Hidden Forms of Human Trafficking: A Critical, Gendered Discussion

On the evening of Thursday, December 1st, the AUSG Women’s Initiative, AUSG Dignity for Women Worldwide, Break the Chain Campaign, and Kay Spiritual Life Center sponsored a panel called Hidden Forms of Human Trafficking: A Critical, Gendered Discussion. Panelists specifically discussed labor trafficking as opposed to sex trafficking, and they paid special attention to men who were trafficked.

The event was organized by students who who were passionate about creating public events for humans rights and the impetus for holding a forum about the hidden forms of human trafficking was the Break the Chain Campaign. To make sure the audience members understood how human trafficking was understood in an international context, the introductory speaker read the UN’s definition of human trafficking which is “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation” (“What is Human Trafficking?”).

Tiffany Williams, a social worker with the Break the Chain campaign, emphasized that there needs to be a greater awareness for forced domestic work as a form of human trafficking. It’s hard to raise awareness for this because of how domestic work typically doesn’t count for a country’s GDP and that women are “expected to do it” so it is rarely questioned. The only place where domestic labor is protected is in New York state, where labor protections have been passed in its legislature. The issue with providing labor protections relates back to the New Deal era when legislators didn’t protect farm and domestic labor for racial reasons. For the most part, caucasians typically didn’t work in domestic or farm labor at that point in history.

Williams said that Break the Chain has helped over 265 people who were forced into domestic labor. In many cases, victims were forced to serve World Bank employees, IMF employees, and diplomats. Domestic trafficking is one of the hardest forms of trafficking to identify because it can easily be mistaken as being voluntary and can be hidden in plain sight in everyday life. In this respect, it is hard to convince law enforcement to take such domestic trafficking cases legitimately, Williams said.

Evelyn Chumbow, a survivor and graduate student studying social work in Baltimore, described how she had been taken from her native Cameroon at the age of nine and was forced into labor in the United States until she was eighteen. She was taken from her family under the pretense that the person in charge of her would make sure she was adopted in the United States, but instead the woman who took her from Cameroon forced her to clean, cook, take care of her two children, and live in a cold garage for almost a decade. The woman was abusive, giving Chumbow no food for weeks and forcing her to stand for hours on end. “How can I explain,” Chumbow said, “It...she was evil.” She says that most people don’t speak up about their abuse and that there is a problem when separating sex and domestic trafficking. It is the same crime and should be judged the same, she says. “[Congress] is only talking about sex trafficking and it’s annoying!” she stated.

Chissey Mueller, a coordinator at the International Organization for Migration, talked about how the is much less awareness when it comes to men who are being trafficked. Only now are academic publications starting to report on male trafficking, the focus normally being on young girls and women who are sex trafficked. Mueller spoke about men who are trafficked into Thailand to work on fishing boats and the injustices and punishments they experience. Comparatively in Eastern Europe, men are being forced to labor in agriculture and construction. She raised the point of identifying whether or not beggars in Washington, D.C. are victims of labor trafficking, for begging can be a form of forced labor.

The final panelist, Ann Jordan, a Director within the Center on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University’s Washington College of Law, stated that trafficking has become a “silo issue.” It has become separated from all issues, such as governmental policy and cultural norms, and has the connotation of only pertaining to women and girls in forced prostitution. She says that this distinction began in the 1980’s and 1990’s when women's groups noticed foreign women working as prostitutes. Without feminists focusing solely on prostitutes, there would have been far better solutions if all forms of trafficking were combined, she believes.

Jordan urged the audience to try to think more clearly and analytically about hearing statistics about forms of trafficking. “How do you know that, what is your evidence?” she told audience members to ask of people who spout statistics and information. Jordan also told listeners that Americans need to be more wary of where they buy goods. She referenced a story about Chinese factory workers committing suicide from harsh conditions working in an iPad factory (article about this can be found here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tenth-worker-at-ipad-factory-commits-suicide-1982897.html). The demand for low costs and goods in the United States contributes to labor trafficking and unfair working conditions in poorer countries. Allowing trafficking to continue perpetuates the mentality that it is acceptable, Jordan said.

"What Is Human Trafficking?" United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. United Nations. Web. 02 Dec. 2011. <http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html>.