Daily Titan Staff Writer
Published: February 22, 2010
[TRAFFICKING MONITOR: Graphics accessible through URL below.]
Graphic courtesy of MCT
A housewife recognizes a white van pulling in – and later out – of a neighbor’s driveway. This van is filled with children. The van is always filled with children when she sees it, which is almost daily. It appears consistently during hours when the children should be in school.
The housewife calls 1-888–373–7888, a hot line for community members to leave tips about things that don’t seem right.
The call sparks an investigation. The authorities reveal to the housewife that the children were used for child pornography.
People Against Trafficking and Human Exploitation (PATHE) and Californians Against Slavery (CAS), a grassroots organization, have joined forces to strike down Assembly Bill 22 and replace it with a new California law that will be tougher on people who traffic humans into slavery, prostitution and forced labor.
California’s current law makes it hard for those who traffic humans to be prosecuted, and requires people who traffic adults to spend three to five years in prison while those caught trafficking minors spend four to eight years in prison, said Karina Gutierrez, 20, co-founder and president of PATHE.
“And that is not per person. That’s doing the act in general,” Gutierrez said. “So that really isn’t enough and this organization came about to change that.”
With the help of lawyers, CAS drafted an initiative that, if passed, would command anyone caught trafficking adults into slavery to spend six to 16 years in prison and pay a $300,000 fine. Trafficking a minor without force would carry a sentence of five to 11 years in prison and a $300,000 fine, instead of the four to eight years in prison that the current law necessitates. The initiative asks that anyone trafficking a minor with force receive 15 years to life in prison and pays a fine of $500,000. The law would also require police officers to take a 2 hour mandatory training course on how to deal with human trafficking and slavery.
Gutierrez said the money from fines will be given to organizations who help victims of human trafficking and also be used for preventive mechanisms to stop the problem.
There are two steps the organizations have to walk the initiative through to get it passed. First, CAS has to prove Californians are petitioning for the initiative and collect one million signatures from registered voters by March 31. PATHE is responsible for 5,000 signatures.
Only after one million signatures are collected does the initiative get on the ballot where Californians can vote on it.
Gutierrez said Project PATHE is recruiting people on campus to assist with gathering the one million signatures. The club will meet in TSU’s Gillman AB on Feb. 17 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
During Project PATHE’s meeting on Feb. 10, Gutierrez said that 18,000 to 20,000 persons are trafficked into the United States each year for the purposes of sexual exploitation or forced labor. She also said there is more slavery going on today than ever before in history.
“It angers me a lot,” Gutierrez said. “Not only because of the gravity of the situation. It angers me that this society that we live in does not recognize it as a problem.”
The average age of someone being trafficked is 13 years old, Gutierrez said.
Brian Delvecchio, a 27-year-old senior, said the current laws are nowhere near where they should be.
“I think its necessary for laws to reflect the seriousness of their crimes,” he said. “When you slap someone with a $300,000 fine, that’s a pretty big slap in the face.”
Gutierrez said when people turn down signing a petition, it is often because they aren’t informed enough to know well enough about the issue to want to sign. She said more information and education about the initiative and human trafficking will help society do more about it.
A trafficker will often approach a teen who looks lonely and vulnerable, said Gutierrez. The trafficker befriends the teen and forms a psychological bond by providing food, shelter, love and anything else the at-risk teen needs. The trafficker establishes trust with the teen and after a few weeks takes advantage of that trust. The teen is then trafficked – sometimes into prostitution.
Zach Taylor, 26, who is pursuing a master’s degree in business, said he is going to sign the petition.
“A stricter law would be beneficial because it’s such an immoral crime,” he said. “So enforcing a more strict penalty will probably be beneficial to stop future crimes from happening, especially when it’s such an immoral and disgusting thing to begin with.”
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Anti-slavery activists fight to replace current human trafficking law | Daily Titan
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