“Modern-Day Slavery”

In recent years, there has been a disturbing increase in the reports of slavery of immigrants.  Fees charged by smugglers to bring migrants unlawfully to the United States from Mexico have increased from a few hundred dollars in the 1990s to a few thousand today.  Fees are much higher for natives of other countries, including rthose in Asia, for example.  At times, migrants have been forced to work off smuggling fees in a type of indentured servitude arrangement.  Forced labor is often publicized in the sex industry but is a more general labor market problem in agriculture, domestic service, hotels and restaurants, and the garment industry.

The N.Y. Times reports on a criminal trial in U.S. District Court in New York that has been going on for the past month. The defendants are charged with what the federal criminal statutes refer to as involuntary servitude and peonage. Two Indonesian women, the government charged in its indictment, were victims of “modern-day slavery.”   Accoring to the Times, “since passage of the 2000 federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, prosecutions have increased from less than a handful nationwide per year to about a dozen. The law is probably best known for its focus on prostitution and child-sex traffickers; yet in the last few years, in a few highly publicized cases like [this one], federal and state task forces set up to deal with sex trafficking have also begun to focus on the exploitation of domestic workers.”

KJ