Human trafficking in California is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor as it occurs in the state of California. It is widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery. It includes "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
California is particularly vulnerable because of "proximity to international borders, number of ports and airports, significant immigrant population, and large economy that includes industries that attract forced labor." It serves both as an entry point for slaves imported from outside the US as well as a destination for slaves. Slavery is found throughout California, but major hubs are centered on Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Francisco. According to the 2011 Department of State report, California, together with New York, Texas, and Oklahoma, has the largest concentrations of survivors of human trafficking. The National Human Trafficking Resource Center reported receiving 3,609 calls and emails in 2015 about human trafficking in California.
Overview
California Leading The Nation In Human Trafficking - In California on Thursday authorities arrested nearly 300 people in a human trafficking sweep. Los Angeles law enforcement identified 10 victims who official report had been forced into prostitutio...
Definition
Federal
Human trafficking
Federally, human trafficking is defined as "the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery".
Sex trafficking
Accordingly, sex trafficking is "a commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age".
California
Human trafficking
The state of California, on the other hand, defines a trafficker as “anyone who deprives or violates the personal liberty of another with the intent to obtain forced labor or services, procure or sell the individual for commercial sex, or exploit the individual in an obscene matter, is guilty of human traffickingâ€. Specifically, depriving and/or violating someone’s personal liberty entails “substantial and sustained restriction of another's liberty accomplished through fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person, under circumstances where the person receiving or apprehending the threat reasonably believes that it is likely that the person making the threat would carry it out.â€
Sex trafficking
Sex trafficking in California is defined as “causing, inducing, persuading, or attempting to cause, induce or persuade a minor to engage in a commercial sex actâ€.
Forced labor
Forced labor is also defined as "labor or services that are performed or provided by a person and are obtained or maintained through force, fraud, or coercion, or equivalent conduct that would reasonably overbear the will of the person."
Differences Between Human Trafficking and Smuggling
According to the United Nations, migrant smuggling and human trafficking are emerging as the fastest growing forms of organized crime. However, it is important to note that the two are in essence different crimes. The UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime separately defines trafficking in persons as "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation"; while it defines migrant smuggling as “the procurement for financial or other material benefit of illegal entry of a person into a State of which that person is not a national or resident.â€
The three main differences include:
- Consent: Although migrant smuggling often takes place in dangerous and threatening conditions, it includes people that have consented to the smuggling. Trafficking, on the other hand, either ignores consent or uses coercion, abuse, and other methods to obtain it.
- Exploitation: The exploitation of migrants often comes to an end as they arrive to their intended location, but the exploitation of trafficking victims is ongoing.
- Transnationality: Smuggling always occurs transnationally, but acts of trafficking can involve transportation within the State or transportation to another State.
Types of Trafficking
Labor trafficking
Labor trafficking involves trafficking persons -- through “recruitment, harboring, or transportation†-- with the intent to use them for labor-related services. Common examples of labor trafficking can include domestic servitude, janitorial work, factory labor, agricultural work (primarily including migrants), alongside construction work. Classified as a form of modern-day slavery, labor trafficking is a subset of human trafficking, which is defined by the U.N. as:
“...the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion… for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
Domestic service, agriculture, sweatshop labor, and restaurant or hospital work comprise the most common sectors of labor in which labor trafficking arises; domestic service is reported to harbor 27.7% of labor trafficking victims, agriculture with 10.4%, sweatshop work with 4.8%, and restaurant and hotel work with 3.8%.
In California, the Latino population is reported to be at a notably high risk for labor trafficking. La Cooperativa, a job training, employment, and services resource for farmworkers and related advocates, describes the case of Flor Molina, a labor slave from Mexico whose trafficking took her to Los Angeles. It is reported that Molina’s sewing class in Mexico was approached by a sex trafficker, who gave her an opportunity to immigrate to the U.S. to work in a factory there. She would work 18-hour days without being able to leave the factory. This is one of many similar cases of labor trafficking in California involving illegal immigration and illegal working conditions.
Sex Trafficking
Sex trafficking victims in California are primarily women and children, coming from largely from Thailand, Mexico, and Russia. In some cases, victims were born and raised in the US, and were coerced into sex trafficking through deceptive means. Prostitution and sex services represented the largest share of documented human trafficking activities in California (roughly 47%). Although it is important to keep in mind that most trafficking reports only take into account media publicized cases, and this could skew the actual numbers. It is likely that sex trafficking is overrepresented in the media due to high public interest, compared to other types of trafficking.
