Hostages at Golden Mountain: Chinese Human Trafficking to and within the United States
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HOSTAGES AT GOLDEN MOUNTAIN:
CHINESE HUMAN TRAFFICKING TO AND WITHIN THE UNITES STATES
By
CARINA MARIE GROVES
______
A Thesis Submitted to The Honors College
In Partial Fulfillment of the Bachelors degree With Honors in
International Studies
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
December 2010
Approved by:
Dr. Karna Walter Director of Nationally Competitive Scholarships
Groves 1 The University of Arizona Electronic Theses and Dissertations Reproduction and Distribution Rights Form
Name (Last, First, Middle) Groves, Carina Marie Degree title (eg BA, BS, BSE, BSB, BFA): BA Honors area (eg Molecular and Cellular Biology, English, Studio Art): International Studies Date thesis submitted to Honors College: December 8th, 2010 Title of Honors thesis:
“Hostages at Golden Mountain: Chinese Human Trafficking to and within the United States”
The University of I hereby grant to the University of Arizona Library the nonexclusive Arizona Library Release worldwide right to reproduce and distribute my dissertation or thesis and abstract (herein, the "licensed materials"), in whole or in part, in any and all media of distribution and in any format in existence now or developed in the future. I represent and warrant to the University of Arizona that the licensed materials are my original work, that I am the sole owner of all rights in and to the licensed materials, and that none of the licensed materials infringe or violate the rights of others. I further represent that I have obtained all necessary rights to permit the University of Arizona Library to reproduce and distribute any nonpublic third party software necessary to access, display, run or print my dissertation or thesis. I acknowledge that University of Arizona Library may elect not to distribute my dissertation or thesis in digital format if, in its reasonable judgment, it believes all such rights have not been secured. Signed:__Carina Marie Groves______Date: __December 8th, 2010______
Last updated: Nov 15, 2009
Groves 2 Abstract
Human trafficking has become a major illegal industry in recent years. This modern slavery takes a variety of forms, ranging from debt-bondage to sex trafficking. Trafficking in persons happens every day in every country. In this study, I will examine the phenomenon of Chinese human trafficking to and within the United States. There is currently very little ethnic research on human trafficking, let alone Chinese trafficking in particular. I will first explore existing research publications on the subject, and then examine its contribution to our understanding of Chinese human trafficking to the US. I will also evaluate what new research each work prompts. Next, I will describe my own case study of Chinese human trafficking in the San Francisco Bay area. I will discuss my findings, as well as suggest future research topics. Finally, I will examine what knowledge we have about Chinese trafficking and what knowledge we still lack. I will especially endeavor to show the need for continued ethnic research.
Groves 3 Table of Contents Page Electronic Theses and Dissertations Reproduction and Distribution Rights Form…….....2 Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………3 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..5 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..6 Definitions……………………………………………………………………...... 7 Literature Review………………………………………………………………….8 “Trafficking in Persons Report” Introduction………………………………………………………………………10 Summary…………………………………………………………………………12 Review…………………………………………………………….………...…...14 Suggestions for Future Research………………………………………...... ……15 “An Assessment of the Exploitation of Chinese Migrants in the Western Hemisphere: A Modern Form of Trafficking in Persons” Introduction………………………………………………………………………16 Summary…………………………………………………………………………18 Fig. 1.1 The Illicit Chinese Migrant Flow to the United States, 2000…...19 Review…………………………………………………………………………...26 Suggestions for Future Research………………………………………………...27 “Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States” Introduction………………………………………………………………………29 Summary…………………………………………………………………………30 Review……………………………………………………………………….…..35 Suggestions for Future Research…………………………………………….…..37 Case Study: Chinese Human Trafficking in the San Francisco Bay Area Introduction………………………………………………………………………38 Methodology…………………………………………………………………...... 38 Findings……………………………………………………………………….....41 1. Trends in Trafficking……………………………………………….....41 2. Rescue and Rehabilitation…………………………………...….…...... 43 3. Community Involvement……………………………………....…...... 44 4. Legal Issues……………………………………………………....……45 Suggestions for Future Research………………………………….……………..46 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….....49 Appendix A: Human Subjects Protection Program HSPP Correspondence Program…...52 Appendix B: Human Subjects Protection Program Participant Disclosure Form……….54 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..56
Groves 4 Acknowledgements
