I wonder why people talk about wanting to go back to the rice paddies and huts smaller than their living rooms?

I admit living like that is interesting (I have done it), but that is until you get malaria and have to sell you children because the harvest failed.

All over the world, people who live a subsistence life style tend to do so because they are structurally marginalized by elites who control the wealth of the region and have a vested interest in keeping people in poverty because, if they weren't there, they wouldn't be too malnourished and too busy staying alive to organize a resistance against such oppression, which would leave the oppressors less rich and powerful than before.

Self determination is not as simple for most of the world as it was for us here in America. Our colonial overlords were an ocean away, overextended and had less resources than we did. Of course we won the revolutionary war. We knew the land better, had plenty of resources on hand, and were willing to brake the rules and fight an insurgency the likes of which the British empire was not able to deal with. Oh, and we had a lot of help from the French.

For just about everyone else, it is a lot more complicated. When you you work 18 hours everyday just to stay alive (with varying success), fighting off brutal regimes and non-state actors that know where you live and can deploy coercive power with good effect on target in a matter of hours gets a lot harder. This is why places like Burma, Laos, the DRC, Somalia, Sudan, North Korea...etc, don't have very high chances of winning a positive peace.

The question is how are we going to explain to our children that we let millions of people all over the world die because we didn't want to do get involved.
It's like passing a sexual assault in progress and pretending you didn't see anything. The only thing worse is assuming a life in poverty and oppression is somehow beautiful because it is closer to nature.

US Demand for Slave Labor

Our prosperity here in the US is not without a cost. Unfortunately, part of that cost is often a human one. Slavery was an important part of the US economy for a long time until industrialization began to take effect. However, heavy industry did not spread throughout the whole of the Union. We became divided geographically based on economic activity. The south remained reliant on slave labor for agriculture, which was its main industry.

Eventually this divide tore the Union apart and we fought a war to determine what system would dominate. The slave holding states lost and slavery was officially legally ended in the US. It continued illegally for quite some time after in the form of chain gangs and other forced labor crews operating under the guise of legal punishment for criminal activity. However, the people accused of such activity were universally of African decent, and were forced into servitude for crimes as minor as being unemployed. Fortunately, this too was ended. It was however not the end of slavery in the United States. 



According to the US State Department, approximately 50,000 people are trafficked into the US for forced labor or prostitution every year. There are no reliable estimates as to how many slaves are currently in the US. It is surprisingly hard to track something that goes on all around us. In the interests of improving the chances of tracking it, we will examine the areas in which there is a demand for slave labor.

Prostitution
In my home town of San Diego California, the average age of a prostitute is 13. Considering that the human trafficking laws currently state that any minor engaging in commercial sex work cannot consent to it and is thus a trafficking victim, there are a lot of victims. Many are Mexican citizens who were lured, bought, or outright kidnapped from poor communities in Mexico or other Latin American countries.

In the San Francisco Bay area where I currently reside, many prostitutes are citizens of East Asian countries, including Vietnam, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and China. There are also a considerable number of women and girls from the former Soviet block countries, as well as many from Latin America. Many come for the money. In some cases it pays well. In many cases, they have their passports taken away and are forced to repay the transport cost to the US, in addition to living expenses once here. Threats are made against their families in their home countries to deter them from attempting to escape. Given that the organized crime groups that bring them here operate in their home countries, these threats are not empty.

In areas such as New York and Oakland, where there are large populations of lower middle class and poor people, criminal groups don't have to go so far to recruit. Domestic trafficking is now discussed as a major issue, where before prostitutes, even underage ones, were considered criminals.



I can not answer the question as to why there is a demand for forced sex in the US. The demand exists globally. However, it is critical to recognize that demand is there and is bringing thousands of women, children and even men into the country or from poor neighborhoods every year. This is not the only source of demand.


Forced labor
Illegal immigration has been a major political and social issue in the US for the last several decades. Something that is not often considered is how many of those immigrants once here are actually being paid for their work. Agricultural workers here in the US face the same issues of having their passports taken away and being forced to pay transit expenses once here as forced prostitutes. Unfortunately, because of the construct of illegal immigrants being criminals, there has been little research as to how many of them are in fact victims of criminals.



The demand for forced labor is somewhat easier for me to explain than the one for forced sex. It provides a cheap work force, which means we can keep buying relatively inexpensive produce at the local super market.

