Thursday, April 21, 2011

Human Trafficking in America

The EEOC has just filed its largest farm workers human trafficking suit. It's against a company called Global Horizons Inc., a California labor recruiter that claims to be setting "a powerful new standard in Twenty-First Century recruiting". The EEOC would dispute that claim if you define recruiting as acting in a humane way.

This is not the first time Global Horizons Inc. has been charged with human trafficking. In this particular case they enticed Thai farm workers to Hawaii. Of course the workers had to pay the company a considerable sum for this move. Then when they actually began work on the farms with which Global Horizons had contracted they really got the shaft.

In the words of the EEOC they "were forced to live in dilapidated housing infested with rats and insects, with dozens sleeping in the same room, many with no beds. They were forbidden from leaving the premises. On the job, they endured screaming, threats and physical assaults on the part of supervisors, and were isolated from non-Thai farm workers who appeared to be working under more tolerable conditions, says the EEOC. Bound by their debts, stripped of their identification and silenced by the perpetrators, the Thai workers had little recourse until the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles brought victims to the EEOC to file charges of discrimination."

1 comment:

R J Adams said...

Let's be thankful the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exists. It's probably one of those agencies the Republican party would like to do away with, to save on the deficit.