: Sex Trafficking: Queens Leadership Takes On National Issue

Queens County is at the forefront of a progressive campaign raising awareness aimed at bringing an end to a practice some have dubbed modern day slavery.

And the work has started to show results.

The first indictment under the state’s human trafficking law came down last week when a Queens County grand jury charged Woodley Gadson of South Ozone under the new statute.

He is alleged to have held a 16-year old girl captive for two weeks while forcing her into sex acts and prostitution.

Gaston’s looking at 25 years in prison if convicted, a significantly harsher penalty than the 2.5 to 7 year sentence he would have faced before the new law was passed, prosecutors said.

The announcement signified progress on one major front in the battle against this heinous criminal act – the fight to raise awareness about one of the most insidious and hidden problems in our country today.

The news also underscores the work of several Queens lawmakers on this socially conscious policy front. Over the last several years, leaders from the Empire State, three elected from Queens specifically, have taken a leadership role in tackling this problem with its terrible consequences and huge impact on human suffering.

Councilwoman Helen Sears (D-Jackson Heights), U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Astoria) and State Sen. John Sabini (D-Jackson Heights) have all spearheaded efforts to combat this global problem and its local impacts.

Last year, Sabini sponsored a bill to prohibit human trafficking in New York State. Previously the state had no such law criminalizing such behavior.

“Human trafficking is a horrific crime, like slavery,” Sabini said at the time.

Sabini authored the legislation in the face of competing bills that had stalled in Albany.

This bill made it a crime in New York State to traffic a person for labor or sexual servitude, knowingly patronize a trafficking victim or promote sex tourism, and established a seven-year statute of limitations for such actions, during which time victims could sue violators.

Under the legislation, the state is compelled to help victims gain legal immigration status, public benefits such as food stamps, refugee cash assistance, child care and medical treatment, including mental health treatment, and access to testing and counseling for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

Experts believe human trafficking is estimated to be a $5 to $9 billion industry worldwide, and City Council hearings last year found human trafficking to be the third largest criminal operation in all organized crime enterprises.

On the city level, Councilwoman Sears has used her influence in the City Council to combat the problem by securing funding for Safe Horizon, a New York City based nonprofit and victim assistance organization that assists survivors of human trafficking and persons subjected to involuntary servitude within the greater New York City area.

Sears has partnered with Safe Horizon to include funding for anti-trafficking initiative in the 2008 City budget. Since July 2007, Safe Horizon has benefited from its City Council designation of $350,000 to provide vital support to survivors.

Sears is passionate about fighting for victims and ensuring that trafficked persons can get the help they need.

“It’s an issue that really needs to be at the forefront,” she said in a telephone interview last week. “It’s finally getting the recognition and being placed where it belongs among other terrible social ills like kidnapping and child labor.”

The funding has allowed for a variety of victims services, including case management, legal representation, reunification with family members and housing.

Jennifer Dreher, senior director of the Anti-Trafficking Program at Safe Horizon, says the problem is quite prevalent in Queens, and more broadly the entire country.

She says trafficking is a problem throughout the city and very prevalent in Brighton Beach and Flushing, two neighborhoods with large immigrant populations.

However, a neighborhoods diverse makeup is not a predictor of the problems prevalence.

It is in fact hidden, but ubiquitous.

Not all trafficked persons are used in prostitution, and not all are women.

Trafficked individuals are used in many forms of forced labor. Migrant workers, domestics, deft servitude – the practice affects a wide range of people that can be exploited in many forms.

“Any place a person can be employed there is a chance trafficking can take place,” Dreher said.

Started in December 2001, Safe Horizon’s Anti-Trafficking Program (ATP), is currently the largest such direct service provider on the East Coast. Since its founding, they have worked with over 270 cases both within and outside the New York metropolitan area.

According to Dreher, trafficking affects people across social strata.

Dreher said the U.S. is a destination country for trafficked persons, with New York, Los Angeles and Texas being the largest hubs.

In its 2005 report, the Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons cites 14,500 to 17,500 individuals trafficked annually.

“It’s not just poor illiterate people, it’s people that are looking for a better life,” she said.

These numbers are surely higher as many victims are frightened of coming forward, unaware of their legal rights or fearful of reprisals from the traffickers.

Among the individuals assisted by the Safe Horizon anti-trafficking program is a young woman recruited by two people from her country of origin in Eastern Europe who promised her she could earn good money as a massage therapist in New York.

The names and dates in the story have been concealed to protect the victim, but this brief exemplifies this atrocious process.

Upon arrival in New York City, she was met by two men who informed her she would not be working as a massage therapist, but in prostitution. She was forced to work six days a week for 12 hours at a time. The traffickers collected all of the earnings and provided her with the very basic food and clothing. She was humiliated and emotionally abused by the traffickers. She was beaten and/or sexually assaulted if she complained about her situation. The traffickers repeatedly raped her and forced her to take drugs. They also tortured her. She was held in servitude for two years until being rescued by law enforcement during an organized crime investigation. This woman now has a T-Visa and is receiving a full range of social, vocational, mental health and legal services.

Her story of deceit and manipulation is unfortunately quite commonplace.

Also, numbers of victims are much higher because some trafficked persons refuse to cooperate with investigators and are subsequently not provided basic services and mostly ignored by law enforcement.

The narratives of other victims include a young woman from Central America who was recruited from her small town by a neighbor who said her family owned a restaurant in the New York area. She was lured away and told she could earn enough money to have a good life in the United States and help her family at home, but was physically and mentally abused both on her journey and when she arrived.

Another story, in this instance of an entire group of men from South Asia that were recruited to come to the United States for employment in a manufacturing plant, but had their passports confiscated upon arrival, further attests to this dangerous, exploitative process.

They were forced to live in cramped, unsafe quarters in the factory where they worked, were paid about one fourth of the standard wage and not paid overtime.

On the national level, Rep. Maloney has also gotten behind the effort to publicize the issue and counteract the criminal enterprise through legislation.

In 2007, with Maloney in full support the U.S. House passed the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The bill allows for critical funding to combat trafficking and help victims locate basic services.

The law was an appropriations reissue of the previous Trafficking Victims Protection Act originally passed in 2001.

The original legislation was championed by the late, liberal U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minnesota).

The law would allow for protections of victims of trafficking to secure services before deciding to testify as part on an investigation into her captors.

Proponents believe by eliminating the need for victims to testify abut force, fraud or coercion, prosecutors will have a more effective way to crack down on traffickers.

Sears has also been supportive of the movement at the national level. She joined Maloney and leaders of New York area women’s groups in continuing to urge the federal government to pass strong legislation to combat trafficking.

Speaking of the broad movement and her office’s work to get the City Council resolution passed Sears said, “This initiative is to bring out what is human trafficking. These are phantom voices, the unheard voices.”