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Life Onboard |
LAST UPDATE
July 19, 2005
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| site design imagesparkle.com |
| May 28, 2004 |
Human Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery – Joy Zarembka |
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| Joy Zarembka |
More profitable than smuggling guns or drugs, over 2 people million worldwide are thought to be annually trafficked and enslaved. Commonly forced, deceived or debt bound into work as domestic servants, prostitutes, construction workers and farmhands, many are also trafficked into servile marriages, criminal activity or organized begging.
Joy Zarembka, director of the "Break the Chain Campaign" at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies, supports immigrant housemaids who have been abused by their employers in the Washington DC area. Usually acting on anonymous tips by concerned friends, neighbours or members of the general public, Joy accompanied by police officers, make calls on households where abuse - including physical, sexual and psychological - against a domestic worker have been reported.
Imprisoned in their workplace, intimidated or threatened with violence, many immigrant workers without legal documentation are afraid to approach the authorities for help in fear of deportation or arrest. The "Break the Chain Campaign" educates immigrants on their rights as workers, assisting their claims for minimum wages and also offering counselling and legal support for more serious cases of maltreatment.
Defying the stereotype of "illiterate women being kidnapped and forced into brothels," Joy says that trafficked persons are both men and women with varying levels of education, and not always driven from their homes but simply seeking a better life.
Reasons that immigrants are vulnerable to human traffickers include, current government policies that discriminate against different nationalities, an overloaded immigration system that does not meet the demand for immigrant workers, as well as the dependence on third parties for information about migration - meaning that people "never really know what they are getting into."
"Turning a blind eye to human trafficking," Joy argues that government complicity is as much to blame for the abuse of immigrant workers as the returnees, village chiefs, business owners, agricultural operations and the organized crime gangs actively exploiting immigrant labour.
The majority of "Break the Chain Campaign" cases of abuse are against people of colour from developing countries, and often the domestic workers of professionals - including the families of many Washington DC based foreign diplomats.
Providing a place to turn for immigrants who feel isolated and lost in a country whose legal system or language they may not understand, the "Break the Chain Campaign" is a vital lifeline to the abused and mistreated. "The best defence against modern-day slavery is a vigilant public," and as most cases investigated are tips from concerned others, Joy urges those wishing to help to speak out and contact the authorities if they suspect an immigrant worker has been enslaved or trafficked.
Volunteering with an anti-trafficking programme, donating clothes, equipment or money to a women's economic initiative in a developing country are also ways to support immigrant workers in the their battle for basic human rights.
For more information about the "Break the Chain Campaign" visit – www.ips-dc.org/campaign/
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