I owe a great deal of thanks to several people. This is my first large research project, and I could not have completed it without the support of so many! Dr. Karna Walter, I cannot thank you enough for all of your help. You introduced me to the atrocity that is human trafficking, and you challenged me to learn more. I have been so inspired by your commitment to ending modern-day slavery. Thank you for mentoring me all these years, and through oh so many projects. You have always challenged me to work hard, knowing that abolition is still worth fighting for. Dr. Wayne Decker, you have been so patient with me! You helped me sift through all my diverse interests to my true passion: anti-trafficking. Thank you for creating a program where students like me can gain the tools necessary to go out and help the world—one problem at a time. Dean Patricia MacCorquodale, thank you for all of your encouragement. You made much of this research possible with Undergraduate Research Grant. I so appreciate the opportunities you provided me to present my research in a variety of settings (especially the National Interdisciplinary Conference in Human Trafficking, which I was able to attend thanks to the Alumni Legacy Travel Grant). You have opened my eyes to so many opportunities, and helped me to achieve much more than I knew I could. For my research in San Francisco, I owe special thanks to the San Jose Human Trafficking Task force and the Asian Pacific Islanders Legal Outreach. You do incredible work: thank you so much for your commitment to the tiresome and heartbreaking work of helping victims of human trafficking. Finally, I would like to thank all of my family and friends for your support through my research. Marmar, thank you for your compassion when I have been a recluse working on my thesis. Dave, mon coeur, thank you for believing in me. Pastor Kevin, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share my passion for abolition at TTLC. TGIF, thank you for all of your prayers and support; I hope you all will continue to fight for justice: you will change the world.
Groves 5 Introduction
Slavery was not abolished in 1863. More than ten thousand ethnic and national
Chinese victims of human trafficking remain imprisoned throughout the United States
(Free the Slaves). Many willing came to the US, or Golden Mountain, in search of a better life. Instead, they were forced, tricked, or coerced into slavery.
Human trafficking research in the US is still relatively new: the bulk of the research has been conducted in the last ten years. Most literature on the subject has focused on defining human trafficking, researching overall trends, and raising public awareness. There has been very little research done on human trafficking, and even less research has focused on trends within ethnic groups. I believe that it is time to move forward in human trafficking research. First, human trafficking research needs to become more academic, especially by establishing set methods of monitoring, measuring, and analyzing trafficking. Second, human trafficking research must now begin look at trafficking on a smaller scale, particularly by studying trends in ethnic trafficking.
In this thesis, I will examine Chinese human trafficking to and within the US. I will look at the phenomenon of Chinese trafficking to and within the US through both a macro and a micro lens. To study such trafficking through a macro lens, I will survey and review academic and government publications that discuss Chinese trafficking in the
US. I will then examine Chinese trafficking through a smaller lens by discussing my research on Chinese human trafficking in the San Francisco Bay area. I will conclude this thesis with a discussion on what is known about Chinese human trafficking and what is yet unknown, including suggestions for future research. But before moving on, I will first define key terms.
Groves 6 Definitions
Before moving on, it is imperative that I define human trafficking. There are many different definitions of human trafficking, each of which has a unique set of criteria for identifying victims of human trafficking. For the purposes of this paper, I will employ the definitions set forth by the United Nations’ Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and
Punish Trafficking in Persons and the United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act
(TVPA) of 2000. I have specifically selected these two definitions because these are two of the most widely accepted definitions of human trafficking. Furthermore, these are the definitions cited by the publications I will analyze. In studying Chinese Human
Trafficking to and within the US, I find it especially important to understand the TVPA’s definition of human trafficking.
In 2000, the UN passed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons. The Protocol was one of three protocols passed at a convention in Palermo,
Italy; these three protocols are jointly referred to as the Palermo Protocols. The other
Palermo Protocols deal with migration and arms trafficking. Collectively, the Palermo
Protocols are, “…the main international instrument in the fight against transnational organized crime” (UNDOC). At Palermo, the UN defined human trafficking as:
“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring 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 shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs” (UNDOC).
The UN’s definition of human trafficking emphasizes exploitation as a key component to human trafficking. Whereas many definitions of human trafficking only identify sex
Groves 7 trafficking as human trafficking, the UN’s definition is far more liberal. It recognizes not only sex trafficking, but forced labor and organ trafficking as forms of human trafficking.
