U.S. acts gently with smuggled 19 women

A shifting response to trafficking cases

Thursday, February 10, 2005

BY BRIAN DONOHUE

Star-Ledger Staff

The 19 women and girls who federal prosecutors say were smuggled from Honduras and forced to work in a Union City bar are "safe and sheltered" and may be allowed to remain in the United States as protected victims of human trafficking, according to government officials and social workers.

The treatment the women and girls -- some as young as 14 -- are receiving illustrates a dramatic shift in how law enforcement approaches foreigners who have been coerced into indentured servitude or prostitution.

Just a few years ago, the 19 probably would have been treated as criminals and jailed or deported as illegal immigrants. Today they are treated as the most vulnerable and desperate of victims -- traumatized, destitute and fearful of retaliation by ringleaders in the United States and their native country.

"I'm making sure they get the service they need and are in a stable environment and have housing and those sorts of things," Avaloy Lanning, director of the anti-trafficking initiative of the International Institute in Jersey City, an organization that assists immigrants, said Friday.

"It was traumatic for all of them, but they are all safe," said Lanning, who has spoken with several of the women. "You've got a lot of emotions, fear and questions about what happens next."

The 19 women and girls were taken into custody Jan. 20 after federal agents raided the bar and two residences in Union City where prosecutors say they had been forced to live. The women told agents they had been enticed to leave Honduras with the promise of waitressing jobs in America.

But after delivering them to New Jersey, smugglers demanded fees as high as $20,000, then forced them to work off the debt by dancing with men in bars. One woman told investigators the group was encouraged to engage in prostitution to pay off their debts.

The smugglers told them that if they strayed from the bar or safe houses, they would be deported.

Two of the alleged ringleaders, Ana Luz Rosales Martinez and her sister, Noris Elvira Rosales Martinez, were charged last Wednesday with harboring illegal aliens, a federal crime that carries a maximum 10-year prison term.

This is the first major case in New Jersey since the establishment last year of an anti-trafficking campaign linking state and federal law enforcement with social service agencies and the Archdiocese of Newark. The network is designed to increase awareness among the public and law enforcement and to assist victims of human trafficking.

Prosecutors have not charged the suspects in the Union City case with human trafficking, a crime defined as the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of exploiting a person for financial or personal gain.

Still, the network of government and nonprofit agencies is treating the 19 women and girls as victims of the grim phenomenon.

Those involved in the case will provide no specific information on the women, including their location, in order to protect their identities. However, Steven Wagner, senior consultant with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Trafficking in Persons Program, said, "They're in a place that's safe, out of reach of their traffickers."

The minors in the group may be placed in foster care, he said.

Under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, the 19 women and girls may be eligible for the same benefits granted to political refugees, such as food and housing assistance and a visa that would allow them to live and work in the United States.

More than half of the 19 have been recognized by HHS as victims of human trafficking, the first step in that process, Wagner said.

"My hope is that all of them will be" certified as victims, Wagner said.

In many trafficking cases, the women arrested or rescued from servitude face an array of frightening possibilities, social workers say. If, for instance, they are deported to their home countries, they or their families may face retribution from leaders of the trafficking ring. If they are not deported, they may fear retribution from ringleaders in the United States.

Many also suffer psychological trauma. In most cases, they are broke and have no legal authorization to work in the United States.

"They need everything -- food, clothing housing," said Lanning, head of the anti-trafficking initiative. "They've most likely left with whatever they're wearing, that's it. They need phone cards, toothbrushes, all the little things."

The federal government estimates 18,000 to 20,000 people -- men, women and children -- are brought into the United States every year as indentured laborers. Police believe some 4,000 wind up in New Jersey, mostly in the northern regions, including Union, Essex and Hudson counties.

Few are ever discovered. But for those who are, the treatment they receive is changing.

In 2002, police raided a Plainfield brothel and initially jailed two girls living there as prostitutes. A savvy jail employee, however, alerted authorities that the girls had been held as virtual slaves. That sparked a criminal investigation in which two of the ringleaders, Librada Jiminez-Calderon, 43, and her sister, Antonia, 40, were sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison on human trafficking charges.

Government officials hope the shift in the way victims are treated will encourage more to come forward. "There's been an evolution," Wagner said. "This is a case, that hopefully, will demonstrate how this all should work."

Brian Donohue covers immigration issues. He can be reached a bdonohue@starledger.com or (973) 392-1543.