We fought a war over slavery. Today it exists in every state and every major urban center in the US. As long as we demand it, the supply will provide. How can we shift our demand to deny greater supply? How can we attack the root causes and dry the supply up?

Human Trafficking in the US-Case Study #1.

In the interests of keeping discussion as relevant as possible, the first case study will fall close to home for many readers. We will explore human trafficking in the US. The analysis will be based on the framework laid out in the previous posts. This initial post will cover supply. Subsequent posts will deal with demand, transit and aftercare. As this is intended as an introduction, it will remain general. However, more in depth studies of specific areas and cities, as well as solutions will fallow. In fact, if anyone is interested in sharing how things are in your city, feel free to post.

Supply
Lack of security, both economic and physical, is the main risk factor for exploitation. The risk goes up when there are groups actively seeking to exploit that insecurity. It goes up even more when it is easy to move those at risk to areas of greater wealth where there is more profit to be made by their exploitation. In the Americas, all these factors are present.

Poverty and underdevelopment in Latin America puts millions of people at risk. The presence of powerful organized criminal organizations means there are powers to benefit from that risk. Proximity to the affluence and subsequent high paying demand of the United States and ease of transport across the border provides an even greater incentive.

The largest source country for human trafficking victims into the US is Mexico. To put it comparatively, a days wages for a field worker in Mexico are equivalent to one hour of pay for the same work in the US. Given that consumer goods cost close to the same in both countries purchasing power is dramatically limited and poverty levels are extremely high. In fact, about 40% of the population is below the poverty line according to UN standards. Living standard are lower in countries further south, such as Guatemala and Honduras, which is why citizens of these countries illegally cross into Mexico to find work.

There are many reasons for this, including lack of investment in development and endemic corruption. Also, the US role in causing the instability in the region that has contributed to the poverty can not be overlooked. Numerous US interventions in Latin America in the past century are still being recovered from. Also, the North American Free Trade Agreement, far from creating economic equality, has lead to the domination of local markets by American goods (this puts local producers out of work), destruction of local agriculture and rampant unemployment.

These issues are complicated by the prevalence of corruption, which has provided an ideal breeding ground for criminal activity that today turns much of the region into a war zone. More people have been killed in the Mexican drug conflict, in less time, than Coalition troops in Afghanistan and Iraq combined. These organizations are unquestionably powerful. They are also business minded. With the sale of humans rivaled only by the sale of drugs in profits, they have been quick to go into the slave trade.

Finally, as the US is the richest country in the region, the highest prices for exploitation can be charged. It is easy to move people across the US/Mexico Border. It happens hundreds of times, every day.

Slavery in the US is not limited to cross-border human trafficking. In the diversity of the US, there exist microcosms of poverty paralleled by prosperity, with agents willing to take advantage of insecurity. In areas such as Oakland CA, most victims are domestically trafficked. This will be discussed at length in a later post.

As is evident, the supply is very great. What is the demand? Why is there a demand? What can be done about it?
Stay tuned as we explore slavery on the ground in our own neighborhoods.


For more information about human trafficking in the Americas, go to

http://www.misssey.org/for info on domestic trafficking.

For info on trafficking into the US and globally go tohttp://www.notforsalecampaign.org/

Time to go deep

I have talked at length about structural issues leading to the problem of modern slavery. In addition, I have provided a theoretical model for understanding the common mechanisms by which it operates.

To review, human trafficking can be thought of in terms of economics. There is a supply side and a demand side. Additionally, there is a transit and aftermath phase.

The supply side is represented by people at risk for being exploited. The main contributing factor to this is lack of security. The components of security are effective law enforcement and legal systems. They are also economic advantages and access to resources. In sum, these break down the most when the community or society in which people live is poor. In such circumstances, corruption tends to dominate and people tend to take desperate measures to survive. Poverty produces the supply.

The demand is represented by those willing to take advantage of this. Moreover, it is those social and power structures and norms, which permit corrupt individuals to take such advantage. Again corruption is a major issue. So is a lack of effective laws for dealing with such crimes. As to norms, ignorance of the problem is a major contributing factor, as is lack of discussion of solutions. These are the main issues being combated here at Sustainable Anti-Slavery.

However, in the interests of attacking the problem on all sides, we must deal with the transit phase. This is simply enough when people are being moved from the supply to the demand side. Criminal organizations are the main agents in this area. Thus the solution is one of effective law enforcement and good governance. Again, corruption is a major challenge, as is ignorance.