The US’s definition of human trafficking is a bit less broad than that of the UN.
The same year the UN passed the Palermo Protocols, the US passed the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act. The TVPA defines human trafficking as
“a. sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age; or, “b. the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery. “A victim need not be physically transported from one location to another in order for the crime to fall within these definitions” (Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons).
The US places a special emphasis on sex trafficking in defining human trafficking, though it does recognize other forms of human trafficking as well. Interestingly enough, it does not recognize organ trafficking as a form of human trafficking. It notes that trafficking victims do not necessarily have to be forcibly moved in order to be victims.
Because I am examining Chinese human trafficking to and within the US, I will assume the TVPA’s definition of human trafficking within the context of this paper.
It is also important that I clarify “Chinese.” For the purposes of this paper, I will classify both ethnic and national Chinese people as Chinese. In this study, I will examine both legal and illegal Chinese migrants to the US.
Literature Review
I have selected three major works to review. Although there are more than three works that discuss, I selected these studies as representative of most existing work. The first piece I will review is the “Trafficking in Persons Report.” I selected this piece
Groves 8 because it is the largest annual publication on human trafficking. The TIP Report includes a trafficking assessment for every country—including the US and China. I find it particularly fascinating to see how the US assesses itself, and the amount of time is allots to discussing Chinese trafficking in the US. This is the most recent publication that
I will review.
The second piece I will review is “An Assessment of the Exploitation of Chinese
Migrants in the Western Hemisphere: A Modern Form of Trafficking in Persons,” published by the Organization of American States in 2006. The Assessment is one the largest reports dealing exclusively with Chinese human trafficking. Although the
Assessment is intended to address the entire Western Hemisphere, I find that it is most relevant to the US. This is probably the case because most of the research cited comes from studies in the US, because many other countries in the Western Hemisphere do not have the means or interest in studying Chinese human trafficking.
“Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States” is the third and final piece I will review. Authored by Ko-lin Chin in 1999, this book is foundational to current research on illegal Chinese immigration to the US. Chin has become one of the major authorities on Chinese human smuggling, including human trafficking.
Although this book is in some ways outdated, I feel that it informs our understanding of illegal migration to the US. By understanding clandestine Chinese migration, we may better understand how Chinese human trafficking to the US functions, and why Chinese smuggling yields so many illegal Chinese aliens vulnerable to trafficking.
Groves 9 “Trafficking in Persons Report”
Introduction
The Trafficking in Persons Report is an extensive US government publication.
In 2000, Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Within the
TVPA, Congress allocated funding to create an “Office To Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons,” which is charged with generating the annual Trafficking in
Persons (TIP). To date, the TIP Report is the largest ongoing human trafficking research project in the world (“Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons”).
The Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has been in operation ten years. It was established by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and is housed within the Department of State. The Office has a fourfold approach to eradicate trafficking, namely: prevention, protection, prosecution, and partnership (“Office To
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons”). The Office attempts to prevent trafficking primarily by increasing public awareness on the existence and prevalence of trafficking.
They promote these awareness campaigns in source, transit, and destination countries.
The Office maintains a victim-centered approach to trafficking by focusing on protection.
Protection may take the form of rescue, rehabilitation or reintegration of victims. The
Office collaborates with law enforcement, ICE, and other government agencies to achieve its third goal, namely prosecution. I had the opportunity to work with one of these government agencies in my case study: the San Jose Human Trafficking Task
Force, which is funded by the TIP Office and operated by the San Jose Police
Department. Finally, the Office seeks to end trafficking by creating partnerships with nongovernmental organizations that are effectively fighting trafficking in persons. I also
Groves 10 worked with the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach while in San Francisco; the
APILO is a nongovernmental partner of the TIP Office.
The TIP Report is one of the Office’s largest projects. The Report serves both as a prevention tool as well as a “diplomatic tool” in combating trafficking. It is an instrument of prevention in that it is publicly available on the US Department of State website, and empowers citizens of any country to know more about trafficking within their homeland—provided they have access to the Internet. In addition, “The annual report serves as the primary diplomatic tool through which the U.S. Government encourages other countries to help fight all forms of modern slavery…” (“Trafficking in
Persons Report”). The TIP Report is indeed a positive example of the US using its weight to address a major international human rights issue.
