Modern slavery draws scrutiny

Activists focus on trafficking in N.C

A woman was locked in a house for two years as a servant. Another woman was held in a hotel and made to prostitute herself.

Both cases unfolded in North Carolina, say legal aid lawyers and advocates for the poor.

Human trafficking, a practice that some call modern slavery, is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the world. The State Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people a year are trafficked over international borders.

North Carolina is home to some of the victims as well as some of the perpetrators.

For years, the crime has been unknown and rarely prosecuted. Victims, most of whom are foreign, are often deported when they are found, and their traffickers are never investigated, according to advocates for the workers. Many in North Carolina, including state Rep. Ellie Kinnaird, are working to bring human trafficking into the spotlight.

"These are not illegal immigrants," said Kinnaird, an Orange County Democrat. "These are kidnap victims. They are refugees. We've got to train police to probe, to investigate further."

Last year, Kinnaird sponsored legislation that made human trafficking a crime for the first time in North Carolina. Until then, it could only be prosecuted by federal officials. Now she is sponsoring a bill that would pay for training for law enforcement and services for victims, such as shelter and legal representation.

Others are focusing attention on human trafficking. Last weekend, the Carolina Women's Center at UNC-Chapel Hill held a conference on sex trafficking. This past weekend, a Raleigh church encouraged people to sleep on the state Capitol lawn to draw attention to the issue.

The law defines human trafficking as holding people against their will, whether by violence or intimidation, and forcing them to work under conditions to which they did not agree. Women have been trafficked for sex work. Trafficking victims also frequently do farm or factory work.

Increased awareness in North Carolina resulted in one recent case in which 22 Thai workers were found held captive on a Johnston County farm. The workers, who paid $11,000 each for the chance to do farm work in the United States, sued their captor under human trafficking laws. The case, filed by Legal Aid of North Carolina, a federally funded program that provides lawyers to the poor, is pending in federal court.

Advocates say that many cases are never discovered. Several law enforcement groups said they don't know of anyone prosecuted under the state's new trafficking law.

"It's happening under our noses," said Deborah Weissman, a UNC-CH law school professor who has become a trafficking activist. "We just don't know."

Some cite recent busts at brothels in Raleigh and Durham. After the Durham bust in August, an FBI investigator said the prostitutes had been brought from Central America and Mexico on the promise of jobs that never materialized. He said they were in thousands of dollars of debt for their journeys. But the investigator said there was no evidence the women were being held against their will, and they were not treated as victims.

They were charged with crimes and put into deportation proceedings.

Many advocates say they wonder whether investigators pressed hard enough to find out the truth. They say they suspect that the women were victims of trafficking.

"We never got a chance to interview them," said Kate Woomer-Deters, a lawyer with Legal Aid.

Woomer-Deters represents the Thai farmworkers. She said she found those men only because Legal Aid makes regular visits to farm labor camps. One night at a hotel in Johnston County, which serves as a home for migrant farmworkers, she ran across the Thai workers.