Human Trafficking in California

Research Question:

The July 10, 2013 arrest of Saudi Arabian princess Meshael Alayban in Orange County, California on human trafficking charges brought the very serious question of human trafficking in the state of California into the public spotlight (FoxNews.Com, 2013). Two years earlier, the U. S. State Department reported that California was one of the top four states in the nation for human trafficking, along with Texas, Oklahoma, and New York (Human Rights Center, 2004). Human trafficking in California is thought to be particularly problematical in the metropolitan areas of San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles (Human Rights Center, 2005). Why is California a primary location of human trafficking and how has the state responded to concerns about human trafficking?

Outline: 

I. Human trafficking frequently occurs in California in part because of the state’s geographical location. 

A. California is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the West and the Canadian and Mexican borders respectively to the North and South. California is also a major center of international travel and maintains a large migrant population. 

B. The state has many large, heavily populated cities as well as a large agricultural economy that includes migrant labor that is easily subjected to human trafficking or exploitation (Medina, 2013). 

C. California is also a major center for the production of pornographic films and other sex-related industries in which human sex trafficking is sometimes present (Keith, 2008). 

II. California Attorney General Kamala Harris claims that human trafficking is a $32 billion-dollar-per-year industry worldwide and is second only to the illegal drug industry as the largest form of criminal enterprise on an international scale (Harris). 

A. Approximately three in one thousand persons worldwide are being victimized by human trafficking at any one point. 

1. The United States is one of the primary destination nations for victims of human trafficking. 

2. California state laws define human trafficking as "substantial and sustained restriction of another's liberty accomplished through fraud, deceit, coercion, violence, duress, menace, or threat of unlawful injury to the victim or to another person, under circumstances where the person receiving or apprehending the threat reasonably believes that it is likely that the person making the threat would carry it out." (Harris)

III. In addition to the Alayban case, several other highly publicized cases have highlighted the seriousness of the problem of human smuggling and  trafficking in California. 

A. A Berkeley real estate developer and restaurant chain owner was convicted of sex trafficking and sentenced to eight years in federal prison (Sundaram, 2012). 

B. An agribusiness corporation was discovered to be holding hundreds of workers as slave laborers who were threatened with violence if they attempted to leave (Los Angeles Times, 2001). 

C. A sweatshop located in El Monte was found to be using the labor of slaves whose families were threatened with violence if they resisted (Watanabe, 2008).

IV. California has introduced legislation for the purpose of curbing human trafficking and assisting the victims of the human trafficking industry. 

A. The first piece of legislation was passed in 2005 and increases the criminal penalties for engaging in human trafficking. 

B. A 2011 law requires retail chains generating large amounts of revenue from international trade to report their efforts towards safeguarding against human trafficking (Church, Duffy, Parks, Webb, 2011). 

C. Combating human trafficking is a priority issue for law enforcement agencies and district attorney’s offices in the state of California (Harris).

References: 

Church, Ezra D. and Joseph Duffy, Gregory T. Parks, Diane Web (2011). California’s transparency in supply chains act. National Law Review, July 21, 2011. Web. Retrieved from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-s-transparency-supply-chains-act

FoxNews.Com (2013). Saudi princess arrested in California human trafficking probe. Associated Press, July 11, 2013. Web. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/11/saudi-princess-arrested-in-california-human-trafficking-investigation/

Harris, Kamala D. Human trafficking Office of the Attorney General. State of California Department of Justice. Web. http://oag.ca.gov/human-trafficking

Harris, Kamala D. SB 1193 & Civil Code Section 52.6 - Posting of Public Notices Regarding Slavery and Human Trafficking. Office of the Attorney General. State of California Department of Justice. Web. Retrieved from https://oag.ca.gov/human-trafficking/sb1193

Harris, Kamala D. What is human trafficking? Office of the Attorney General. State of California Department of Justice. Web. Retrieved from http://oag.ca.gov/human-trafficking/what-is

Human Rights Center (2004). Hidden Slaves: Forced Labor in the United States. Pdf.

Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley, September 2004. Web. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20070830033751/http://freetheslaves.net/files/Hidden_Slaves.pdf

Human Rights Center (2005). Freedom Denied: Forced Labor in California. Pdf. Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley, February 2005. Web. Retrieved from http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/FreedomDenied.pdf

Keith, Tamara (2008). California lawmaker proposes taxing the sex industry. National Public Radio, June 6, 2008. Web. Retrieved from http://m.npr.org/story/91247173

Los Angeles Times (2001). Grower will pay to settle worker lawsuit. Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2001. Web. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/09/local/me-43918

Medina, Angela (2013). Human trafficking remains a problem in California. Spartan Daily, May 8, 2013. Web. Retrieved from http://spartandaily.com/105270/human-trafficking-remains-a-problem-in-california

Sundaram, Viji (2012). How an infamous Berkeley human trafficking case fueled reform. San Francisco Public Press, February 16, 2012. Web. Retrieved from http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2012-02/how-an-infamous-berkeley-human-trafficking-case-fueled-reform

Watanabe, Teresa (2008). Home of the freed: Former Thai slave laborers, liberated from an El Monte sweatshop in 1995, become U.S. citizens. Los Angeles Times. August 14, 2008.Web. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/14/local/me-thai14