On the other hand, a federally funded task force conducted a survey and instead looked at a sample of victims reported to the authorities. It found that sex trafficking represented the second largest type of human trafficking at 46%, with labor trafficking representing the largest share at 54%. The discrepancy in results between reported and documented cases could possibly be explained by the fact that sex trafficking is more familiar to authorities, and as a result has a higher chance of being investigated.
In California, much of the prostitution is run behind the guise of a legitimate business, such as a massage parlor. A recent report estimates that over 3,300 massage parlors in California are sex trafficking fronts. Specifically, the report mentioned that Los Angeles, Orange, and Santa Clara counties account for the highest number of sexually oriented massage parlors.
Child Trafficking
Child trafficking is defined as the exploitation of a minor -- someone of 18 years or younger -- through organized movement that leaves the child vulnerable to recruitment into trafficking cartels, illegal employment, and sexually exploitative work. The FBI has 13 full-time task forces dedicated to investigating high-profile chid prostitution enterprises throughout the United States -- two are in California, with one in Los Angeles and another in Orange County.
Of the 705 cases of human trafficking in California reported during 2017, 226 involved minors. This is down from 405 in 2016, 300 in 2015, and 296 in 2014. In Los Angeles, the average age of of the first encounter with trafficking is 12-14 years and 11-13 years of age for girls and boys respectively, and they have a 7 year life expectancy after this first encounter.
Additionally, homeless youth and foster kids have an increased risk of being subjected to trafficking. For example 58% of sex trafficked girls in Los Angeles County in 2012 were foster kids. Furthermore, it has been found that 40-70% of street youth occasionally engage in prostitution to meet their basic needs.
Domestic Servitude
Domestic servitude involves women, men and even children who are coerced to work for and live in the homes of the employers. The employers exploit these victims by forcing them to work unreasonable hours, paying them less than minimum wages and preventing them from leaving their homes. These domestic worker could be lawfully admitted non-U.S. citizens who have their passports confiscated by their employers in order to force them to stay, U.S. citizens who are forced by their employers to stay or by their families to provide money, or illegal immigrants who are forced to work un-desirable jobs.
In 2010 there was a domestic servitude case that got the exploiter into prison:
“In November 2010, a woman received a 37-month prison sentence for forcing a Chinese woman to work without pay as a domestic servant in her Fremont home. The trafficker forced the victim to cook, clean, and perform child care services. The trafficker, who was 62 at the time of her sentencing, physically abused the victim and confiscated her passport, visa, and other documents. She also admitted to telling the victim that she needed to remain inside the house because she was an illegal alien."
Most of domestic servitude cases still go unnoticed because of the victims' reluctance to report to the authorities.
Demographics of Trafficked Persons
General Overview
Most victims of human trafficking in California, whether international or domestic, either come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds or are vulnerable to promises and temptations of a better life and job. Some of the victims are men, women and children born and raised in California, who are trapped in domestic servitude, forced into prostitution or forced to work on farms far from their initial homes. Others are international men, women and children who are seduced into prostitution, forced labor and domestic servitude. In schemes involving international persons, the victims are smuggled into California and are forced into harsh, low-paying jobs, while being indebted to the smugglers for the smuggling and transportation costs into California. Additionally, these job agreements continuously deduct high amounts of money for low-quality housing and food. The victims of international trafficking are usually helpless and thus avoid reporting the traffickers, because of their fear of exposing their own crime for their illegal immigration status, their language incompetency, their oblivion of their own victimization and their wariness about the judicial system in the USA. As immigration laws became more stringent and anti-immigrant antagonism has increased, undocumented victims of human trafficking became more prone to being forced into undesirable jobs.
Structural Causes
The main cause of international human trafficking is the promise of a better life and job, which tempts victims who usually come from countries with lower standards of living. Traffickers and poachers look for easy targets, who have no families, no jobs or no place for shelter. Given California’s strategic location, presence of major airports and intrastate major airports, traffickers can transport the victims with ease. Thus, making human trafficking in California a profitable, low-risk and high-reward scheme. Similarly, domestic traffickers look for easy and vulnerable targets. Domestic traffickers target young aged boys and girls in schools, foster homes, homeless-shelters and streets, by offering them money, protection and drugs. The traffickers psychologically manipulate these young people by being a parent or a lover figure, in order to gain their trust and make them emotionally vulnerable.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline Statistics
The National Human Trafficking Hotline receives calls regarding human trafficking, whether it's someone reporting a case or just asking general questions. The NHTH released an annual report for 2016 detailing the demographics of the victims of human trafficking in California, claiming that 79% of the human trafficking cases were sex trafficking cases. It reports that of all the victims of sex trafficking in California, 76.3% were females, 3.9% were males and 26.9% were minors.