The TIP Report is organized into several sections, including country narratives for approximately 175 countries. Each of these countries is ranked on a scale of one thru three, in which a country ranking Tier One is actively combating trafficking and a country ranking Tier Three is hardly combating trafficking. The other possible rankings are Tier Two and Tier Two Watch List. The Tier ranking is followed by a brief description of the phenomenon of trafficking within the given country. Next, the TIP
Report offers recommendations as to how the given country should address trafficking in the future. After the introduction and recommendations, the TIP Report launches into a discussion of how well the given country is preventing human trafficking, protecting victims, and prosecuting traffickers.
The data behind the TIP Report come from a variety of sources. The Office To
Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons collects its information from “U.S.
Groves 11 embassies, government officials, NGOs and international organizations, published reports, research trips to every region, and information submitted to [email protected]”
(“The 2010 TIP Report: Methodology”). US embassies are required to submit a regional report for the TIP Report. In addition, “Every U.S. mission overseas employs at least one officer covering human trafficking issues” (“The 2010 TIP Report: Methodology”). The
US is able to put together such a large report on trafficking because it effectively collaborates with other governmental and non-governmental agencies to collect data.
Summary of the TIP Report
The TIP Report has been published annually for the last ten years, but 2010 marks the first year that the US has evaluated and ranked itself. China, however, has been incorporated in the TIP Report since its inception. For this reason, I will only evaluate the 2010 TIP Report for the US and China. I will only summarize the points in the US and Chinese TIP Reports that relate to Chinese trafficking to and within the US.
The 2010 TIP Report assigned China to the Tier Two Watch List for the sixth consecutive year. Though the majority of Chinese human trafficking is domestic, a significant number of Chinese are, “…subjected to forced prostitution and forced labor in numerous countries and territories worldwide, including the…United States” (112).
Chinese migrants frequently assumed debts as large as $70,000 to immigrate abroad, and became “extremely vulnerable” to debt bondage when they were unable to pay the hefty sum. The number of overseas Chinese has increased significantly, but China has not yet
“sufficiently developed the capacity to institutionalize its international law enforcement cooperation on trafficking” (114). This means that overseas Chinese victims of human trafficking cannot easily access government aid and protection. Although China claims it
Groves 12 has established up and coming programs directed to help overseas Chinese victims, the programs are perhaps too new to have had any impact as of yet. It is for this reason that the TIP Report recommends that China improve its ability to recognize Chinese victims of human trafficking abroad, and from there do more to meet the victims’ needs. Even if victims are repatriated to China, they will have little access to help: “there are only five
[shelters] nationwide dedicated to trafficking victims…. Due to an inadequate number of dedicated shelters to assist trafficking victims, trafficking victims generally return to their homes without access to counseling or psychological care” (114). The Chinese government has not established a sufficient system to aid victims of trafficking at home or abroad. In fact, repatriated Chinese victims of human trafficking abroad may even be prosecuted. The TIP Report elaborates that: “While government regulations stipulate that repatriated Chinese and foreign victims of human trafficking no longer face fines or other punishments upon return, authorities acknowledged that some victims continued to be assigned criminal penalties or fined because of provisions allowing for the imposition of fines on persons traveling without documentation” (115). The Chinese government further victimizes survivors of human trafficking by imposing fines and punishments on people who have often just escaped debt bondage.
In contrast to China, the United States rated itself as a Tier One country in the
2010 TIP Report. The TIP Report for the US contains little information on Chinese human trafficking to and within the US. What it does include, however, is entirely contained within its “U.S. Insular Areas” section. The US insular areas are comprised of: the American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands. The TIP Reports
Groves 13 notes three trends found in various territories. In American Samoa, Chinese women have been trafficked into brothels and garment factories. In the Northern Mariana Islands,
Chinese women have been sex trafficked through a karaoke bar. Finally, there has been an increase of cases involving Chinese, Haitian, and Dominican women who have been sex trafficked in Puerto Rico. Therefore, the only information that the US TIP Report provides on Chinese human trafficking to or within the US is that Chinese women are being sex trafficked throughout multiple US Insular areas. There is no information on
Chinese trafficking within the fifty states.
Review
The Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has established a great system of analyzing trafficking trends and anti-trafficking efforts on a national scale. It is no easy task to coordinate research efforts on human trafficking in 175 different countries. It succinctly reports intrastate trafficking, and covers some interstate trafficking. I think it would be appropriate for the TIP Report to include special reports on major trafficking trends between states.
