Gateway Human Trafficking

I will use the Elevate Prize funding toward our, “Healing the Force(d)" program to create a positive impact on reforms to the criminal justice and immigration systems concerning labor trafficking; the majority of victims are recognized as recent immigrants or relocated refugees and children. This includes 'working children' in America many of whom are undocumented children who were recruited by traffickers.

Traffickers target recent immigrants and undocumented children due to their vulnerabilities to exploit them and force them to work under inhumane circumstances mostly on farms or domestic servitude industries in America. 

Labor trafficking in the U.S., in fact, echoes a bigger problem we have in our society that the public has been so much concerned about unauthorized immigrants that there has been little support for labor trafficking victims. With or without legal documentation(s), these people are victims. In many cases traffickers brought these victims to the U.S. through engaging force, fraud, or coercion for the sole purpose of trafficking them knowingly that there is a low risk for them (traffickers) to get caught by law enforcement due to lack of supports in criminal justice and immigration systems for these victims.

As a recent Muslim immigrant who has studied law, criminal law, and human trafficking in the United States, I have been shocked to learn about labor trafficking and the terrible situation of Working Children in the U.S. I have been more shocked to learn there are lack of supports for these victims in our community. The bigger problem concerning identifying victims of labor trafficking is the issue that Criminal Justice System, like the general public, does not understand what labor trafficking is. Based on a study by the Urban Institute, while the majority of identified labor trafficking victims and survivors have been recent immigrants to the U.S., law enforcement has had little incentive to seek information that could help identify labor trafficking cases when unauthorized immigrants were victimized. Law enforcement agencies have difficulty defining and separating labor trafficking from other forms of labor exploitation and workplace violations. To help solve this unjust situation, I established the “Healing the Force(d)" initiative to raise awareness and education about labor trafficking in the U.S. to help get support for victims and survivors especially working children who work long shifts with little or no payment.

An estimated 24.9 million people worldwide are in forced labor;16 million them are exploited in the private sector such as domestic work, construction or agriculture, and 4.8 million persons in forced sexual exploitation. Women and girls are disproportionately affected by forced labour.1 in 4 victims of modern slavery are children (ILO). There is no single estimate regarding rates of labor trafficking in the United States as traffickers tend to guard their victims closely and/or isolate them to their workplace. Trafficking victims may also not want to come forward for fear of violence, or, if they are in the country illegally, deportation. 

There are very few law enforcement officers in the criminal justice system who are trained to identify labor trafficking. Labor trafficking is so masked by what is seemingly legal, like legal work scenarios. Our organization believes if everyone in our community knows what labor trafficking is, together we can work to end labor trafficking and exploitation. We established, "Healing the Force(d)" initiative to educate our communities including law enforcement through popular ways of engagements (including online courses and short videos) about labor trafficking to end this ongoing exploitation and abuse of our vulnerable community members including working children.

Currently, it is difficult to identify labor trafficking compare to sex trafficking situation because people do not understand labor trafficking to report it. For example, people say, “This woman is being raped 30 times a night. We have a case”. With labor trafficking, I have heard comments such as, “we all work hard.” It is easier to dismiss people working really hard as victims of trafficking as opposed to people who are forced to have sex and [are] controlled.  

Educating the general public and law enforcement about identifying labor trafficking is the first step to secure resources and establish right policies to help victims. A community who does not identify with a problem, does not know how to solve the problem and create positive systemic change to end the problem. Our program focuses on educating the general public and law enforcement about labor trafficking through developing and delivering in-person and online training courses, engaging social media, and making videos and possibly a short documentary about labor trafficking in our local communities. Through engagement of online technology and developing online courses we are able to address this issue to a broader audience in the world and make a bigger impact.

We believe labor trafficking is a multi-cultural problem. Consequently, the first step to solve labor trafficking as an intractable social problem is to develop a systems mindset; understand the system and society in which it sits. Then, identifying the right tool for the job and paying attention to human dynamics can help us move from theory to action in facing labor trafficking as a complex social problem. 

Currently, the needs of labor trafficking victims are unaddressed because there are several issues concerning our society/system mindset about labor trafficking and its victims. First, our community do not understand labor trafficking. Consequently, many do not believe labor trafficking is happening in the U.S. Then, a group of people think victims of labor trafficking are undocumented immigrants who knowingly came to the U.S. illegally and put themselves into this problem. Thus, this group argues, ‘why should we care’! Therefore, the right approach to fight against labor trafficking in the U.S. starts with educating our community members including criminal justice system and policy makers about labor trafficking. If everyone in our community knows what labor trafficking is and who are the victims, we can create systemic changes to end labor trafficking in our society.