August 15, 2003

MODERN DAY SLAVERY IS PLAGUING OUR PEOPLE
HUMAN TRAFFICKING IS ILLEGAL AND AFRICAN WOMEN ARE THE TARGETS

New York, August 15, 2003—Africans In America is reaching out to the public to stop this crime happening right in our community. Young African women, victims of human trafficking, are being held by the grips of their captors in New York City and they need your help.

Human trafficking is a growing epidemic and reaching out to the victims is critical. Victims are mostly young women and girls, as well as a small group of men and boys as young as 11 years old.

What is Human Trafficking?

Human trafficking takes many forms. Under the U. S. federal law, severe forms of human trafficking is defined as:

Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under 18; or

The recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that person to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

Many trafficking victims are forced to work in the sex trade, unpaid servitude in homes and businesses, labor in a prison-like factory, or migrant agricultural work. Whether or not an activity falls under the definition of trafficking depends not only on the type of work victims are made to do, but also on the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain or maintain that work. There is one exception, however. Trafficking covers the use of minors for commercial sexual activity even if there is no force, fraud, or coercion.

Trafficking also covers people who are held against their will to pay off a debt; this is known as peonage. A victim's initial agreement to travel or perform the labor does not allow an employer to later restrict that person's freedom or to use force or threats to obtain repayment. Someone may be held as a domestic worker, working unreasonable hours for little or no pay with no time off and no way to find other employment. Some are forced into prostitution and isolated from anyone who might help him or her escape. Victims of human trafficking face incredible hurdles in escaping horrendous conditions and accessing help.

African cases and how they generally work

Victims are often lured with false promises of good-paying jobs, skill training, education and better lives in the United States. Traffickers take advantage of the common centuries-old practice (practice, not culture) of desperately poor rural families placing their children with more affluent city residents with hopes that the new caretaker will provide their children with opportunities, which will enable them to escape crushing poverty.

The traffickers do invent falsified documents claiming the victims as their children or family members in order to procure U. S. entry visas. Upon arrival in the U. S. their documents would be confiscated and 'riot acts' would be read to them, and then forced to unpaid endless work in the homes and businesses under brutal and inhumane conditions. Some traffickers seize the paychecks from the victims if they are allowed to work outside the house.

Traffickers employ various tactics and methods to keep the victims under check including seizure of documents, isolation, physical and emotional abuse, threat of deportation, threat of harm to their family in Africa, convoluted application of culture, deprivation of access to money, intimidation, sensory deprivation and “open-ended” promises. Victims become effectively trapped and crippled and at this point they become a survivors of horrific mental, physical, financial and sexual abuse. They are not allowed to have unmonitored communication with their family back home.

In cases of the traffickers being 'fair' to their “prey” by either enrolling them in public high schools, or paying them a meager wage, or giving them never fulfilled promises, the survivors would be uncooperative with any outside inquiry and authority figures. As per instruction, they will not trust or open-up to strangers. Only on very few instances when the traffickers become extremely greedy and brutally oppressive that survivors do want to get away in desperation. Even then, survivors are generally still unwilling to come forward to seek help from social service providers for fear of deportation.

The U. S. Law

The severity and importance of this problem was recognized by the U.S. Congress who passed the Victim of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (VTVPA). This legislation gives legal protection and other services to survivors of trafficking including the establishment of a special T (Trafficking) visa.

Again, the United States federal government has recently recognized the existence of this problem and has passed the law to help free the victims of severe forms of trafficking from captivity regardless of fictitious documents and immigration status.

Case Study

For confidentiality the survivor’s name will not be used. This survivor was trafficked into New York from Africa in 1988 at the age of 11. She was sexually abused and impregnated by the age of 13. She was left destroyed, abandoned and stranded in New York City. She had gone through so much in her young life. The life story of this girl is covered in horror. Her captor pled guilty to the charge of statutory rape in 1992. She was not provided with necessary immigration or social services. Consequently, she became “out of status” and received immigration voluntary departure notice. She has been living with an American family she met since foster care placement over 13 years ago.

In 1999, the United States Federal authority investigated her case. Some of our fellow Africans living on the East Coast assembled and conducted a nationwide fundraising campaign to assist one of the traffickers and obstruct the investigation. The stranded survivor did not receive assistance from the community. Our Board members stepped in to assist this young lady with her immigration troubles. She was empowered and given a voice, eventually she was awarded a T visa which is a special visa mandated by the United States Congress for victims of a severe form of trafficking. This survivor overcame her immigration obstacles and started a new life free from harm and fear.

The American public should be outraged that there are still survivors of human trafficking who do not receive assistance from the local, state or federal government; rather their cases are overlooked and dismissed because the thought of this type of horror is too unbelievable.

Fellow Africans and Americans, believe us when we tell you that this modern day slavery exists next door, at church and in our Embassy officials’ residence.

Africans In America, Inc. (AIA) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing social services, self-empowerment and community awareness to the underserved and economically disadvantaged African communities in the New York metropolitan area.

Our primary purpose is to end the abuse of survivors of trafficking, especially women and girl children from Africa living in the United States.

For information regarding our organization, visit our website: www.africanslavery.org, or contact us at,

Africans In America, Inc.
343 West 145th Street
New York, New York 10031