Slave Next Door (4 page)

cal and psychological. The second—hard labor for little or no

pay—clearly applies as well. Slaves receive nothing beyond subsistence.

The third criterion is economic exploitation—making a profit for the

slaveholder. No one enslaves another simply out of meanness, at least

not at first; slavery is about money. All three of these conditions are vital

to the definition, but the most crucial is violent control and the result-

ant loss of free will. When we aren’t sure if someone is, in fact, a slave,

we can ask one basic question: “Can this person walk away?” In

America, more and more frequently the answer is “no.”8

That’s why, ironically, most slaves in America are volunteers at first.

Today the slave takers rarely have to coerce or kidnap their victims. All

the criminals have to do is open a door to “opportunity” and the slaves

walk in. Slave recruiters all over the world appear friendly and full of

news about good jobs with good pay. There may even be a little money

for the rest of the family as an “advance” on the big wages to be earned.

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1 4 / S L AV E S I N T H E L A N D O F T H E F R E E

This helps ease the victims out of their homes and into the pipeline that

will deliver them into slavery.

Once they are in the pipeline, their documents are taken away “for

safekeeping.” The transit house where they stay at night is locked up

“to keep everyone safe.” They are fed little, and the “boss” purposely

keeps them awake most of the night. Within a few days, sleep depriva-

tion, hunger, and isolation take their toll, and confusion and depend-

ence set in. Disoriented, they are constantly reminded that soon they’ll

be working regular jobs in America.

They have no idea that they are, in fact, slaves, as they walk, ride, fly,

or float further into bondage. Once inside the United States, far from

family, without any proof of identity, unable to speak the language,

hungry, confused, and now threatened, they become aware of their situ-

ation. If they resist or try to leave, they are punished. It is a story that is

played out all over the world. There are variations on the theme; some-

times the recruiter is a friend of the family, sometimes the violence

begins before the border is crossed. Some victims are brought into the

country via major airports and harbors holding real or spurious docu-

ments, while others huddle in the backs of vans or wade across the Rio

Grande. But ultimately, the result is the same.

A M E LT I N G P O T O F S L AV E S

In 2004 the antislavery organization Free the Slaves teamed up with the

Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley to carry

out the first large-scale study of slavery in America. They found people

trafficked from at least thirty-five countries working against their will in

the United States. Currently, the largest group of victims seems to be

Chinese, followed by Mexicans and Vietnamese; but this can change,

depending on shifts in global economics and politics.9 Between 1999

and 2004, documented slavery cases were reported in at least ninety

U.S. cities. These tended to be larger cities in states with sizable immi-

grant communities, such as California, Florida, New York, and Texas—

all of which are on the transit routes for international travelers.

Most slaves in America, like Maria and Alejandro, come here hoping

to start new and better lives. This is the terrible irony about American

slavery. People are turned into slaves for doing what any one of us would

do—in fact, what many of our own parents, or their parents, did. When

many families today face the same circumstances they also pick up and

move, inspired by desperation, courage, and determination. Some will

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T H E O L D S L AV E R Y A N D T H E N E W / 1 5

succeed. But for many others, the land of opportunity includes a one-

way ticket into bondage.

H O M E G R O W N S L AV E S

Not all slavery in America involves undocumented immigrants. Some

victims are born and raised in the United States and find themselves

pressed into slavery by deception or sheer violence. In January 2003, a

terrified seventeen-year-old girl ran into a store in a suburban mall in

Detroit and grabbed a security guard. She pleaded with him for help, as

a group of men and women burst into the store pursuing her. Seeing

that the girl was shaking and bruised, the guard stood up to the thugs

and threw them out of the store. Once he had her safe, he called the

police, and the girl told her story.

The teenager explained to authorities that a man and a woman had

abducted her months before while she was waiting at a bus stop in

downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Her captors drove her to Detroit, where

she was held in a house with other female captives and forced to have

sex with male visitors. The captives were never left alone, but were

escorted around the house, even to the bathroom. An older woman

kept the younger ones in line by threatening and sometimes beating

them. Each day the girls were given a new assignment. Some would go

to malls in the metro Detroit area to sell jewelry and trinkets; others

would be forced to dance and strip for private parties and to perform

sex acts.

The girls’ captors “did that punishment-reward thing,” a police

investigator said. “They would get their nails and hair done. If they

stepped out of line, they got beat down. Some of the senior women

acted as enforcers.”

One day, on a trip to the mall with several others, the girl managed

to escape. After the security guard called the police, the young girl

directed them to the house where she had been enslaved. The resulting

bust led to the exposure of a multistate ring of forced prostitution

involving midwestern women and girls, some as young as thirteen.

Police discovered that the traffickers had been operating a forced pros-

titution ring since as early as 1995 by kidnapping teenage girls and

transporting them to cities throughout the Midwest.

Not surprisingly, the victims are still experiencing severe emotional

problems. “The devastation [this] has brought on these young women is

just immeasurable,” the prosecutor said.10

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The young girl enslaved from the bus stop was a native-born

American, with native-born parents and a life little different from that

of most American children. When she left home that day, the last thing

she expected was to be abducted and forced into prostitution. The par-

asitic traffickers are students of opportunity, seducing or stealing their

victims where they can, all over America. One government official has

asserted that about half the trafficking victims in this country are chil-

dren.11 And while studies point to runaway or throwaway children as

the likeliest victims, no one is exempt.