Finally there is the aftermath. People who have been through traumatic experiences tend to need special care. They also need to be reintegrated with society. Criminals also need to be prosecuted and punished. The aftermath is the most neglected element of the problem. Effective aftercare for for victims is underdeveloped, and perpetrators have repeatedly evaded conviction. Why this happens tends to also be linked with norms. Aftercare isn't considered as exciting as brothel raids. Laws relating to human trafficking also make it hard to impose effective punishments against the perpetrators. In many cases here in the US, they are only convicted on immigration charges and go free after a few years. Corruption may again be at play.

As is evident from this analysis, the contributing factors of every element of the problem link and overlap across a broad spectrum. The solutions must be just as integrated and full spectrum. Such theoretical analysis only goes so far without practical application. Thus it is time to go deep and explore more about how this hits the ground around the world. We will embark on case studies of modern slavery from around the world and analyze it based upon the theoretical framework laid out above. From this discussion solutions will arise.

1 in 3

Getting from poverty and high risk conditions for being enslaved and to a relative position of security such that you don't have to worry about possibly selling a child in order to feed the rest, and such that you don't have to worry about being forced off your land and into an urban slum where you and you children are at risk for exploitation of all kinds is somewhat more difficult than it should be. Hence the large number of people throughout the world at risk for being trafficked (about one in three if extreme poverty is the key risk factor), or in some other way exploited. Doing it in a sustainable way is even more complicated. However, complicated subjects tend to be worth talking about. Thus doing something about the 1 in three of us who is at risk is the main subject of discussion here at Sustainable Anti-Slavery.

How do we get from here there? How do we make it so that the question of who has to be sold in order to keep everyone else alive does not need to be asked? How do we put poverty where Jeffrey D. Sachs claims it should be--In a museum?

The structure of the problem seems simple enough. Get resources to the people who need them. We are rich and powerful. Why can't we do something? This is a good point and by all means we should be doing everything we can. Poverty isn't just a bad thing for the rest of the world. From a purely economic and security view, its effect in fueling political and social instability makes it a threat to US foreign interests. The weight of confronting the issue can and should be carried by the most powerful nation in the world and the one best equipped toe deal with it. However, taking full responsibility for every aspect of reconstructing a failed state, or developing a disaster zone, or conducting peace keeping operations between long time rival ethnic groups for the purpose of allowing economic development is not and has not been our strong point. Granted, the US is improving, but the first several years in Iraq went poorly for a reason. We won the war and had no plan for keeping the peace. At least some of these lessons seem to be noted in the current operations in Afghanistan. The UN isn't much better. Cambodia comes to mind as does Rwanda. For that mater, Somalia, Sudan and the Congo come to mind also. None the less. Being the ones with the most resources grants us as many redoes as it takes to get it right. Before I get accused of vicious imperialistic ambitions, may I say what else should be done.

At the same time the international community should try a little harder, the systemic issues that have prevented it from much outstanding success to this point need to be considered. Lack of cultural sensitivity, lack of understanding for local power structures and authorities. Lack of appreciation for the local opinion of what should be done to deal with poverty. Trust me. Poor people generally know they are poor and generally want to do something about it. They also tend to know, or at least have an idea of how to deal with it. The major NGO's with career non-profit workers tend to overlook this in their development projects. Maybe building boarding schools a few miles down the road for all the villages in the area is not a good idea when children are normally needed at home to help keep the place running, and especially when people asked for village schools anyway. In such situations, you guessed it, the boys go off to school and girls drop out. Didn't the UN just realize female education is critical to reducing poverty?

All of this is to say, to get change to stick--to make it sustainable--a combination of tremendous resources and the cultural expertise and sensitivity as embodied by people who can build the bridges between here and there are what we need. Recognition and consideration of people in poverty, not as victims, but at equals and partners with contributions to make to formulating solution will go a long way to getting 1 in 3 to 0. With this synergy, we can have the water purification projects, the schools in every village, the micro-finance, the long term plans with local implications that can get us from 1 in 3 to 0. When we get from here to there, don't expect to be able to find that many slaves. The progress will be too sustainable.

