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Posted on Thu, May. 20, 2004

Civic group combats slave trade


By AMY DRISCOLL

Miami Herald

MIAMI - The bathroom is sometimes the only place where sex slaves can steal precious minutes alone - so that's one place where a local nonprofit group will be trying to reach them.
Using anti-slavery posters and matchbooks with a new toll-free number for assistance printed discreetly inside the flap, the Florida Freedom Partnership hopes to offer new help to victims of human trafficking in the South Florida.
"We've learned from research that the only time trafficked women are away from their captors, in some cases, is for a few brief moments in the bathroom," said Leslye Boban, executive director of the group. "We want to give them a way to hold onto the hot line number without anyone knowing."
The outreach is part of a broader effort to raise awareness. Billboards are going up across the county, and public service announcements will be broadcast, all with the same message: Help combat modern-day slavery.
It's a disconcerting thought - that the international glamour of the Miami region could conceal something as abhorrent as slavery. But Boban says tourism-dependent cities offer traffickers perfect cover: Transiency, few questions and an abundance of low-level jobs in restaurants, bars, sweatshops and the sex-entertainment industry.
"Trafficking is a hidden crime," Boban said. "It's simmering beneath the surface but people don't know how to label it when they see it. We're hoping this campaign will help law enforcement and others recognize it."
Between 18,000 and 20,000 people are trafficked into the United States annually, according to the Department of State. Florida, along with California and New York, is among the three states with the highest incidence of reported human trafficking cases in the nation, according to the Florida Freedom Partnership.
In Florida, the four main types of slavery involve agriculture, sweatshops, forced prostitution and domestic servitude, Boban said.
Materials for the campaign will be printed in Spanish and English and will feature a toll-free or local telephone number - 866-443-0106 and 305-443-0102 - to report trafficking or ask for information. All calls are anonymous.
The hot line is answered by a live operator from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. During other hours, callers are urged to leave a message, which is immediately routed to a cell phone of a Florida Freedom Partnership worker.
The campaign is federally funded, although many services have been donated. The billboards were donated by Clear Channel.
The campaign comes at a time of increasing awareness by the federal government and private agencies that the United States has a slavery and trafficking problem.
The U.S. attorney's office in Miami held a training session last week to teach state, local and federal law enforcement how to better recognize cases of trafficking.
"This is one of the priorities of the attorney general," said Marvelle McIntyre-Hall, assistant U.S. attorney. "The victims are generally unwilling or unable to reach out to law enforcement."
Experts say trafficked people work as prostitutes, in the sex entertainment industry, in restaurants, as janitors, in agriculture and in factories.
Some are kept physically captive but others are coerced by threats against family members in the home country or through debt bondage - when the victim owes the trafficker a fee that is nearly impossible to pay off because room and board are deducted first. Fear of police, in a country where they don't speak the language and don't have immigration papers, also keeps trafficking victims silent.
A federal task force, launched in 1998, has helped prosecute a series of trafficking and worker abuse cases. The Trafficking in Persons and Worker Exploitation Task Force allows investigators and prosecutors to coordinate efforts.
New laws were added to prosecutors' arsenal in October 2000, when a comprehensive federal trafficking law, called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, was enacted by Congress.
And the focus on slavery continues. This spring, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a program in three cities - Philadelphia, Atlanta and Phoenix - to help authorities recognize trafficking cases.
"Agriculture and tourism are the main areas where we would find trafficked people in Florida," Boban said. "The whole nature of the scene that caters to tourism makes it a likely place for trafficking. Through this grass-roots effort at the clubs and restaurants, we want to reach out to the public to raise awareness that slavery still exists."