The Women’s Resource Center hosted Meet the Movement Tuesday evening. This was a four-person panel on human trafficking. The panel included Kathy Maitland, Eastern Michigan University seniors Chrissy Chase and Jennifer Marcum from Unmasked and Supervisory Special Agent Michael Ball, from Homeland Security.
Human trafficking is much more prevalent around the world than we all think. Ball, an EMU alumnus, has been in federal law enforcement for 26 years.
“Today, right now, slavery is more prevalent than any other point in human history,” Ball said.
According to the Global Slavery Index, there are “an estimated 35.8 million men, women and children around the world” who are slaves. It is important to note that there is a difference between human trafficking and human smuggling. As Bell put it, “Human smuggling is voluntary, trafficking is not.”
There are many different forms of modern slavery. From farm labor to sexual slavery to sweat shops. There was a story in the New York Times last July about a man named Lang Long who was tricked into slavery on a fishing boat, with the promise of a paying job. According to the Times, a great amount of the fish Long and people like him caught “is sold to the United States.”
The panel discussed the different forms and the many ways that people fall into these situations.
Often people who are smuggled into the United States as illegal immigrants pay huge amounts of money to the traffickers. Then when they get to the States, they are told the price has gone up, and are forced into some sort of slavery to pay off the remainder. Other ways that people easily fall into this are usually through substance abuse, domestic violence or transitioning from being in foster care to turning 18 and becoming homeless.
Bell’s job within Homeland Security is to find victims through tips and get them out of that situation. His service, Homeland Security Investigations, is a part of the Immigration Customs Enforcement branch of Homeland Security. They do a large array of jobs. His specific task is to get victims out through a victim-centric approach.
“We're going to make sure the victim feels safe,” he said.
Human trafficking in its many forms has gotten more attention from law enforcement in recent years, according to Bell. The major problem, all of the panelists agreed, was that it is very hard for average citizens to identify. Signs include people who have routines that are very heavily controlled and non-Americans who do not have any form of identification. Another problem is a lack of public awareness.
“This is not a very fun topic,” Maitland explained.
Kathy Maitland is the executive director of the Michigan Abolitionist Project. She started the organization in 2008 when she found out about the extent of modern slavery. She asked the audience of around two-dozen people how many people wanted to spend their nights at a human trafficking panel. The audience was silent.
Maitland quit her job at Hewlett-Packard to start MAP when she was disappointed by what was there. The activists working back then only focused on education, which she didn't feel was enough. While her 8-chapter organization does do education, they have also worked with state legislators to create new laws to fight modern day slavery. They also publish a magazine called Unbound Project.
But there are people doing things about human trafficking. Unmasked, represented Tuesday evening by Chase and Marcum, is an Eastern-based student organization which promotes awareness to fight modern slavery.
“Unmasked is a grass-root student led movement geared towards human trafficking awareness, education, person perception and advocacy to eliminate modern day slavery,” the group said on their collegiatelink.net page.
They hold monthly discussion events to discuss the problems of modern day slavery. And they work with Eastern's MAGIC program, which helps EMU students who come from foster care or have been homeless.
And there is still more EMU students can do. Smart phone users can get an app called Ethical Barcode. This allows you to scan the bar code of products one would consider buying to see how much slave labor, if any, is used to manufacture or ship the product, or if it was used in getting the raw materials for the product.
Free2work.org is also available. It analyzes the business practices of brands across the world to determine how many of their products come from forced labor and what percentage does not.
