
they got involved with. They're going to be the ones
(10:52):
who are arrested in charge, and not the people who
are actually doing the bad stuff. Trafficking is a very
low risk chiro war crime. Well, and it reminds me
of this is an issue that's come up recently in
here in Georgia, UM, where the government is trying to
tighten up on sex trafficking just within the state. And yeah,
I mean this is like on the state level problem.
(11:14):
But um, it's unfortunate that the bill they passed still
is going to penalize the girls, um, rather than just
the pimps. Yeah, and it's not saying that I'm not
arguing that the prostitution should should not should go unpunished,
but it also creates a chilling effect for girls who
(11:35):
might want to get out of it, but they're risking
legal trouble for themselves too. It's like there, it's a
catch twenty two and the traffickers know that, and so
the traffickers will constantly threaten them with you know, if
you tell anyone, I'm not the one who gets in trouble.
It's really hard to build a traffic in case right now,
just because so if you have been built in the past.
But prostitution is a crime being in the country illegally
that can get you in trouble, and so you know,
(11:56):
there's there's no incentive really for these people. I mean, yeah,
there's huge ins that I'm because their life sucks. But
I mean, like the incentive to come forward is not
much better than the status quo because you know, you've
been conditioned to live this way. I mean, think about
the psychological trauma that they have had to live with. Um,
you know, it's it's not a matter of just walking
(12:16):
out the door one day and not coming back. And
just to give you an idea to put some numbers
around this of how big of a problem this is
and what how difficult it's been to approach it. From
a legal standpoint, they're an estimated twelve point three million
victims of human trafficking around the world. And that's versus
just over four thousand successful prosecutions. I don't know what
(12:41):
the time period for that is, but um, I think
four thousand was one year and twelve point three is total.
And you know it just that's that's an awful fraction. Yeah,
and if we narrow if we narrow that down just
to to New York to give you a better idea,
from two thousand seven to two thousand line, after they
passed this this new human trafficking law. Uh, they'd only
(13:04):
made in two years eighteen arrests related to human trafficking.
That's not including that's just an arrest, that isn't they
could have gotten away without a without prosecution. Yeah, and
you know that's as soon as you start reading about
human trafficking, this issue of numbers comes up because activists
told Congress that it was fifty slaves coming into the
(13:24):
US every year. And obviously you read you only have
to read like two or three stories of what trafficking
involves via sex, trafficking, labor, traffic or whatever to get
really mad and to want to end. So obviously Congress
took action. There were under a lot of pressure, especially
from um Christian groups who wanted to stop this. And
that's how we got the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in
(13:44):
two thousand and you know, Bush, as we said, allocated
a ton of money to find these slaves. And when
they can't find them, people are like, well, how many
people are there? I mean, are we not looking in
the right places? Do we even need to be looking
at all? Maybe this problem is over belogne Um and
it's it's kind of I mean, you can't you can't
count modern slaves if you find them and just try
(14:06):
and take a census of them and then leave them alone.
Then uh, you know that's sort of really silly. So um,
you know, it's impossible to know how big the problem is,
and so people don't know sort of the extent to
which we're failing at solving it or the extent to
which we're not looking in the right place. Well, it
seems like to the that government estimate has dropped pretty
(14:27):
significantly down to around fifteen thousand. But like you said,
I mean, the methodology for actually identifying these people is
completely flawed. And there's actually an organization called the Vera
Institute of Justice that is focusing solely on how to
better count human trafficking victims because it's like it's part
(14:49):
of solving the problems you have to identify and they
don't know how big the problem is. But everyone every
story is very similar in terms of these people who
were you know, sucked in with a promise of something
and then turned into a slave of some sort, be
a sex slave or a labor slave. So you know,
that's sort of the easy part is finding the tales
of that, and the hard part is going to be
(15:09):
obviously stopping it. And so right now, what the State
Department with the U N are using to try and
stop this thing is the three P approach tree PS prevention, prosecution,
and protection, and prevention is maybe the hardest one to
solve because in order to prevent there's one one um
(15:32):
theory that in order to prevent human trafficking from happening,
you would need to eradicate poverty. Yeah, because I mean
a lot of people are are you know, they are
seeking a better life. I mean, we are the famed
holders of the American dream, where through hard work you
can achieve anything. And so that's what these people. These
people aren't coming for free ride. They're coming to work.
