Text extracted via OCR from the original document. May contain errors from the scanning process.
Policy Team: I want to report another step forward in anti-trafficking policy and a few points from my discussion with two sex trafficking detectives from the SPD and the Kent PD. Child Sex Trafficking Police Training Model Policy is coming soon The AGO's convening power exercised yesterday together with the Legislature - Through the Anti-trafficking Engagement Day in January this year, Senator Delvin worked with me to add an amendment to SB 6476 (Provisions related to Commercial Sexually Exploited Children) requiring WASPC to develop a mandated police training model policy for CJTC, but subject to funding. Police training is KEY to the prosecution component of anti-trafficking policy, and I want to credit Chris Johnson for teaching me to follow up after laws are passed. Senator Delvin agreed to sponsor this meeting when I shared with him that our State has all the bright minds and resources available to put together an excellent model policy, and it is important to have all key players meet WASPC and CJTC. Senators Kohl-Welles and Hargrove also supported this effort by taking time out to attend the meeting yesterday. Findings and Outcome from yesterday's meeting: 1. CJTC has developed a somewhat bare-bone version of training for the basic academy per SB 6476 and is planning to meet with Shared Hope International to add additional materials. 2. However, training for detectives and communication to them are not in place yet. 3. Those attended yesterday include the State Office Crime Victims Advocacy, DSHS Child Administration, the best sex trafficking detectives from SPD and Kent PD, Victim Service Supervisor from Youth Care, WASPC (Joann Arlow), CJTC (Mike Parsons and Debbie Mealy), Shared Hope International's National Training Bureau Coordinator. 4. All those attended have relevant materials and components available for WASPC to include in the model policy. The two police officers experienced in sex trafficking investigation are willing to conduct training at CJTC. 5. Joann Arlow of WASPC agreed to connect with all of them to develop a model policy using materials and resources various attendees' entities already have. 6. Therefore, the model policy will soon become a reality and be implemented at the CJTC without additional funding. The following is an article illustrating the important of "enforcement" of laws passed. I forwarded to attendees the day before the meeting, though it was about labor trafficking. I'm sure you're aware of this, but the article indicated that Global Horizon sent its "labor force" or "forced labor" into Washington State too. Additional evidence of Sex Trafficking from detectives: In addition, I met with the two police detectives mentioned above on cases they see from their day-to-day work. The following are some key points I would like to share in relationship to Improving the Promoting Prostitution or Sex trafficking statute: 1. Most sex trafficking cases (over 50% affirmatively) they see involve girls 18 and above. 2. All their investigations involve using the e-commerce channels like Myspace, Backpage, and others. They already see Craigslist "shutdown" of their Adult Service section is of no significance at all. Street prostitution is dropping drastically and are replaced by internet ads. 3. Traffickers are smart. Detectives anticipate traffickers moving up the ladder due to the recent stringent penalty involving minor victims, i.e. switching to victims 18 and above. 4. For instance, traffickers are now moving their activities up to Everett and even east of the mountain due to increasing police attention and training along Seattle and down to Lakewood. 5. Most jurisdictions outside of the Seattle to Lakewood I-5 corridor plain ignore investigating sex trafficking cases even when they have one. Ryan Long gave me some recent examples. Ryan said SPD (him and
others) make themselves available, but those jurisdictions either do not see them as sex trafficking or do not feel they have the resource to work on them. Thank you, Rose G
-------------------------------------------------------------------- This NYT article below mentioned WA State being a location to where Global Horizon trafficks Thai H-2A workers. This article points out that, despite the tightening of rules and notification, "enforcement gap persists." This is why law enforcement training is crucial after laws are passed. Though not all of you can attend the Noon meeting in Olympia tomorrow, your support in referring other important stakeholders to this meeting is very much appreciated too. A big thank you to our legislators for sponsoring or attending the meeting tomorrow to help CJTC and others to put together the police training model policy per SB 6476 requirement (Provisions related to Commercial Sexually Exploited Children). Thank you also to the City of Seattle and the Port of Seattle Commissioner's interest in this issue also. The ideal is to have Human Trafficking (not only sex trafficking) as part of the routine training of law enforcement, and I look forward to seeing more to be accomplished in the near future. Rose Gundersen Policy Intern on Human Trafficking WA State Attorney General's Office RoseG@Atg.Wa.Gov 360-753-6207 -----Original Message----- From: westlaw@westlaw.com [mailto:westlaw@westlaw.com] Sent: Wednesday, September 08, 2010 6:45 AM To: rsgund@comcast.net Cc: Gundersen, Rose (ATG) Subject: Westlaw Results : 9/8/10 NYT A26 9/8/10 NYT A26 9/8/10 N.Y. Times A26 2010 WLNR 17806646 New York Times (NY) Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company September 8, 2010
Section: A Forced Labor A conspiracy indictment was brought last week against a Los Angeles company, alleging forced labor on a chilling scale. Six contractors are accused of a scheme to hold 400 workers from Thailand in virtual slavery on farms in Hawaii and Washington State. The Justice Department says it is the largest human-trafficking case ever brought by the federal government. Just as disturbing is how familiar the accusations are. The company, Global Horizons Manpower, is accused of abusing the federal guest worker program, known as H-2A, in 2004 and 2005 and luring workers with false promises of steady work at decent pay. The workers, poor men from the Thai countryside, took on crushing debt to pay exorbitant recruiting fees, about $9,500 to $21,000. After they arrived in America, according to the indictment, their passports were taken and they were set up in shoddy housing and told that if they complained or fled they would be fired, arrested or deported. The case, brought in Honolulu, coincides with the sentencing on Thursday of two Hawaii farmers, Mike and Alec Sou, who pleaded guilty in January to a forced-labor scheme involving 44 Thai workers. The Sous worked with Global Horizons before but are linked to the latest case only by the methods they admitted to using. In the abuse of legal foreign workers, the numbers vary but the methods are the same. It is slavery without shackles. Its perpetrators seldom have to resort to violence or even threats of violence. Since workers are buried in debt before they even leave their home countries, the threat of being fired and deported is enough. To lose a guest-worker job means irreparable harm: destitution, unpayable debt, the loss of mortgaged family land. Under those conditions, a worker will accept any abuse, live and work in squalor and do what he is told. Everyone else -- the middlemen; the companies that get ''cheap, compliant labor,'' in the words of the Global Horizons indictment; and the grocery buyers who eat cheap, fresh produce, subsidized by suffering -- is satisfied. American history is full of examples of large-scale abuses of farmworkers, from the Bracero program for Mexicans in the 1940s to the present day. The Bush administration, which was in charge of the H-2A program at the time Global Horizons is accused of doing its worst, generally turned a blind eye to wage-and-hour enforcement. In its waning days, it issued new rules that gutted worker pay and labor protections in the program. The Obama administration has taken a somewhat stronger line in protecting workers. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis overturned the Bush-era H-2A rules changes and started programs to help low-wage workers know their rights and report abuses. The government has been issuing special visas to workers who were victims of trafficking, notably in the case of Indian workers exploited in Mississippi shipyards after Hurricane Katrina. But a vast enforcement gap persists. A bill that would strengthen immigrant guest workers' rights languishes with the rest of immigration reform. Thousands in the undocumented work force toil unprotected. The Global Horizons case is only the beginning.