Slavery and Torture on Long Island

Robert E. Kessler, in an article in the L.A. Times (here), reports on recent develeopments in a case of an affluent Long Island couple charged with slavery and harboring illegal residents. The defendants, who operate a worldwide perfume business, have pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors said that one of the defendant’s mother recently had tried to bribe the son-in-law of one of the two Indonesian women who were allegedly enslaved and tortured. The $2,500 bribe was conditioned on the alleged victim’s return to Indonesia, prosecutors said. Prosecutors have previously said the woman who is the subject of the purported bribe had been repeatedly tortured.

Unfortunately, claims of slavery and involuntary servitude are too common nowadays. For immigrants seeking entry at the U.S./Mexico border, smuggling fees have increased from a few hundred dollars in the 1990s to a few thousand dollars today. The cause — the border enforcement build-up over the last decade, which has not stopped people from coming but has made the passage more difficult and dangerous. Today, smugglers may bring immigrants to this country and require them to work off their debt. While some of the noncitizens are forced to work in the sex industry, it is a general labor markert problem, as my colleague Jennifer Chacón has thoughtfully written.

KJ