It takes a village...

MIAMI GARDENS | The phrase was repeated by nearly every speaker at a conference sponsored by St. Thomas University�s Human Trafficking Academy: It takes everybody to stop the enslavement and exploitation of human beings.

That includes police agencies and prosecutors, churches and social service agencies, consumers and investors, academics and researchers, cyber trackers and watchful neighbors.

�Government cannot do this alone,� said Warren Eth, assistant state attorney for Miami-Dade County and a member of the county�s Human Trafficking Task Force.

�Collaboration needs to happen for this to be successful,� said Esther Jacobo, regional managing director for the Southern Region of the Department of Children and Families.

�We as investors can really influence human trafficking,� said Lauren Compere, managing director and director of shareholder engagement for Boston Common Asset Management.

�Write to the companies that provide you the products that you use,� said Martina Vandenberg, a fellow at the Open Society Foundations in Washington, D.C. �Really, what matters is pressure from consumers.�

Bringing all these local and national experts together was the goal of �Leave No Stone Unturned: Creative Strategies in Combating Human Trafficking,� a two-week training course hosted by St. Thomas. The attendees July 16-20 were first responders such as police and federal agents, firefighters and legal professionals; the July 23-27 session was aimed at service providers such as health care professionals, educators and members of religious organizations.

The course took a hiatus July 20 for a day-long cram session that was open to the public. One of the key insights gleaned from the speakers was the broad definition of human trafficking. It encompasses enslavement for cheap labor as well as enslavement for the sex trade, and it does not always occur across national borders or with illegal immigrants.

While law enforcement and the media have focused mostly on victims of sexual exploitation, �over 14 million are in slavery related to labor trafficking,� said Compere, who works at the corporate level to hold businesses accountable. Often that means having investors convince management that a murky labor supply chain is bad for the bottom line, as it exposes the company to lawsuits and bad publicity.

Both she and Vandenberg cited the role of labor contractors who provide large hotel chains with the workers who clean the rooms and make the beds. Not all of those who are trafficked for those jobs are illegal immigrants. Many are here on work visas whose revocations can be used as a form of coercion by the labor contractor.

�The labor recruiters are making out like bandits,� said Vandenberg, because they collect fees � often exorbitant ones � from both the people who are seeking jobs and the companies that hire them.

Instances of enslaved labor have been documented not just in public corporations but in the U.S. military as well, she said, leading to �zero tolerance� amendments in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, the rules that govern federal agencies� purchase of goods and services.

The problem of enslaved labor is especially common in agriculture, which is specifically excluded from the Fair Labor Standards Act.

�Farm labor remains among the worst and least protected jobs in the country,� said Veronica Musa, an attorney for the Sarasota-based Fair Food Standards Council.

She compared the plight of farm workers today to that of textile workers at the turn of the 20th century: paid by the piece, with no overtime, no benefits and no collective bargaining rights. The typical annual salary is between $10,000 and $12,000, and they are effectively earning less than they did 30 years ago.

The Fair Food Standards Council is an independent organization that monitors compliance with the Fair Food Program, which in turn grew out of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers� campaign to be paid an extra penny per pound of tomatoes picked. The campaign targets the largest purchasers of Florida�s tomatoes � fast food establishments such as Taco Bell and grocery chains such as Publix � to create upward pressure on prices from the consumer end. That extra penny is then passed on to the farm workers by the growers.

Companies that agree to pay the extra penny also agree to buy only from growers who abide by a code of conduct that explicitly requires them to hire the farm workers directly, not through a labor contractor.

Eth, of the state attorney�s office, said his office�s �primary focus at this point is human sexual trafficking,� which he described as �an acute problem.�

He said prosecutions in these cases are �intricate, difficult and time-consuming.� One contact often leads to a web of exploited women and minors, and �the victims are at times reluctant to turn over who they see as their savior.�

Often prosecutors will find the hard evidence they need in the trafficker�s computer: graphic images of minors engaged in sexual activities. That is where technology helps, making it possible to charge the traffickers and pimps under child pornography laws.

�Runaways are a huge problem. Unfortunately, it takes a community to realize what is going on,� Eth said.

Miami has the highest number of teenage runaways in Florida, Jacobo pointed out. The Safe Harbor Act recently passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Scott, which goes into effect in January, gives her department a tool for identifying, treating and ultimately releasing exploited children.

In addition, she said, �everybody is a mandated reporter� when it comes to child sexual abuse.

�Trafficking in human beings is modern day slavery,� said Roza Pati, a law professor who directs both the Human Trafficking Academy and St. Thomas Law School�s Intercultural Human Rights program. She called it �a scourge to humanity and a violation of every human right. This phenomenon has to end.