Region of Origin
Latin America
Almost one third of the 50,000 victims yearly trafficked into the United States come from Latin America, and the majority of these victims are trafficked into the US through the Mexico-United States border. The Mexico-United States border has been one of the major hubs for human trafficking due to the presence of gang networks and secret routes through the border.
Mexico
Mexico’s social instability, low average standards of living compared to the United States and proximity to the United States, makes it one of the most active hubs for human and sex trafficking into California. A conservative estimate made in 2000, claims that around 100,000 women are constantly trafficked around Latin American borders for prostitution. More recently, the U.S. Department of State estimated that there were as much as 20,000 young women and children trafficked across the Mexican border each year. It starts with Mexican drug trafficking organizations and gangs supplying local American gangs with the smuggled victims. Two of the prominent Mexican routes for human trafficking share borders with the U.S. at Beja California and Chihuahua. It is estimated that around 800,000 adults and 20,000 children are yearly victims of human trafficking in Mexico.
Mexico is an important destination to human traffickers as it serves as both a destination and origination point for trafficking men, women and children. It has also become a stopover for the transportation of victims to places such as Unites States, Brazil, Guatemala and El Salvador. The greatest location of human trafficking is the Unites States-Mexican border as it offers unemployed persons in Mexico a chance to go through to the United States, where they believe they would get a good paying job and start a new life. Mexican cartels are the main players when it comes to both seducing people into human trafficking and transporting/smuggling them into the United States. These Mexican cartels have built approximately 75 cross-border trafficking and smuggling tunnels, some of which that go into California. These tunnels have made it very easy to transport people from Mexico to California, especially because these tunnels appear to be highly technological as they are equipped with electric rails cars, lights, hydraulic doors and elevators. The well-established connection between gangs in Mexico and the United States guarantees that the victims trafficked into the United States are readily being taken by the U.S. based gangs into all sorts of jobs.
Some of the human trafficking from Mexico into California tends to happen through the so-called “San Diego trafficking corridorâ€. Women and young girls are transported from the Mexico-California border to the northern San Diego County, where they are controlled by pimps who work alongside the traffickers. These women and young girls are placed in brothels, massage parlors and strip-clubs. Research shows that the criminal networks in San Diego control more than 50 brothels, each of which employs hundreds of Mexican girls and women over the course of the year. The trafficked underage girls are also sold to U.S. military camps, U.S. tourists and farmers, who all abuse and rape the girls as young as 9 years old . These underage girls often end up with kids of their own as their “ownersâ€/rapists sometimes do not use sexual protection, in order to label the girls as their own property. This raises bigger health concerns as these exploited girls are at high risks of having STDs such as HIV/AIDS without being aware of the calamity of the disease.
Role of Coyotes
"Coyote" is the colloquial Mexicanâ€"Spanish used to describe the practice of smuggling people across the U.S.â€"Mexico border. While in the past coyotes would only smuggle persons in to the Unites States, recently coyotes have been forcing these smuggled persons into labor agreements upon reaching the United States. These labor agreements exploit the smuggled persons as it involves working in severe conditions for long hours in agricultural labor, forced prostitution and domestic servitude. With recent efforts by authorities to reduce smuggling across the borders, smuggling costs have increased, making smuggled people indebted to coyotes and thus more susceptible to being victims of human trafficking.
Additional Victim Statistics
Because of the nature of human trafficking, statistics concerning the country of origin of victims of trafficking can be difficult to obtain or may contrast with each other. One report states that from 1993-2003, 500 individuals had been trafficked from 18 different countries into California. 136 survivors came from Thailand, 104 from Mexico, and 53 from Russia. This report states that 5.4% of the victims were from America.
Other reports state that 72% of trafficking victims in California are American. In Orange County, a report made in 2015 said that out of the 225 trafficking victims in Orange County in California, 72% of victims were born in the US while 22% were not.
