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The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter
Sept/Oct and Nov/Dec, 1999, Vol. 6, Number 5 & 6. NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SEXUAL TRAFFICKING
Victims of Sexual Trafficking:
by Laura J. Lederer, Director |
W hat follows is dialogue from a conversation between Laura J. Lederer, director of the Protection Project at Harvard University, and "Inez," a victim of sexual trafficking.
Laura: It was so horrible and the details were so terrible that basically you just disappeared and tried to figure out the ways to help yourself. There were no advocacy organizations. There was nothing available to a woman who had been hurt like that. And then women's organizations decided, hold on a second, we're going to tell this story. We're going to have women who are raped tell what has happened to them. Tell every terrible detail, so that we know what this is like. And we held speak-outs on the steps of City Hall and in other places, and we broke the silence around the issue. And that breaking of the silence allowed people to hear what had happened and what needed to be done to repair it, and what needs to be done to stop it. And this is where I think we are right now with trafficking in women and children, and we are breaking the silence. We are going to have those who have survived this tell us what it's like.
Laura: Inez, I thought we would start by having you tell us your story. How old were you? Where were you? And what happened to you?
Inez: I was 18 years old when I came from Mexico, and the men who brought me here brought me here to work in a brothel, but they told me I was to work in a restaurant. When I arrived at Fort Pierce I knew that I was going to be a prostitute. Some of the other workers there told me I had no choice. This is what I was going to be doing.
Laura: You were brought from Mexico? What was the route?
Inez: I came through with a coyote or smuggler from Matamoros to Brownsville to Houston, where a van picked me up. And then they drove me to Avon Park in Florida. When I arrived at the brothel in Avon Park, a place that was very isolated in the woods, I asked the people there, "where are the restaurants?" There are no restaurants around here. "Why am I here? What am I going to do?" And that's when I was told that I had to be a prostitute, and if I didn't perhaps then things were going to go very badly for me.
Laura: And were there other young women who were also there in this park?
Inez: There were two other girls there, and the ringleader, Rogelio, told them to tell me how I was going to be working, to explain to me what the methods were, and how I was going to be serving clients. Two of the other girls that traveled with me from Mexico, we were taken first to the Fort Pierce brothel. At that point, they separated us, and I went to Avon Park. But before that, they took us to a store to buy very vulgar clothes, and we were forced to wear them. They picked them out for us, and we had to wear them. What would happen is, the client would buy a ticket, which was a condom. And if I did not go with them the ringleaders, the brothel owners, would threaten me, would threaten my family, that they would hurt them The customers would also beat me as well. They would beat us, they would threaten us, and even at one point, when they thought that I was trying to escape, they beat me severely. They would always threaten to harm my family. I knew that they could carry out their threats against my family because they lived 15 minutes away from my mother's house, and they knew where my mother was, and the rest of my family. Some of the things that they did to the other girls were that they forced them to have abortions, and then they had to work very quickly. They didn't wait 45 days after the abortion. They had to start working within 25 days. During the week, we were forced to have, sometimes, up to 17 clients on a daily basis. And over 30 on the weekends. We worked 6 days a week. From clients that I would serve, the bosses would take about 70 percent of the money, and the rest of the money would go for rent and food. If I were allowed to send money to my family in Mexico, they would always go with me. We were constantly guarded. Even if we made telephone calls, they were always there, listening to all of our conversations. I was very afraid to leave, and I didn't try to escape, because they threatened me saying that if I didn't pay off the smuggling fee and I escaped, then I would still owe them that money, and they would go after my family to get that money.
Laura: Where were the customers coming from? Were they in just a particular community in Florida?
Inez: Mostly they were Latinos, and they worked in the fields, the clients that we were forced to serve. But they were from the area where the brothels were.. Most of the clients had weapons, and if I did not want to do what they wanted me to do sexually they would beat me. And then the people that were supposed to be guarding us, they didn't do anything, because the clients would say "I paid my money, and I'm going to get my money's worth." And so the guards didn't protect us.
Laura: What kind of weapons did they carry or use?
Inez: Guns.
Laura: Did you ever see anybody try to escape, or was everybody very afraid?
Inez: No one tried to escape. They were very, very frightened. The Cadenas ring, the family, were a very powerful and very mean family. And no one tried to escape. The only time that you could leave is when, supposedly, you paid off your smuggling fee, and then you were able to leave.
Laura: And did that happen? Did you ever see that happened, or was everybody working to pay off their fee?
Inez: No, no. I never saw anyone leave, no one left. I was very, very lucky, because I was saved after just being there a month and a half. And I don't know what would have happened to me if I had to stay there and continue to work.
Laura: Did you see young women who were there who had been there a long time, and some things that happened to them? What were they like?
Inez: Yes, there were other girls that were there for a long period of time, and they didn't treat us any differently. We were all treated the same way. In fact, it didn't even matter if we were on our menstrual cycle; we had to work anyway.
Laura: You said you were moved around from place to place, so there was more than one place? Why were they doing that?
Inez: They would move us around every 15 days. The prostitutes had to be moved around every 15 days, and this was to give variety to the clients and so we wouldn't know where we were. We weren't allowed to make any friends, talk to anyone, because of course the bosses feared that we might try to escape.
Laura: But you did escape, and you said that the U. S. Government raided one of the places; is that what happened?
Inez: We didn't escape, per se. It was the government, the police, INS and others who raided the brothels, because two other girls who did escape gave them the addresses of the brothels that we were in. If they had not, we would still be there.
Laura: Virginia (accompanied Inez), maybe you can tell us a little about the trial that took place. I'm just wondering if you could talk about the Cadenas family.
Virginia: Basically, the way that I became involved, I worked for a non-profit immigrants' rights organization. And the way that we found out is that we saw an article in the Miami Herald which talked about the raids and the girls being held as material witnesses, young girls as young as 14 and as old as 42-years old. We were appalled at the fact that these girls were being held in criminal facilities, so we started to do some background work, and started contacting people in the government that would have information as to their whereabouts. We contacted the U. S. Attorney's Office, also INS, FBI, and other local law enforcement agencies, and did find out that they were being held in criminal facilities. At that point, the authorities were very amenable, and we were able to speak to all of the girls to find out what was happening to them. Some of them were held up to 5 to 6 months in criminal facilities. They didn't even know why they were there, had no idea, and it was because they were being held as material witnesses in the case. We were then able to work with the community and provide them safe housing, and that's exactly what we did, along with the U. S. Government and the U. S. Attorney's Office and also the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, who worked alongside us in trying to find them safe housing and temporary status in the U.S., and also employment authorizations, and medical attention. They were not given any kind of medical attention at that time. They didn't have any gynecological exams. And so we stepped in, not only as legal advisors, but we also tried to get the community to provide some kind of social services for them, and they did. They really stepped up, provided all these things free of charge to them. Since then, the govemment has established a workers expectation task force, where they're looking at not only sexual exploitation, but also at worker exploitation and they have come up with a model to get the community involved.
T he criminal prosecution of the case was terminated at the end of April. The authorities indicted 16 defendants, of which 7 defendants were detained, tried, and sentenced in May with the girls' cooperation in prosecuting the case. They did not have to testify in court. We provided statements. Seven of the defendants were sentenced. One of the main ring leaders, Rogelio Cadenas, was sentenced to up to 15 years. And we were able to get restitution of a million dollars for these girls. We are working on collecting some of that right now.