You know, they're coming to be the waitress with the
(15:53):
housekeeper whatever. It just turns out to be such a nightmare.
So you know, you'd have to eliminate the situation and
circumstances that would make someone think I should leave this
podunk little village and go to America and make someone
motivate someone to actually do this to people to run
these brothels because they are making a ton of cash. Yes,
I mean supply and demand. So that's another theory is
(16:14):
that some people think we should go, Um, we should
either legalize prostitution or make it illegal. No one can
really decide what's going to cut down on the demand.
But right now there is a demand to have sex
with young girls. So how do we solve that, man,
boys and boys? I mean, it's not an easy question
to answer. So prevention is never going to be a
simple thing. Yeah, let's eradicate poverty and eliminate the need
(16:34):
for an underground sex slave trade. And so you let
me know how to do that. Well, and here's another
another interesting thing too. Um, when we think about sex
trafficking especially, we probably imagine these pimps being a bunch
of no good, rotten men. But come to find out,
there are actually more female pimps in a third of
(16:57):
the countries that we're we're human trafficking is the most prevalent,
So women are getting in on this game too. Yeah. Well,
I mean, you know, I think it was. One country
is Bulgaria, where, especially in Eastern Europe, sex trafficking is
really a huge problem right now, and the annual salary
there is but a prostitute in that country can make dollars.
But you know, it's so funny. We've talked before about
(17:17):
how women are viewed in developing world and how they're
their opinions aren't valued as much. And you know a
lot of people who are exploited for this are people
who don't have any value in society until you turn
them into a worker for you. So it's very sad
to see how uh devaluing of life, particularly if you
are a woman or a child, can make your life
(17:38):
a living nightmare. So the third p that we haven't
touched on is this aspect of protection. Obviously, you want
to UM protect people's basic human rights. You want to
protect the rights of the victims. You don't want to
drive this even more underground um by like like we said,
setting up so many legal obstacles to them actually getting
out breaking this cycle and and getting out of trafficking.
(18:01):
Because what often happens in the attempt to protect the
three d s pop up, which our detention, deportation, and disempowerment,
which does nothing to solve the problem. Yeah, if you
view the victim of human trafficking as a criminal, then
you know they tend to be deported, they tend to
be UM, they serve jail time, and UH often when
(18:22):
they're deported, they end up right back with the same traffickers,
and the trifers will just send them right back and
it's a vicious cycle. So um, it's really about stopping.
And you know, I think that we've all been guilty
of passing, you know, people on the street and thinking, oh,
they have no one to blame with themselves, and understanding
that worldwide there are a lot of people that we
look at like that, that we look at is lower
(18:43):
than us or deserving of an awful thing, and realizing
that they may not be in control of their own situation.
And as just everyday folks, you know, we're not we're
not working for the government cracking down on human trafficking.
You and I are not yet co presidents of the
United States of America, Molly. But there are things that
(19:04):
we can do, just um in in the every day
to help with one of those p's help with a
with a prevention and the protection I'd say to some
to some extent um. And this comes from a two
thousand eight book by Benjamin Skinner called a crime So monstrous,
And since we keep relying on since everything's coming in threes,
(19:27):
three p s, three d S and here how about
well these skinners three steps, Yes, skinners, three steps, thank you, Molly.
So he says that people should educate themselves about trafficking.
So past yourself on the back listener, because that's what
you're doing, right and if you made it all the
way there, so helps only two more steps to go.
