"Hidden Forms of Human Trafficking": A Call to Awareness and Social Responsibility

When one considers the exposure the media gives to human trafficking, what do they usually hear about? Although the majority of documented human trafficking is domestic and menial labor-related, the media seems to give the most attention to sex trafficking. And while sex trafficking does deserve to be addressed and quelled, millions of trafficked domestic laborers haven’t been given nearly as much assistance to escape their situation as they should have. A panel presented by Dignity for Women Worldwide, Break the Chain Campaign, AUSG Women’s Initiative, and Kay Spiritual Life Center set out to make known these “hidden forms” of human trafficking in order to give a voice to the suppressed voices of trafficked domestic laborers.

The panelists were Tiffany Williams, the Advocacy Director of Break the Chain Campaign; Evelyn Chumbow, a Cameroonian former domestic labor trafficking victim turned survivor and speaker; Chissey Mueller, a project coordinator for the Caribbean at the International Organization for Migration (IOM); and Ann Jordan, the Director of the Program on Forced Labor and Trafficking at AU. AU International Relations doctorate student Sheherazade Jafari moderated the discussion. All of these women provided incredible insight into this silenced form of human trafficking, its commonality throughout the world, and the importance of trafficking awareness.

Ms. Williams began the conversation by giving the audience her insight on hidden forms of labor trafficking and why it is not given the attention it warrants. Domestic work typically involves things like cooking, cleaning, childcare, and other household tasks that one might hire a nanny to perform. Oftentimes, people hire trafficking victims to do this type of work because they are unaware of the trafficked status of their hires. Because this work is done behind closed doors, it is often very difficult to identify and address. Also, trafficked persons often don’t speak the language of their traffickers or their “employers”, silencing these trafficking victims even further and rendering many helpless. Many cases have been passed off as simply “hard work”; it is certainly a more easily disguised form of trafficking than sex trafficking.

The organization Ms. Williams works for, Break the Chain, recognized the need to bridge the gap between these relatively helpless, immigrant trafficking victims and being able to identify and address their situations as forms of labor trafficking. Thus far, they have been able to successfully identify and stop hundreds of cases of human trafficking throughout the United States. Americans may be surprised to learn that many forms of human trafficking are facilitated in the United States, despite our country’s reputation of supporting international human rights.

Evelyn Chumbow was one of those cases that took place in the United States before she escaped her situation at age eighteen. After nine years of slavery performing domestic labor as a housekeeper, trafficked by a fellow Cameroonian, Evelyn received the help of Break the Chain to be freed of her captor. Evelyn and her parents were tricked into believing that an American family was adopting Evelyn. Being adopted by an American family means great opportunity for education that children otherwise probably wouldn’t receive in Cameroon. Thus, an opportunity to be adopted by an American family was never questioned by Evelyn’s family, and her Cameroonian trafficker whisked her away to the United States.

Thanks to Break the Chain’s efforts, Evelyn was freed from her captors and is now a student at the University of Baltimore. She hasn’t seen her parents in eighteen years but plans to return to Cameroon as soon as physically possible in order to reunite and bring awareness to her fellow Cameroonians about the dangers and very real possibility of being trafficked. She mentioned that Cameroonians simply do not talk about the reality of trafficking in their society. Trafficking of one Cameroonian by another is a taboo subject that most, especially older Cameroonians, often won’t admit that it happens. Evelyn is already considered an outsider by Cameroonians in her community here in the U.S. for coming forward about her captivity by another Cameroonian. However, this motivates Evelyn all the more to encourage dialogue about and wariness of all forms of human trafficking. She believes that organizations like Break the Chain and genuine efforts to talk and write about human trafficking are going to be the fire that fuels more awareness and action on the subject.

Chissey Mueller detailed a case study of male trafficking trend in Thailand that was very insightful into trafficking in Asia. Like Evelyn and many like her, men from bordering countries are given false hopes of well-paying jobs in Thailand and then trafficked into a laborious job without hope in sight. This specific case involved men being tricked into being fishermen on boats in the middle of the ocean without contract, contact with family, or even basic necessities. If a worker falls ill and cannot work, they are often thrown overboard because they are easily replaceable labor. Ms. Mueller brought up the same feeling of desperation Evelyn felt in being kept captive in the United States: as a foreigner in a new land, a trafficking victim becomes further and further removed from everything familiar, including culture and language. Even if these men do have the opportunity to escape, there are very few resources available to them, which reflects the overwhelming attention on not only sex trafficking but also on women over men.

U.S. law enforcement has also not been very keen on addressing the overwhelming issue of human trafficking, domestically or abroad. Ann Jordan talked a little about how laws have more recently been enacted in the United States regarding human trafficking. But, sticking with a common, previously mentioned trend, they tend to focus mostly on cases with females involved, and more specifically females involved in sex trafficking. Therefore, in the past decade that most of these laws have been in place, little to no progress has been made to shut down widespread human trafficking rigs within the United States and involving Americans abroad.

Ms. Jordan acknowledged that some progress to aid law enforcement has been made by a Florida coalition that does its own specialized investigation of suspected human trafficking cases and then reports them to the Fed. She says that these methods of investigation should continue and be adopted by the federal government, noting that we as an audience should support the adoption of updated, more effective federal anti-trafficking laws. A last thing she stressed was social consciousness of consumers, saying that the more aware one is of the origins of the products and services they are purchasing, the more likely it is that consumers can play a role in shutting down the businesses supported by the labor of trafficked workers.

The facts are there: 12.3 million people worldwide are victims of forced labor in the form of human trafficking. Only a fraction of this 12.3 million is representative of sex trafficking victims. As established by this panel, the discussion needs to be opened up to involve all other forms of human trafficking in order to combat trafficking on a broader, more effective scale. This facilitated panel talk should be one of many to come in an effort to make active communities more aware of the presence of human trafficking in their own countries, in addition to offering actions they can take to stomp out the incidence of modern day slavery, both domestically and abroad.