The TIP Report is the most extensive global survey of trafficking. By nature, it cannot cover trafficking in any particular country in great detail. I appreciate the amount of time that the TIP Report designates to discussing Chinese trafficking abroad. China is as much a player as the US in terms of Chinese trafficking to the US. China’s policies regarding trafficked Chinese nationals will inevitably affect those Chinese nationals trafficked to the US. Regrettably, the TIP Report devotes very little time to discussing
Chinese human trafficking in the US. Perhaps this is because China is not considered a
“primary country of origin for foreign victims certified by the U.S. government” (338). I
Groves 14 cannot help but wonder how many Chinese victims of trafficking go uncertified by the
US, and are thence repatriated to China once discovered.
I would love to see the US devote a significant amount of the TIP Report to domestic trafficking in the US. If the US is able to allocate so much time and money to publishing an annual global assessment of human trafficking, why not release a more comprehensive report on trafficking within our own country?
Suggestions for Future Research
The TIP Report does a great job at sharing brief reports on trafficking on a country-to-country basis. The US cannot, however, evaluate itself like any other country: it must conduct more extensive self-evaluations. I believe that the TIP Report needs to pull together more research on human trafficking in the US. It would be appropriate to look at trends in trafficking as they correlate to the victims’ countries of origin. Ethnic- focused research on human trafficking may better reveal trends in trafficking than do more macro trafficking studies. Researching Chinese human trafficking in the US would be a great place to start, especially since Chinese human trafficking hubs are located in major US cities where the government already has the human and financial capital available to perform such research. The TIP Report has established great systems of measurement for human trafficking by looking abroad; it is now time that we evaluate trafficking within our own country more scrupulously. We can start with Chinese human trafficking.
Groves 15 “An Assessment of the Exploitation of Chinese Migrants in the Western
Hemisphere: A Modern Form of Trafficking in Persons.”
Introduction
In 2006, the Organization of American States published “An Assessment of the
Exploitation of Chinese Migrants in the Western Hemisphere: A Modern Form of
Trafficking in Persons.” This assessment, conducted by OAS consultant Nathalie Tran, focuses primarily on undocumented migrants who have been forced into slavery. To date, this is the largest body of work documenting Chinese victims of human trafficking in the US and elsewhere in the West.
The Organization of American States is an intergovernmental organization which
“comprises the 35 independent states of the Americas and has granted permanent observer status to 63 states, as well as to the European Union. The Organization of
American States constitutes the principal political, juridical, and social governmental forum in the Hemisphere” (OAS). The OAS is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and has representatives from most countries in the Western Hemisphere; it serves to promote political dialogue between all members. It is particularly committed to “democracy, human rights, security, and development” (OAS). Given it’s commitment to these four
‘pillars,’ it is therefore not surprising that the OAS would be concerned with the prevalence of trafficking in the Western Hemisphere. Human trafficking poses a threat to democracy and development, in that it undermines human rights and security.
The OAS opened the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Section to research and inform governments on human trafficking in the West. The Anti-Trafficking in Persons Section is administratively housed within the Department for the Prevention of Threats Against
Groves 16 Public Security, though it was initially housed within the Inter-American Commission of
Women. “The Section strives to implement a broad anti-trafficking strategy that addresses the human rights, social policy, and transnational crime aspects of this international challenge” (OAS). In practice, the Section seeks to achieve this by hosting and attending seminars on trafficking; facilitating legislative workgroups; and sponsoring research on trafficking to and within the Western Hemisphere. Because the Section does not have any anti-trafficking task force of its own, it is not able to directly combat trafficking in persons. Therefore, the Section seeks to best inform and empower governments and existing task forces. The Section hired independent researcher Nathalie
Tran to conduct an outside assessment.
Tran gathered the information for the assessment from a wide range of sources.
She explains that, “This research presents a range of qualitative information based on interviews, existing reports, and specialized literature. The interviews were carried out with an array of persons who live and observe this phenomenon on a daily basis—human rights advocates, lawyers, social workers, law enforcement officials, journalists, academics and illegal Chinese migrants themselves” (OAS, Tran 12). Tran consulted a wide variety of sources in the assessment. Given the elusive nature of human trafficking, a consultant must be creative in investigating trafficking. Furthermore, many American countries have yet to collect data on human trafficking. In fact, the majority of the research she cites is from the US—so a lot of the report pertains to Chinese human trafficking to and within the US.
