The New Plantation

In the Summer 2007 edition of Ms. magazine, Rebecca Clarren exposes readers to the new plantation ins "The Invisible Ones" (pp. 40-45), it's businesses throughout the United States that imprison workers like Florencia Molina who came to work in California from Mexico at a sewing factory only to find that 17 hour work days resulted in pay for three hours, that her boss could and did "pull her hair, pinch and slap her" and that "[t]he factory doors were locked during the day and at night a watchman prevented her from leaving." In addition, the boss made threats about killing her and she was provided with only meal a day (beans). Why didn't she leave? How would she get out for starters but it's also true that she'd been forced to turn over her identification and her birth certificate.



The Bully Boy's administration has refused to address these crimes despite all their public posturing but their love of handing over tax payers' monies to churches only worsens conditions for victims of human trafficking. For example, $6 million a year allegedly for helping the victims goes to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services which then plays the government and distributes it to organizations assisting victims but, get this, with the provision that they not "hand out condoms or provide referral for abortion."



Since around half the human trafficking is for sexual purposes, this is a double insult to the victims.



Mario Estrada, with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dept., tells of a raid six months prior of "an ordinary-looking beige house" where "seven Korean women, the youngest aged 15, were forced to work as prostitutes."



For more information, one organization you can utilize online is the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking. For more on the Summer 2007 edition of Ms. magazine, you can refer to their website, as well as to C.I.'s "Other Items," Elaine's "The need to call out and Nadia Berenstein's 'Happily Never Married'" and Kat's "Music."