Browsing by Subject "Human trafficking"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Live-in domestic workers : overworked, underpaid and overlooked
(2018-05-01) Rodríguez Ortiz, Omar; Jensen, Robert, 1958-
Live-in domestics are the housekeepers, nannies and home health care workers that live with the families they work for five to seven nights a week. Like other domestics, the live-in domestics interviewed for this report suffered restriction of movement, isolation, inadequate nutrition, physical violence, wage theft and excessive overtime, all in Texas. Moreover, live-ins are more reluctant than other domestics to exercise their rights because they may automatically find themselves homeless. Nobody knows exactly how many live-in domestic workers are in the U.S. because of the secluded nature of their work, but experts and advocates agree that many live-in domestic workers are victims of human trafficking. There are more than 300,000 victims of human trafficking in Texas, nearly 234,000 of those were adult victims of labor trafficking, according to reports. The same reports found that traffickers exploit approximately $600 million per year from victims of labor trafficking in Texas only. Since 2012, domestic work has represented the largest sector of all labor trafficking cases reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. Texas is the second state with the most cases of human trafficking reported to the Hotline, second only to California. Like other states, these reported cases are growing every year. Reports also show that 85 percent of domestic worker trafficking survivors said having pay withheld or being paid well below minimum wage; 81 percent have lived in abusive living conditions; and 80 percent have been tricked with false or otherwise deceptive contracts. Through the lives of four present and former live-in domestic workers, these numbers come to life and live-in domestic workers stay in the shadows no more.
Sueños del norte : Black Panamanian hoop dreams and the realities of basketball trafficking
(2021-05) Wallace, Javier LaPree; Adair, Jennifer Keys; Harrison, Louis, 1955-; De Lissovoy , Noah; Brooks, Scott N
My dissertation focuses on the journeys an Afro-Panamanian basketball player, to unmask the discrimination and exploitation that shapes his efforts at achieving class mobility through sports. I utilize Multi-Sited Person-Centered Ethnography, underpinned by Critical Race Theory and Post/Coloniality Theory, to capture the complexity of the personal, including the macro and the micro of being an Afro-Panamanian male youth basketball player, who is spatially mobile and ultimately victimized by basketball trafficking. By employing this methodology, I explore the point at which basketball trafficking begins for the young men at the center of my study who are caught within this system. Basketball trafficking is a term I have coined that captures the exploitative and unregulated migration of youth to the United States as part of interscholastic athletic programs that abuse the F-1 student visa system. My research problematizes the idea that the trafficking and exploitation of young men within basketball solely begins in the United States and instead argues that histories of and ongoing practices of discrimination within Panama largely contributed to teenagers finding themselves in the precarious situation, where their international student-athlete visa status is used as a tool of exploitation. Additionally, my dissertation argues that U.S. intercollegiate athletics works in tandem with U.S Immigration Customs & Enforcement(ICE) to police and enforce the removal of non-citizen Black youth from the U.S. once their athletic labor is no longer needed.
Women’s empowerment programs as advocacy tools for potential human trafficking victims
(2010-08) Rodriguez, Claudia Ana; Busch-Armendariz, Noël Bridget; Cook Heffron, Laurie
Human trafficking is an international crime affecting all countries that continues to grow. The crime operates as part of an illicit underground network, starting with traffickers who manipulate, deceive, and exploit victims. Victims are both male and female, but the crime disproportionally affects women more than men. Latin American women are especially vulnerable to being trafficked due to societal and cultural norms that demand they be subordinate. Additionally, these women lack many educational and job opportunities, and face mental and physical abuse at home and in their communities. These factors make them vulnerable, and the traffickers use these vulnerabilities to deceive and exploit them. This report will argue that in order to effectively prevent victimization, women need to be empowered, not only access to education but also job opportunities. Furthermore, a societal transformation needs to occur that gives more value and significance to women, where they are viewed as powerful beings instead of submissive and subordinate human beings.