On Nov. 9, Dr. Mary Anderson’s American Government class will be hosting a Human Trafficking Event to remind students that slavery is still prevalent around the world.
“It is important to have events like this on campus, because most kids in college think slavery ended during the Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln’s presidency,” said Amanda Beaulieu, one of the students in Anderson’s class.
However, HumanTrafficking.org states than an estimated 14,500 to 17,000 individuals are forced into labor-intensive fields in the United States alone.
The event will be held in the Reeves Theater at 7 pm. Senior Staff Attorney with the Human Rights Program at the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU) Chandra Bhatnagar will be the keynote speaker. Centering his practice on the junction of racial justice and immigration, Bhatnager focuses on the rights of undocumented workers, low-wage immigrant workers and guest workers. His office has made significant headway in the case David, et al. v. Signal International, LLC, et al., a putative class action lawsuit on behalf of over 500 men trafficked to the U.S. from India as guest workers who were subjected to abuse and involuntary servitude.
He will be speaking about this case, potentially one of the largest human trafficking cases the U.S. has seen, at the event.
Lieutenant George Koder of the Clearwater Police Department’s human trafficking division will also be speaking, along with Marc Rodrigues of the Student/Farmworker Alliance, Nola Theiss the Executive Director of the Human Trafficking Awareness Partnerships Inc., and Pamela Woody, who serves as the World Relief representative.
According to the site HumanTrafficking.org, under federal law, human trafficking includes foreign immigrants as well as citizens. It is an act in which an individual’s will is overborne through force, fraud, or coercion. Trafficking can occur in legal business as well as underground industries.
An individual cannot consent to a situation of human trafficking. Initial consent to commercial sex or labor setting prior to acts of force, fraud, or coercion is not relevant to the crime, nor is payment.
“We want to make sure that the students of UT know that slavery is still around and that it is very real,” said Beaulieu.
She went on to say, “There are many forms in which it takes place, the two largest being labor trafficking and sex trafficking.
“Many other trafficking victims are used as domestic servants. We want to make sure that our fellow students not only know that slavery is still around, but also know what they should be looking out for and what they can do to help.”
The class has been organizing this event since the second week of the semester after the ACLU sent a representative of their union to the class.
“We think of human trafficking and automatically our minds go to the sex slave industry. However, that only constitutes one example of human trafficking,” Anderson said. “Many of these people are often hiding in plain sight. We don’t even know they have been trafficked here or are, in essence working as slaves.”
She hopes that the event will raise awareness of human trafficking, informing students that they can make a difference simply by being knowledgeable and making better consumer choices that don’t support the industry.
Anderson extended credit to The PEACE office, CSSME, UT Honor’s Program UT’s Human Rights Think Tank that are all co-sponsoring the event with the American Civil Liberties Union-Florida.
Channing Hailey can be reached at channinghl1@gmail.com.