In San Francisco, of the 499 reported trafficking victims, 117 were from San Francisco, 47 were from other parts of the US, 8 were from Mexico, and 6 were from the Philippines. However, there was not country of origin information for 198 of these victims.
In a report detailing information reported by the National Human Trafficking Hotline, 36% of cases concerned US citizens and 21% cases concerned foreign citizens. However, 42% of cases did not contain demographic information for the victim.
Profiles
Historical Changes
Over the last 10 years, the profiles of both victims and offenders has changed. Women still represent the majority of trafficked victims, but the share of men and children has increased in recent years, in addition to those trafficking for forced labor purposes. Further, domestic trafficking within a country’s borders has also significantly increased. Â
The UNODC points that victims and traffickers often share various backgrounds in terms of:
- Language and ethnicity
- Citizenship
- Gender
- In some cases, family ties
These elements make it easier for traffickers to gain the trust of the victim, recruit the victim, and exploit the victim.
Victim Profiles
There is no single profile for victims, as they come from diverse backgrounds in terms of “race, color, national origin, disability, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, education level, and citizenship statusâ€. However, they all have some form of vulnerability which the trafficker leverages.
These include, but are not limited to:
- Poverty
- Isolation from family and other social networks
- Separation from country of origin
- Drug addiction
- Runaway or homeless youth
- Sexual/physical abuse and incest
Moreover, it is common to see victims coming from war and conflict, as refugees are commonly targeted by traffickers who take advantage of their desperation.
Offender Profiles
A recent study conducted through interviews with traffickers found that most federally convicted offenders either operated alone (57%) or with 1-3 members through social/family ties, with no known organizational support. It was also found that female offenders often served as both victims and offenders, typically in that order. Nearly all those interviewed mentioned that their primary driver was to earn money, and that few options were available to earn a comparable sum. The other leading motivation included pressure by family members.
The UNODC found a global pattern in which men are the largest share of traffickers convicted, but that trafficking also had the highest rate of women convicted in comparison to other crimes. It is thought that the reasons behind this include the transition of victims to offenders, and the use of women to gain trust of victims.
Law
In 2005, California passed Assembly Bill 22, California’s first law setting higher criminal penalties for human trafficking. The law allowed victims to receive financial restitution as it relates to their trafficking experiences and for victims to bring civil action lawsuits against their traffickers.
In 2011, California enacted a new law called the "Transparency in Supply Chains Act." The law requires certain retailers to disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their supply chains. The law went into effect January 1, 2012, and it applies to any company that is in the "retail trade" that has annual worldwide gross receipts in excess of $100 million and annual California sales exceeding $500,000.
In 2012, California Senate Bill1193 was passed which required certain businesses to post a human trafficking hotline in a public location.
California criminal code specifies that the Attorney General should give priority to human trafficking matters. Law enforcement agencies are required to use due diligence in identifying victims. Additional fines are levied against people convicted of trafficking, which is to be used for child sexual abuse prevention and counseling and to serve minor victims of human trafficking.
On June 24, 2015, the California state government introduced Senate Bill 84, a measure that established the Human Trafficking Victims Assistance and mandated that the fund’s money go towards grants to qualified nonprofits, reimbursing them for any costs incurred when assisting victims of human trafficking. The budget behind this fund is a one-time allowance of $10 million.
Assembly Bill 15 passed in October, 2015. It states that for any human trafficking offense, the perpetrator(s) must undergo a civil action lawsuit within seven years of the date that the victim was freed.
In September 2016, California lawmakers passed Assembly Bill 2498, which allows for human trafficking victims’ names, images, and family information to be withheld by local or state police agencies until the related investigation and prosecution is complete.
In September 2016, Assembly Bill 1276 was passed, authorizing minors of 15 years or younger to testify in a human trafficking case.
Senate Bill 1322, passed in September 2016, targets minors’ involvement in commercial sex acts. Before this bill, existing law deemed soliciting or engaging in prostitution, along with loitering in any public area with the objective of engaging in prostitution, a crime. Senate Bill 1322 makes this provision inapplicable to minors under 18 years old who solicited or engaged in prostituting behavior, whom law enforcement would only be able to take into temporary custody under limited circumstances if they were found committing the aforementioned acts.
Also passed in September 2016, Senate Bill 1064 indefinitely extended the life of a pilot program intended to provide “comprehensive, replicative, multidisciplinary model to address the needs and effective treatment of commercially sexually exploited minors." It also expanded the existing legal definition of “commercially sexually exploited minor†to account for minors who have been arrested for engaging in prostitution due to the fact that they have been proven to be commercially exploited.
