We don’t hear much about slavery on the news. We don’t see slaves being bought and sold on the street. Yet, slavery still exists in 161 countries around the world including the United States.

January 11 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. See how much you know about slavery and human trafficking by taking our short quiz. Answers are posted below.

1) How many people are currently trafficked worldwide?

A) 1 million
B) 5 million
C) 8 million
D) 12 million
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It’s 2012. How is slavery still possible? It’s not on the news and we don’t see it in our neighborhoods.

Somehow, this $32 billion industry exists in 161 countries around the world, including the United States. Innocents are routinely trafficked into the United States, and some live in a community near you.

Twelve million people are coerced, trafficked, and trapped. It’s a massive industry. What can you do? Realistically, what can one person do?

Ask one former slave.

You can make a difference.

January 11 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.  Join Catholic Relief Services in the fight against slavery and human trafficking.

Ana Lucia Tesoureira, a former slave in Brazil, is now a successful homeowner at the age of 23. Photo Robyn Fieser/CRS

Many among the 42 families in the Nova Conquista, or New Conquest, settlement share horror stories of toiling away on fields in Brazil’s Amazon for little or no pay. Enslavement often began with a recruiter paid to lure workers to remote ranches with the promise of a salary.

Sleeping under tarps and in stables, drinking the same dirty water given to animals, and far from their families and out of reach of official inspectors, the people of Nova Conquista found themselves indebted for their food, travel, equipment and accommodations, which is often nothing more than a shack with no electricity or running water.

But it’s no longer the experience of slavery that ties the people of Nova Conquista together. It’s the 5-year fight to demand that the Brazilian government compensate them for their lost time. Under Brazilian law, they are entitled to back pay, but the bureaucratic process often drags on and becomes such a financial drain that many workers give up. Not the families of Nova Conquista.

With the help of Catholic Relief Services’ partner Pastoral Land Commission, the Nova Conquista group organized, demanded and received 2,670 acres of land and material to build more than 30 houses in their hometown of Monsenhor Gil in northeastern Brazil.

January 11 is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.  Join Catholic Relief Services in the fight against slavery and human trafficking, and meet the people who went from slave to successful homeowner.

As you read this, more than 12 million people—many hidden in plain sight—are enslaved around the world. And even more repulsive: 1 million of these slaves are children.

Human trafficking exists in 161 countries including the United States, and on average, only 1 person is convicted for every 800 trafficking cases worldwide in this $32 billion industry.

You can make a difference.

Join CRS in the fight against slavery and human trafficking.  You can help set them free.

By Steve Cunliffe

“Here you work in the hot sun making barely enough money to feed your family, but if you come with me to Hyderabad you could be a babysitter in a big fancy house and make lots of money. You could buy nice new clothes and enjoy a good life in the city.”

It was an alluring proposition for Chinni*, an 18-year-old girl in southeast India who worked in dusty fields from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. for less than a dollar a day. The friendly lady making her the offer had visited the village numerous times over the years and taken many girls to the city, promising them good jobs and a chance to earn a decent wage. None of them ever returned, so the villagers simply presumed they had all found great jobs in the city and turned their backs on their poverty-stricken lives.

Chinni was the latest victim, coaxed into leaving the village and heading to Hyderabad in search of a dream.
Once Chinni was in the big city, the woman left her in a house where girls were traded and sold. There, a kind-sounding man approached her. “Young sister, why did you come to this bad place? Don’t worry, I’m going to take you away from this horrible mess. You deserve much better than this.”
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Sunday, January 11, is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. Voices will run at least a few posts on the topic. The first order of business is to define the issue. Future posts will refer back to this formal definition.

For simplicity sake, here are the three key components that together constitute trafficking:
The action of: recruitment, transfer, harboring
By means of: coercion, use of force, deception, fraud
For the purpose of: sexual exploitation, forced labor, slavery and slavery-like conditions

Here’s the formal definition:

In 2000, an internationally agreed upon definition of trafficking was developed as part of the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and more specifically its Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. In this Protocol, “Trafficking in persons (is defined as) the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

While the majority of the Response to Trafficking in Persons in the Americas conference focused on international human trafficking, there was a great presentation this afternoon on trafficking in the United States.

Brigitte Gynther of Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida talked about her work to end exploitive labor practices of workers in Florida tomato fields.

Owners of massive tomato fields hire subcontractors to take care of finding fieldworkers, and these subcontractors pick out the most able-bodied laborers each morning around 4:30 from gathering places. Conditions in the fields can be brutal even for practices that are technically legal, but there are three ways she has seen people move from unfair treatment to being actual victims of trafficking in farm labor camps:

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“The Human Trafficking in Persons in the Americas,” conference being held at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C. is in its third and final day. The first session focused on trafficking of children in India, Honduras and the United States. Here are a few stats from the information this morning:

*One-fifth of all the children in the world live in India.

*In India, 35 million of 440 million children are involved in child labor, and half of children who work are forced to work 7 days a week. Many work long hours under unsafe and unhealthy conditions.

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At the a trafficking convention in Washington, CRS Country Representative for Moldova Michael McKennitt told the story of Moldova’s transformation with storybook charm

Once upon a time in a country far, far way in Eastern Europe there’s a story with no princesses, no frogs, and no castles. In Moldova, a country that looks like Iowa, there’s a sad and happy story. Moldova is a country if you’re a farmer, you’ll feel at home and if you’re not a farmer you’re wonder what you’re doing there.

In Moldova they speak Romanian. More than 60 percent of the population live in little villages. In those little villages there is no electricity and people live on less than a dollar a day. It is in those little villages Moldova is experiencing the terrible problem of human trafficking.

The little country of Moldova was part of the Soviet Block. Because it was an agricultural country it became the most densely populated country in Eastern Europe. And it is from this little country that the largest proportion of women trafficked for sex are recruited to work throughout Europe. This little country also has high numbers of trafficked children and trafficking in organs. But this is not the happy part of the story. This is just the context for the bigger story I’m about to tell.

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The fight against human trafficking is a difficult one, primarily because of how hard it can be to identify trafficking victims. In many cases trafficked persons are lumped together with undocumented workers. In order to better serve victims of trafficking a three-part test has been created:

1. Has there been transport, shelter, harboring, and/or exchange of services that in some way has affected the person?

2. Has the person lived in conditions of forced prostitution, labor slavery, or conditions similar to slavery?

3. Was there coercion, violence or threats that compelled the person to stay?

- Sara Fajardo, CRS communications officers