Immigrants from nations like Guatemala, Mexico, and China often head to America in hopes of securing gainful employment and becoming legal citizens. These dreams do not always come true. Many of these immigrants find themselves being smuggled into the country. From there, they are made to work long, grueling shifts in the food industry.
They are given cramped living spaces and their meager fees are docked as a means of reimbursement for the “favor” that has been done for them. Piece rate employment now exists as a form of modern slavery and this is when an employee is awarded a fixed amount of income for the work that is performed, regardless of the time it takes.
Polaris is an organization that is dedicated to assisting these employees. Their recent report on the matter is a true eye-opener. They are providing important details when it comes to human trafficking and their report is broken down into a wide range of different business models.
There are 25 business models that are currently reliant on human trafficking. Restaurants are not the only business that was found to be utilizing this illicit labor pipeline. Nail salons, domestic service providers, and hotel chains were also named in the Polaris report.
Human trafficking has become so diverse that it is essentially impossible to narrow down to one form. Each type requires a different plan of attack. The aforementioned report is designed to serve as a major breakthrough in this field.
This is the largest set of data that has ever been compiled on the matter. Over 30,000 reports of human trafficking were analyzed and over 10,000 labor exploitation reports were examined. The objective of the report? To identify the victims of trafficking and the parties responsible.
The study also focused on the methods that are being used as a means of recruiting and controlling the victims who are being affected by this practice. The report is considered to be a game changer that will have a positive effect on the current environment.
Prosecutors have struggled to tell the difference between sex trafficking and labor trafficking and this makes proper enforcement far more difficult. In order to properly identify and disrupt the networks responsible for these activities, the correct discernment needs to be made.
The agriculture industry and bars were also targeted in the study. The agriculture industry was found to have targeted workers by promising them a chance for a gainful form of employment that paid at an hourly rate. Instead, they were paid at a piece rate once they showed up in the United States.
Medical care and protective gear are not being provided to these workers either. At least one in five victims is believed to be a minor. The language barriers that exist between employers and these employees are being exploited as a means of avoiding detection.
In some cases, the employers were even found to have threatened their employees with deportation. Immigrants’ families were also threatened with bodily harm. Polaris established a hotline for the purposes of the study and their findings are derived from phone calls and text messages.
While this means that there are limits to what can be found, it is believed that this report is just the tip of the iceberg. There are also indications that human traffickers will also force victims into prostitution and that they are members of larger criminal organizations.
If you have any further questions on these matters, be sure to visit our website. We are fully dedicated to eradicating these types of business practices and we are here to uphold all of your rights.
