These people happen to be victims of false promises who were lured with the idea of well paid jobs and a higher standard of living. The traffickers often employ psychological tactics in forcing their victims to submission. Routinely the travel and identification documents of the victims are seized and they are threatened with dire consequences for their family members back home if they attempted escape or to inform the local police. Many of these victims end up in brothels, massage parlors, domestic services or forced into factory labor. [ICE, 2010] the victims are often physically abused, injected with drugs and suffer from a high risk for HIV and other sexual infections.
The Problem of Arizona
Arizona, being a border city happens to be the hub of not only illegal immigration operations but also of organized human trafficking. Thousands of people from Mexico and other Central American countries are smuggled into the U.S. And coerced into prostitution and forced labor. As U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke said recently, "It occurs largely in the shadows,." The victims do not come forward to the law enforcement officials for fear of retribution. Officer Kevin Jeter, a special agent who is in charge of the ICE investigations in the Yuma region of south western Arizona says, "Running illicit prostitution rings disguised as massage parlors is a common tactic used by human-trafficking organizations," [Daniel Gonzalez, 2010]. Based on the U.S. bureau of justice statistics, in the 21 months from Jan 2007, the State of Arizona has witnessed 1,229 incidents of human trafficking with more than 80% of the cases being forced into commercial sex trade. Back in 2003, the U.S. department of Justice funded the formation of Arizona League to End Regional Trafficking (ALERT), a coalition network between the law enforcement agencies, NGO organizations, social service agencies and dutiful citizens in an all out effort to end the miseries of human trafficking victims in the state. This initiative was developed to encourage more active partnerships with the various organizations and to encourage pro-active reporting by the public and to provide direct support services to victims of human trafficking in the State.[ALERT]
The passing of the new immigration bill SB 1070 in Arizona has however, created more concern among human rights defenders. Under this bill, all illegal immigrants can now be imprisoned. Many worry that this new bill may in fact increase human trafficking as victims may no longer wish to come forward to the law enforcement agencies to report their circumstances for fear of being arrested and deported. Since these victims no longer are in possession of their travel documents, and in most cases are likely to have expired status, they will be less inclined to report their misery to police. That is to say that under this bill all human trafficking victims could possibly be considered as criminals. As a UNICEF survey reported, "trafficking is not declining at all, but has simply become less visible, with victims unwilling to seek assistance for fear of repatriation, deportation and stigmatisation." [UNICEF] This new bill by the Arizona government is thought of as a negative step that strengthens the hold of the drug cartels and other organized crime networks across the Mexican border as it hinders the innocent victims from seeking help. The bill will also affect undocumented immigrant workers who are subjected to domestic violence from seeking legal help. [Amanda Kloer, 2010]
Police Response to Human Trafficking
Though the levels of Human trafficking continues to surge, swift and well planned police response has burst many a human trafficking network across the country and released many young girls and women from bonded labor and forced sex trade. The Immigration and Customs enforcement officers are the main players in controlling human trafficking operations. As Erik Breitzke, the head of the ICE's Human Smuggling and Trafficking Unit says, "One of the most disturbing trends in recent years has been the increasing sophistication of criminal networks when it comes to trafficking in human beings. This requires a sophisticated law enforcement response, and no other agency has ICE's combined authorities for enforcing immigration and customs laws, which gives us a set of powerful tools for attacking these organizations" [ICE] .
Once the police receive a tip of a sex trade, detectives are immediately pressed into detailed surveillance operations. Once the surveillance operations confirm the suspicion, police officers then employ undercover agents to get an inside view of the gang operation. One of the recent successful undercover operations in human trafficking was 'Operation Guardian Angel'. 'Guardian Angel' was a joint operation by the Human Trafficking Rescue Project, a joint task force from the Independence Police Department, the FBI, ICE, and the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department. This...
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Human Trafficking The State Department of the U.S. Government has for the past ten years issued an annual report on the state of laws governing human trafficking. The latest report shows that most of the world's industrialized countries have enacted laws to protect against human trafficking. This includes recognizing that human trafficking is a problem and having taken steps to address the issue (Wu & Zifcak, 2010). Most countries in the
Human trafficking is a form of present-day slavery characterized by the use of coercion, fraud and force to exploit people for commercial benefits. Each year, a huge number of women, men and children worldwide, incorporating in the United States, fall victim of human trafficking. Victimized people are frequently attracted with false guarantees of well-paying occupations or controlled by individuals they trust. Instead, they are compelled or coerced into domestic servitude,
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