Second one, put pressure on elected officials and candidates about
(19:50):
what steps they should take to solve the problem. And clearly,
since this issue is going on, for instance, in our backyard,
Molly with a capital building a mirror, are well, that'd
be a long stone stir maybe baseball baseball bat hit
away though Braves, Um, you know there are things that
you can do because this is happening everywhere. This is
(20:11):
not just like on a national, federal level problem. And
then also support advoca advocacy groups like Free to Slaves
and Anti Slavery International that are working there on the
front lines, helping the victims, helping people regain their lives,
helping prevent, helping protect and I think just changing your
world view and not looking at this as someone's faults, right, uh,
(20:35):
to look at people and wonder are these people, as
one one, are glide redards, people walking around in invisible chains. Yeah,
and and also remember that poverty piece, um, because a
lot of people are just you know, they're motivated by
the same thing we're all motivated by, and that's to
put a roof of our heads and food in our mouths,
and or that you need money. Well, on that note,
(20:56):
should we open it up to our listeners and perhaps
read a listener mail lootly and we will read something
that has come into our email address, mom stuff and
also like works dot com. All right, I have one
here from Mark and it's on the soap Opera podcast.
He writes. I thought I would let you know about
the soap opera that I watched and have watched since
(21:16):
I was a young lad back in the seventies. It's
called Coronation Street and has been running into England since
nineteen sixty. It just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary and to
commemerate that, the show is aired live. It is not
like most of the American soaps that feature over the
top characters and storylines, but has characters who reflect working
class characters in the North of England. It also features
strong female characters and these have been a mainstay from
(21:38):
the inception of the show. It is dealt with many
social aspects of life from the beginning and portrays them
in a realistic and compassionate manner. I am so passionate
about the show that myself and a few of my
friends formed an organization to host events for fans of
this show. We host four events each year. Our biggest
event is in April, where we bring one of the
actors or actresses from the show over to Canada for
(21:58):
our event. We've been bringing the stars to Canada for
the last nine years and the big event is usually
attended by over seven hundred fans. We just hosted an
actress at Miss Vicky Bens, who plays a character named Molly,
and last year our national TV broadcaster CBC aired a
documentary on the fans of Coron Nation Street which featured
our group. Very cool. Well, I've gotten an email here
(22:20):
from Chris in Canada who says that while growing up
in the Canadian Prairies, she had a female role model
that we had mentioned before and given super and given
the super Heroine podcast, I think she deserves to mention
villainouses are generally depraved, dressed in black, the whole nine
yards quite evil, but don't even have their own Wikipedia page.
(22:43):
Is that possible? They're usually not terribly sophisticated, but enjoy
wielding power over others, especially over other women. They aren't
generally valued, And that's why I want to bring up
Carmen San Diego. Where in the world is shame? Where
in the world is that kindle? Love that game and
this kid. You've mentioned her before, but I don't think
she's done justice. She's a strong, independent, wealthy, intelligent, athletic,
(23:05):
resourceful and wise character and also well dressed. That was
my aside. While she's quite dastedly, she isn't violent, and
she never looks to put whoever is chasing her in
real danger, and if they are in danger, she will
help them out of it. She plays the game for
personal enjoyment and knows that she has all the cards.
She is also not dressed skimpily, but not unattractively. Like
(23:26):
every part of her character, she strikes a balance that
makes her mysterious. She cannot be in any way portrayed
as using her sexuality to her advantage, but she does
not try to adopt a male identity or be anything
other than what she is. I hope you'll hear podcast
on Villainous Is sometimes and give a good mention to
Karenman san Diego because she inspired my love of history
(23:47):
and geography which has irrevocably changed my life. And also
note to another podcast on Halloween costumes. Carmen san Diego
is a great Halleen costumes that you know any one
can do, but you have to give me credit for it.
So if you want to email us our addresses mom
Stuff at how Stuff Works dot com. As always, you
(24:08):
can find us on Facebook, on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
and on our blog Guess what It's called. You're right,
it's stuff Mom never told you, and you can also
go there to find the fantastic article companion piece to
this episode. Article is titled how Human Trafficking Works and
(24:29):
it's written by ms Molly ed been sitting right here
across from me. It is chuck full of information, so
head over there. How Stuff Works dot Com is your destination.
Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The
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