Illegal Immigrants
The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that the size of the illegal immigrant population in California was approximately 2.6 million in 2010, while it estimates that the size of the illegal immigrant population in the United States was approximately 10.8 million. California is the state with the most illegal immigrant population, followed by Texas. Estimates show that unauthorized immigrants make 7% of the total California population and 9% of California's labor force. Illegal immigrants could either be victims of international human trafficking or easy targets for traffickers because of their illegal status.
According to research at San Diego State University, approximately 30.9% (or 38,458) of undocumented Mexican workers in San Diego county have been victims of human trafficking. They found that around 6% of illegal immigrants were trafficked by their smugglers while entering the United States. 28% were trafficked by their employers after entering the United States. They found that 36% of undocumented Mexicans working in cleaning businesses were victims of human trafficking, 35% of those working in construction, 27% of those working in landscaping, and 16% of those working in agriculture. In an effort to curb the spread of trafficking, California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Mexico Attorney General Marisela Morales Ibáñez signed an accord in 2012 to expand prosecutions of criminals typically members of transnational gangs who engage in the trafficking of human beings between the United States and Mexico.
Criminal Consequences of Trafficking
American federal law prohibits human trafficking through several provisions. Federal law outlaws sex trafficking and labor trafficking in particular as they are defined federally. Federal agencies may enforce these laws either independently or in conjunction with local law enforcement bodies.
California state law defines human trafficking as follows:
"...State law defines human trafficking as violating the liberty of a person with the intent to either (1) commit certain felony crimes (such as prostitution) or (2) obtain forced labor or services."
An adult person found to be involved in human trafficking as defined by the state of California would be punished under state law through a prison sentence of up to five years. If a person under the age of 18 engaged in what the state defines as human trafficking, their actions would be punishable with a prison sentence of up to eight years. Criminal punishments for people found to be engaging in human trafficking are always felonies under California law.
If a person is convicted of obtaining forced labor through human trafficking, he/she faces either five, eight, your twelve years in prison, plus a fine of up to $500,000. If one is found to be committing human trafficking crimes connected to commercial sex trafficking, sexual extortion, or child pornography, he/she faces either eight, fourteen, or twenty years in state prison, a fine of up to $500,000, and the legally mandated responsibility to register as a sex offender. If a person coerces a minor under the age of 18 to engage in commercial sex acts, the persuading actor can receive five to twelve years in prison or a prison sentence of fifteen years to life if the relevant jury determines that he/she used "force, fear, violence, or threat of injury to the alleged victim"; a $500,000 fine; and the requirement to register as a sex offender.
Examples
In 1995, about 70 Thai garment workers were found and released from a labor trafficking ring in El Monte City in Los Angeles County in the El Monte Thai Garment Slavery Case. The workers had been lured to the United States and then forced against their will to continually work in a garment factory for $1.60 an hour. Additionally, the prisoners were not allowed outside and were told their families would be harmed and their homes burned if they tried to escape. This case eventually resulted in the creation of laws that allowed for survivors of human trafficking to gain visas.
In 2000, Supawan Veerapool was sentenced to 8 years of prison after her two previous domestic servants escaped. Veerapool confiscated her domestic servants' passports, limited where they could go, and forced them to work for 17 hours a day. T
Lakireddy Bali Reddy was one of Berkeley's richest real estate tycoons and restaurateurs, who operated a sex trafficking ring in Berkeley California. His victims were continually raped and forced to work in his restaurants and rental properties. He was discovered when one of his slaves died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He was convicted and served a little less than an eight-year sentence in Lompoc Federal Prison. His sentence prompted a public conversation which led to reform to California law regarding human trafficking.
Sammy Cheung was a human sex-trafficker who lured and trafficked women and girls from Mexico across the international border. He made them work as prostitutes in Long Beach, and in 2000, police discovered and raided his brothel.
JB Farm Labor contractor hired hundreds to work on an asparagus farm in San Joaquin County. Once hired, they were held hostage and threatened with physical harm if they complained to authorities. After California Rural Legal Assistance was unable to locate JB Farm Labor contractor, they sued the grower, who eventually paid-back the workers.