The assessment is organized into three sections. In the first section, Tran illuminates the illegal presence and migration of Chinese people through the various
Groves 17 American states. She proposes that the ‘magnitude’ of ‘Chinese clandestine migration’ is greater than it purports to be (OAS, Tran 11). In section two, Tran examines the push and pull factors that draw Chinese migrants to the Americas, as well as how they fall prey to trafficking. The final section seeks to “thoroughly explain why the Chinese migrants’ exploitation paradigm fulfills the legal criteria of the crime of trafficking in persons”
(OAS, Tran 11). Tran uses this final section to prove that many illegal Chinese migrants become trafficking victims at some point; she also discusses the importance of accurately identifying Chinese victims of human trafficking. She arrives at the conclusion that:
“many Chinese illegal migrants are in fact victims of trafficking because of the nature of the exploitation and abuses that they have to endure in their desperate struggle to survive and to pay off their enormous smuggling debts” (OAS, Tran 9). Smuggling related debt,
Tran concludes, is the largest trap for illegal Chinese migrants.
Summary of the Assessment
Given the scope of the assessment, not all information will be applicable to the present report on Chinese human trafficking to and within the US. Therefore, I will limit my presentation and discussion of the report to that material on Chinese human trafficking in the Western Hemisphere which pertains Chinese trafficking to and within the US, as well as more general information on trends throughout the Western
Hemisphere.
Tran begins the assessment by discussing Chinese people living overseas. In recent years, larger numbers of Chinese people have immigrated to North America. As many as two million ethnic and overseas Chinese live in the US, most of whom reside in predominantly Chinese neighborhoods. The US permits as many as 61,000 new Chinese
Groves 18 immigrants permanent resident status annually; in addition, it appropriates hundreds of thousands of temporary visas to Chinese tourists, students and temporary workers. The T visa, for government-recognized victims of human trafficking, has been awarded to a small number of Chinese and Taiwanese nationals (e.g. 17 T visas in 2004).
Illegal Chinese emigrants are harder to count and monitor. Tran laments that:
“Official global data are currently not available for the number of detected Chinese illegal immigrants in the Western Hemisphere nor are there any reliable estimates at the regional level. But…most of the Chinese migrants want to reach the “Golden Mountain”
(19). There is little known about the number of overall Chinese illegally present in the
West. The US government has published several estimates, and is the only country in the
Western Hemisphere to do so. Perhaps the most reliable estimate is that 20,000 to 30,000
Chinese illegally enter the US every year, according to Sheldon Zhang and Ko-lin Chin, specialists in the study of Chinese human trafficking.
Figure 1.1 The Illicit Chinese Migrant Flow to the United States, 2000 (Tran 21).
Groves 19 Chinese smugglers have long been thought to be connected to organized crime groups (‘triads’), but recent research shows that most smugglers operate with only a few associates and on a smaller scale. Tran cites Chin and Zhang, asserting that smugglers
(also known as ‘snakeheads’) are, “…on the whole, ordinary Chinese citizens— businessmen, waiters, taxi drivers—who freelance in the smuggling business” (29).
Furthermore, Chin and Zhang argue that even when organized crime groups are involved in trafficking, their direct involvement is only minimal. Tran wrestles with the authors’ theories on the role of organized crime in human smuggling, but she ultimately arrives at the conclusion that smuggling is too intricate a business to be successfully carried out without major involvement of large organized crime groups. Once these triads have successfully smuggled the Chinese immigrants into the US, they will hold most of the immigrants in debt bondage.
Tran next examines what compels Chinese people to come illegally to the US.
She starts by looking at which groups of Chinese are illegally migrating at present, and notes two particularly large groups. One pool of migrants are ‘float[ers],’ who cannot find permanent work in China and therefore seek work overseas. Many other illegal migrants come from the Fujian province, where young men are culturally encouraged to migrate in search of a financially prosperous life. In the past, Chinese smuggling peaked when the US government passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and two Presidential orders a few years later. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of
1986 granted illegal aliens legal status, provided they could prove four years residency.
In the late 1980’s, two Presidential orders granted refugee status to people persecuted for
Groves 20 pregnancy or political activism. These political events spurred an increase in smuggling; many Chinese abused these opportunities by procuring false documentation.