More on the Law

My experience in Thailand of giving up a substantial portion of my liver for a few hours (more like a few days) in order to convince the local officials of the need to grant my 40 kids citizenship is an example of what I mean by getting around the law. It was not that extreme of a case. However, it was an example of working with the local power structures and what would seem to be problems with them in order to get the job done. Working with what you have must be the method of those who wish to see change as soon as possible in corrupt circumstances. I do not condone buying people out of slavery, as this does nothing to slow the demand and it only makes expanding the supply easier because of the cash infusion. Buying off corrupt officials on the other hand can not be overlooked. It is the case the the systemic issues of corruption need to be addressed, as these are contributing factors to people ending up in slavery to begin with. However, if the short term benefit exceeds the lose of propping up the corrupt system in just a small way, a way that it would probably be propped up in anyway even if you weren't there, buy him off. Buy the police off. Buy them all off and turn the system on itself.

The key to understanding the logic of how buying a corrupt official off is good and buying someone out of slavery is not is to understand the differing systemic impacts of the two actions. As I said, buying someone out of slavery won't make people stop wanting the service. Whoever you bought him or her from now has money to go out and buy more people, and where there was one person in slavery, there are many more at risk. On the other hand, buying off a corrupt official to actually do his or her job, which is to do something about the situation because slavery is illegal everywhere has only the negative side effect of reinforcing the notion on the part of the official that they can get bribed. I don't see this notion going away anytime soon.

This can take a number of forms. A police officer can be paid to give information about criminal organizations he or she has information on. An agricultural officer can get paid to give preferential treatment in terms of allocating seeds and market access to poorer groups in his community, which are at risk for exploitation. You can get drunk with local district officials to show them you don't judge and won't tell as long as they give out citizenship papers to the at-risk children you are taking care of. To be honest, in many cases this is actually fair. That is too say, because of the extremely low wages many public servants get in the developing world, this pay off constitutes their legitimate wage and a proper incentive not to take the same payoff from criminals.

Naturally though, this does not confront the underlying issues of corruption, which create the environment for criminals to take advantage of at risk groups. Whereas buying off people is a bottom up approach to dealing with the issue, a top down approach is needed to fully eliminate it. This takes time and money. Successful examples of corruption mitigation all have in common that the governments who carried them out had both of these. One such example is Singapore. Corruption here is almost 0, while all other Southeast Asian nations rank much, much worse. Singapore managed this through a two fold approach of enforcing extremely brutal punishments on corruption. You take a bribe, you don't die, but your public life is over and any hope of employment once your prison term is over is wasted, which is too bad because you will be fined more money than you will ever be able to make back. At the same time it has the highest salaries for government workers of any nation. Cabinet members have 7 figure incomes. The risks are too high and the incentives for actually doing a good job are too great. This is easy for Singapore though because it is extremely wealthy and it has had time to develop its system. This would be considerably harder for Laos, which until recently, got a considerable amount of revenue from charging international airlines for overflight privileges.

The only way to get from a system that makes its money by taxing plans for flying over or selling off its old growth forests to one that can pay 7 figure incomes to its officials is through a system wide approach, which utilizes the full spectrum of economic, social and political development methods in order to gain the resources that would allow it to do this. This tends to not be easy or nice. Korea went from being bombed out building to one of the ten leading economies in the world within a generation. A lot of bribes were exchanged and a lot of people were killed for protesting the strict control that was needed to get there. Japan went from loosing WWII to being the 2nd largest economy in the same amount of time and with many of the same problems, minus the killing. Something these tow did have in common and something that lends to the notion that this kind of transformation comes from more than just the county pulling it self up by its boot straps is the level of involvement from the outside world, specifically the US. Granted this was largely in the form of military aid and national defense, but this made possible the freeing up of a lot of time and resources to build nations that don't have that many indigenous slaves. Unfortunately, Japan and South Korea are major destinations for human trafficking victims from poorer counties. So is the US. No one would be if there were no poor counties. How to get from here to there is the challenge and the topic of discussion.

The Law and how to get around it

Slavery is illegal everywhere. However it also happens everywhere. Here in the US with our legal system and powerful police force, both on the local and federal level, the issue of human trafficking is still a big one. How much more so in Cambodia, where police officers don't even know the details behind the genocide that caused the lasting chaos the nation suffers. In fact, given the problematic motives and abilities of law enforcement in many places, appealing to the law to end slavery is not a viable options. That is not without extra work, and not without the willingness to be what could be called flexible with regard to the law and more often the individuals tasked with carrying it out.

Flexibility was what I had the opportunity to exercise on the occasion of obtaining citizenship papers for the children of the Charis Project that I described in a previous post. Stay tuned for next time as we explore other examples of working with, and sometimes around the law in order to obtain freedom for those the law has a tendency to forget.