The Trans Bay Steel, Inc. contracted with Kota Manpower Co., and Hi Cap Enterprises, Inc., to hire 48 weld workers to work on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. However, only 9 went to work with Trans Bay Steel. The others were held against their will, had their passports confiscated, had their movements restricted, and were forced to work without pay at Thai restaurants owned by Kota Manpower and Hi-Cap in Los Angeles and Long Beach. In December 2016, Trans Bay Steel was sued by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and forced to pay an estimated $1 million in relief and compensation.
Sammy Cheung was a human sex-trafficker who lured and trafficked women and girls from Mexico across the international border. He made them work as prostitutes in Long Beach, and in 2000, police discovered and raided his brothel.
Prominent Locations in California for Trafficking
Los Angeles
Los Angeles is one of the three major entry points for human trafficking in the US, and in 2009 the FBI listed Los Angeles as one of the top 13 child sex-trafficking areas in the nation.
Los Angeles is a hotspot for human trafficking because of its diverse population, international connections, and involvement in the fashion industry.This diverse population can create language barriers for survivors of human trafficking, which combined with a fear of violence and law enforcement, can help to hide survivors.
From December 7, 2007 to December 31, 2016, there were 2,803 total calls (the third most calls per city) made to the National Human Trafficking Hotline from the Los Angeles area. The hotline reported that 884 of these cases had high or moderate characteristics of human trafficking (the second largest number of cases per city).
In Los Angeles, a sex trafficker makes, on average, $49,000 per victim. The average onset age for girls and boys subjected to child trafficking in Los Angeles is 12-14 and 11-13 years of age respectively. Survivors have an average lifespan of 7 years after their first encounter with trafficking, where HIV/AIDS or homicide are the largest causes of death.It has also been noted that Los Angeles street gangs are heavily involved with human trafficking.
Because human trafficking tends to be hidden in plain sight, Los Angeles has been focusing on public awareness campaigns in hopes that more people will notice possible indicators of human trafficking. Additionally, in 2015 the Los Angeles Regional Human Trafficking Task Force was launched. This task force works with a number of government and local organizations to address the issues associated with human trafficking. A significant focus of this regional task force is to work with the LASD Human Trafficking Unit to change the way that child survivors are handled and by focusing on the fact that they are victims not criminals.
In 2018, Los Angeles headed the three day “Operation Reclaim and Rebuild†to create a large scale attack on human trafficking. 80 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and task forces participated in the operation. 510 arrests were made with 30 suspected traffickers and more than 50 human trafficking survivors saved (45 adults, 11 children) statewide.
San Diego
The FBI also listed San Diego as one of top 13 child sex-trafficking areas in the United States. San Diego’s close proximity to the international border, diverse population, and presence of seaports and airports makes it vulnerable to human trafficking. Survivors of human trafficking usually experience sexual trafficking or forced labor in fishing and agricultural industries in San Diego.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline received 1,333 calls from San Diego (10th most calls among cities) and 335 of these were determined to have high or moderate indicators associated with human trafficking (11th most) from December 7, 2007 to December 31, 2016.
The San Diego District Attorney’s Office concluded that there are at least 8,000 human trafficking survivors currently in San Diego and that human trafficking is the second largest underground economy in San Diego after drug trafficking, creating an $810 million profit. Other reports have claimed that there are between 3,417 to 8,108 sex trafficking survivors in San Diego. Additionally, 31% of Spanish Speaking immigrants living in San Diego have been subjected to human trafficking.
In one report, out of 20 high schools in San Diego interviewed, all had reported that sex trafficking recruitment had taken place on their campus, while 90% of schools had sex-trafficking cases. Additionally, around 110 gangs were found to be involved in human trafficking in San Diego. Those living in foster care or who are homeless were found to be the most vulnerable to human trafficking. Furthermore, a presence of international criminal networks used to traffic children and adults across the border was noted.
San Diego has created the Ugly Truth Campaign and Out of the Shadows in order to raise public awareness of the local presence of human trafficking in San Diego. Additionally, Out of the Shadows focuses on providing resources for survivors of human trafficking.
San Francisco
The FBI also listed San Francisco as one of the top 13 locations in the nation where child sex-trafficking occurs. Similarly to Los Angeles and San Diego, San Francisco is vulnerable to human trafficking because of the presence of seaports and airports and diverse population.
From December 7, 2007 to December 31, 2016, the National Human Trafficking Hotline reported that there were 1,102 calls and 302 cases concerning human trafficking from San Francisco area (12th most per US city).