Over and over, the story of enslavement plays itself out across our

country. Every day our newspapers carry stories of human trafficking,

yet we remain oblivious. Through our ignorance and worse yet, our lack

of interest, we enable slavery. Unless we heed the wake-up call, slavery

will continue to spread. Our children are also endangered by a different,

subtler threat—apathy. Kids learn from their parents, and if nonin-

volvement is what we teach, by word or example, then that is exactly

what they will learn and how they will live.

F R E E D O M A N D T H E F U T U R E

Federal law classifies tens of thousands of people in the United States as

slaves, yet most Americans can’t see them. If we are going to free slaves,

ensure that they get to build new lives, and help our government enforce

its own antislavery laws, we must understand what slavery is today and

where it is going. We cannot solve a problem we don’t understand. In

writing this book, we have had to face up to some basic questions: How

can any American, who began nearly every day of his or her young life

with the phrase, “with liberty and justice for all,” possibly enslave

another? What is wrong with our country that it allows slave masters to

live—and flourish—untroubled among us? What more can we as citi-

zens do to fix this problem? And what will it take for our government,

which serves at the will and for the good of its people, to dedicate the

needed resources, both money and personnel, to destroying this evil?

On our journey we looked hard into the many faces of slavery. Now

we can introduce you to the traffickers—from the single
coyote
to the

crime syndicate. Victims of slavery will speak in this book, as well those

who are struggling against terrific odds to find and free the slaves. We

also want to share what we have learned about recognizing slavery in

your own town or neighborhood. The more we learned, the more we’ve

had to admit our own complicity. We discovered that the simplest daily

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T H E O L D S L AV E R Y A N D T H E N E W / 1 7

purchases Americans make can contribute to keeping people in

bondage. It turns out that all of us are responsible for perpetuating slav-

ery by buying, wearing, eating, and using the products of slave labor,

from cell phones and laptops, to the fruit and vegetables on our tables,

to the clothes we wear.

Slavery is in our homes, neighborhoods, and cities, and little is being

done about it. Together, we can change that. In these pages, you’ll meet

police officers on the street, high-ranking government officials, and Good

Samaritans—everyday people, fighting to make an impact. Tough ques-

tions will be asked of government agencies whose roles include—or

should include—the discovery, liberation, and support of slaves and the

arrest and prosecution of their traffickers. While the problem is huge,

our journey has taught us that it is within our power to end slavery in

America; and we will offer ideas on how to achieve a final emancipation.

America was born with the congenital disease of slavery, and, legal or

illegal, it has never left us. Today, we are still conflicted about our slave-

holding past and its ugly aftermath. We study it, lament it, and argue it

as a haunting presence from our darker history. Yet while we were look-

ing the other way, slavery in America evolved into a whole new beast

that lives in darkness among us and feeds on ignorance and misery.

Only through our awareness, our concern, and our commitment can it

be driven out. The aim of
The Slave Next Door
is to provide the aware-

ness and hopefully inspire the concern and the commitment. It’s both

challenging and exhilarating to know that we really can be the genera-

tion to end this nation-long affliction.

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2

H O U S E S L AV E S

S L AV E RY B E G I N S AT H O M E

Domestic slavery is unique among the many types of bondage in that it

is less about
making
money than it is about
saving
money. The slave-

holder, like Sandra Bearden, is stealing services for his or her own ben-

efit rather than for profit. This form of slavery is also cheaper to operate

than the others: bring in the victim, and she’s yours for years.1 Her keep

requires minimal food and clothing, little or no medicine, and a mat-

tress on the floor of the utility room. There are no start-up costs, as in a

factory or on a farm; a domestic slave can be held very cheaply. What’s

more, U.S. government immigration policies have made the importation

of a domestic slave remarkably easy for foreign diplomats and others.

It seems that the second-highest number of human trafficking victims

in the United States are enslaved domestics.2 But there are no large-scale

domestic slavery rings; it is not the type of offense that lends itself to crime

syndicates. Victims are sold one or two at a time, through “mom and

pop” operations, requiring only an outside consumer who is complicit in

the crime. Frequently, a woman becomes a domestic slave through legal

channels, coming here on her own with a legitimate work visa. Only once

she is under the slaveholder’s roof does her life in bondage begin.

The underlying characteristic of domestic slavery is total control of

mind and body. This normally involves threats and violence. That first

beating goes a long way toward keeping an enslaved domestic in line.

With the proper indoctrination, the slave soon becomes completely

dependent and unable to leave. She is at the mercy of her keepers, and

the degree of humiliation and abuse she suffers rests entirely with them.

S L AV E S D O N ’ T W E A R S I G N S

Most trafficked domestics remain under the control of their keepers for

years, so well hidden behind the curtains of suburban homes that we

never notice them. Joy Zarembka, who now directs the Break the Chain

1 8

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