What illegal Chinese migrants experience today is rather different than twenty years ago. They may hire a snakehead, or one may recruit them. Either way, they bargain with the smuggler to reach an approximate price. Though “there is no fixed price,” a migrant may pay anywhere from $55,000 to $75,000 (35). Part of the smuggling fees are paid upfront, another part is collected incrementally whenever they safely complete a leg of the trip, and the rest is expected upon arrival within the US.
Poorer migrants may also opt to pay almost the entire amount in ‘installments’ after beginning work in the US.
Snakeheads must be creative in smuggling in Chinese migrants. “The snakehead organizers normally resort to different methods of transportation, which often involve a waiting period in a transit country” (36). Smugglers usually employ a variety of types of transportation to bring Chinese migrants into the US, and they must constantly change smuggling routes to avoid detection. Snakeheads may also detain migrants in a transit country in order to verify that falsified documents, travel arrangements, and routes are all reliable. Some migrants are stowed in boxes in cargo ships, and many do not fare well.
“Migrants found after travel in such harsh conditions are often dehydrated and malnourished, if not dead” (38). Migrants traveling by land often do so on foot.
Recently, snakeheads have also started to use temporary visas to transport clients to the
Western Hemisphere—these visas are, obviously enough, overstayed. This is perhaps the safest and most common way that Chinese migrants are smuggled into the US.
Tran draws on a variety of sources to compile actual routes of trafficked Chinese:
Groves 21 “China, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Mexico and the United States; Belize,
Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the United States;…China, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Spain, Ecuador and North America” (40). Snakeheads employ a large variety of routes, each comprised of several transit countries. Mexico is a particularly common transit country for illegal Chinese migrants. These routes do not specify where the immigrants enter or stay in the US.
Over their months of travel, illegal Chinese migrants are exceptionally vulnerable.
Smugglers often employ gangs to keep migrants in line, particularly when traveling by sea. Regardless of the form of travel, migrants are often subject to “beatings, rape, [and] other acts of cruelty” (41). However, migrants who live through smuggling and go undetected by authorities are most profitable to their smugglers. Therefore, smugglers will go to some lengths to rescue incarcerated migrants—an effort for which they tack on additional fees for the migrants’ already established debt.
When the migrants safely arrive in the US, they are kept in safe houses until they pay off their debt. If a migrant can pay the debt upon arrival, they are released. If however they cannot, they will be detained at the safe house. Migrants in this later category may choose to finance their debt through loan sharks—guaranteed not by collateral, but by force. Individuals who still cannot pay the debt may be forced into sex trafficking, drug trafficking, or illegal gambling owned by or connected the snakeheads.
In whatever capacity, thousands of Chinese immigrants to the US are detained in snakehead-operated safe houses on a daily basis.
After being released from the safe house, Chinese migrants usually move into
Chinese communities in search of work. “At this point, the typical, freshly-arrived
Groves 22 migrant is facing the repayment of thousand[s] of dollars of debt to family, friends, or loan sharks in China” (45). Getting to the US is only part of the challenge: paying off the debt of migrating remains a huge burden to illegal Chinese migrants. Due to large numbers of illegal immigrants living within Chinese communities, immigrants must compete for any available jobs open to illegal immigrants. Most Chinese migrants find work in clothing production, restaurants, and construction. The abundance of illegal workers and the lack of jobs keep wages low. Employers also take advantage of their illegal workers by withholding pay and not maintaining decent safety and sanitary conditions. Migrants are unlikely to quit or complain, however, due to the scarcity of other available work opportunities and their illegal status.
Tran details the working conditions that many migrants face. In garment factories, workers must work 70 to 100 hours per week; they receive only two to four dollars per hour. Illegal Chinese migrants working in restaurants may not be paid at all— though they may be permitted to keep their tips. Many illegal migrants have been lured out of Chinese communities to work at Chinese restaurants in the suburbs, where their employers dictate their working and living conditions.
Illegal Chinese migrants seldom live in better environments than where they work. Burdened by migration debts and family remittances, migrants usually opt for the cheapest available food and housing. Most migrants can only afford to eat rice and steamed buns. They often live in squalid “ya zilou,” or “duck buildings,” that rent out bunk beds.