In 2013, the Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking was created to eliminate gaps in services to survivors of human trafficking and create a victim-centered approach to treating survivors. This task force consisted of a Child Sex Trafficking Committee, a Labor Trafficking Committee, and a Sex Work and Trafficking Policy Impact Committee.
From July 2014 to December 2014, 291 human trafficking survivors were identified in San Francisco, with 224 being female and 118 of them being children. In 2015, 499 survivors of human trafficking were identified in San Francisco, with 122 being minors, 283 being adults, and 94 being unknown; 54% of these cases involved sex trafficking. In 2015, the National Human Trafficking Hotline noted that 80% of the calls from San Francisco concerning human trafficking involved women.
Illegal immigrants
According to research at San Diego State University, approximately 30.9% (or 38,458) of undocumented Mexican workers in San Diego county have been victims of human trafficking. They found that around 6% of illegal immigrants were trafficked by their smugglers while entering the United States. 28% were trafficked by their employers after entering the United States. They found that 36% of undocumented Mexicans working in cleaning businesses were victims of human trafficking, 35% of those working in construction, 27% of those working in landscaping, and 16% of those working in agriculture. In an effort to curb the spread of trafficking, California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Mexico Attorney General Marisela Morales Ibáñez signed an accord in 2012 to expand prosecutions of criminals typically members of transnational gangs who engage in the trafficking of human beings between the United States and Mexico.
Regional Anti-Human Trafficking Task Forces
California does not have a single task force to combat human trafficking, but instead has nine regional task forces. The U.S. Department of Justice awarded grants to create six regional task forces in 2004 and 2005, and in 2009 and 2010, the California Emergency Management Agency used American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant funds to create three new regional task forces. Task forces and made up of law enforcement and local, state, and federal prosecutors, as well as other governmental leaders and nongovernmental organizations. The task forces are as follows:
- East Bay Human Trafficking Task Force
- Fresno Coalition Against Human Trafficking
- Los Angeles Metro Area Task Force on Human Trafficking
- North Bay Human Trafficking Task Force
- Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force
- Riverside County Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force
- Sacramento Innocence Lost Task Force
- San Diego North County Anti-Trafficking Task Force
- San Jose/South Bay Human Trafficking Task Force
Organizations
For a list of other organizations, please visit California’s Department of Justice Website.
- 1736 Family Crisis Center is a Los Angeles nonprofit shelter and outpatient services for domestic violence survivors, runaway and homeless youth, low-income people, and persons in crisis. Women, children and families can access life saving support 24 hours a day through five shelters, four community service centers and five crisis and suicide hotlines.
- Community Service Program (CSP) provides comprehensive services to adult and minor victims of international or domestic trafficking involving commercial sex or forced labor, who were victimized in Orange County, or who are survivors currently living in Orange County, CA.
- Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) is a Los Angeles-based anti-human trafficking organization. Through legal, social, and advocacy services, CAST helps rehabilitate survivors of human trafficking, raises awareness, and affects legislation and public policy surrounding human trafficking.
- California Against Slavery is an organization that focused on passing the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation (CASE) Act.
- Slavery Footprint is an Oakland-based organization that seeks to raise the awareness of slavery. They investigated the supply lines of 400 consumer products to determine the likely number of slaves it takes to make each of those products. They put the information into an online survey where you can determine the number of slaves that are needed to maintain your personal lifestyle.
- H.E.A.T Watch is an Alameda county-based effort to combat under the leadership of the county's district attorney. It sponsors H.E.A.T. Watch Radio which has news stories and interviews about the commercial sexual exploitation of children and human trafficking.
- Not for Sale is an international non-profit organization based out of San Francisco, California that works to protect people and communities around the world from human trafficking and modern-day slavery.
- The Standing Against Global Exploitation Project (SAGE Project) is a project based in San Francisco that focuses on raising awareness about and providing support for victims of sexual exploitation.
- Orange County Human Trafficking task force focuses on ending human trafficking in the county of Orange.
- South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking is based in the area south of the San Francisco bay. It has a hotline and offers training courses for professionals and interested individuals.
- Sacramento Against Sex Slavery in Massage Parlors is a Sacramento-based organizations that focuses on ending sex slavery in massage parlors.
- The Thai Community Development Center is a Los Angeles based anti-human trafficking organization that works to bring redress and restitution to Thai victims of human trafficking.
See also
- History of enslavement of indigenous peoples in California