In the years preceding the assessment, the prevalence of prostitution of illegal
Chinese migrants was increasing. Some of the women have voluntarily entered sex
Groves 23 work, while others have been forced. Prostitution may seem to be a less intense form of labor than other work available to illegal laborers. As it is, some sweatshop owners force laborers into prostitution on the side. Chinese migrants in prostitution encounter the same sorts of abuse and exploitation experienced by other sex trafficking victims: routine moves across states, isolation, rapes, and little to no compensation. Unfortunately, very little research has been done on Chinese migrants in prostitution.
The physical demands of travel, poor living conditions, and strenuous working conditions have harsh effects on Chinese migrants. Tran explains that: “Many undocumented restaurant workers and seamstresses, for example, suffer a variety of lingering illnesses, such as blackouts, permanent back and shoulder pain, chronic insomnia, and headaches. Depression, alcoholism, and suicidal tendencies can often develop as a result” (55). Migrants are particularly vulnerable in work accidents, because they do not have access to workers’ compensation. If injured, they have no income and therefore no way to pay off their debt. Chinese migrants in prostitution are particularly prone to psychological and physical harm.
At this point, Tran raises her primary question: are illegal Chinese migrants willing smuggling participants or victims of human trafficking? She proposes that illegal
Chinese migration is not so clear, and is best described as a ‘continuum.’ Indeed, many
Chinese victims of human trafficking in the US would not classify themselves as such.
Rather, “Many Chinese migrants accept their servitude as a consequence of their bad decision or the high price that they have to pay to establish themselves in their new country. They see themselves as responsible for paying a debt” (59). Chinese victims of human trafficking are not likely to recognize their own victimhood, but blame themselves
Groves 24 for their hardship. They receive little sympathy from Chinese-Americans, who consider hardship to be a right of passage to live in the US.
While not all illegal Chinese migrants are victims of human trafficking, many migrants are at risk of debt-bondage. The line between smuggling and trafficking is often so subtle that authorities misidentify many veritable victims of trafficking. Because illegal Chinese migrants consented to come to the US and consented to take a given job, they are not considered to be trafficking victims. This is, of course, hardly the case: these
Chinese migrants consented to fictitious working and living conditions. Ironically,
Chinese migrants are apt to downplay their deplorable circumstances: “those few returnees from the ‘Golden Mountain’ [to China] inevitably romanticize their time abroad and downplay the rough and desperate days of their work…. seeking to save face and enhance their sense of pride…” (65). Chinese are unlikely to self-identify as trafficking victims, making it more difficult for authorities to accurately identify them. Chinese victims of trafficking in the US are subject to coercion and physical violence—just like any victim of trafficking. Looming smuggling debt may be considered a kind of coercion, in that it takes most victims five years to pay it off. Tran calls this “a contemporary of ‘covered or hidden debt bondage’” (73). She describes a case in which parents were indicted for trafficking, because they illegally sent their child to America and made him work off his own debt.
Chinese human trafficking to the West may be unique in that it operates by several individual actors, and not necessarily one single trafficker. Tran succinctly describes the phenomena: “The alliance of traffickers is diffuse, but it still acts in concert” (76). All elements of exploitation, from fraudulent recruitment to inhumane
Groves 25 work, victimize Chinese migrants; all exploiters form a cycle that consistently lures in new victims. Tran urges authorities to recognize that many Chinese migrants face more than “labor abuse,” and are indeed victims of human trafficking.
Tran concludes the assessment by giving a series of recommendations to the
Organization of American States. She stresses that more research must be done, and that her work does not adequately report the prevalence and details of Chinese human trafficking to the West. She encourages the American states to collaborate, seeing as though Chinese migrants tend to spend time in one or more transit country within the
Western Hemisphere. She notes that, “China, in the past, has collaborated with many countries to fight illegal migration” (80). She concludes that the US, let alone any other
American country, cannot successfully combat Chinese trafficking in persons without addressing the conditions that are compelling them to leave home.
Review
I think that Tran’s assessment is an important contribution to our understanding of
Chinese human trafficking in the Western Hemisphere. She is very resourceful, and eloquently ties previous research into one coherent paper. The point of the paper is to provide the Organization of American States with an assessment of Chinese trafficking in the Americas; unfortunately, I believe she only partially completes this goal. She devotes a significant amount of time to talking about trafficking in general; she could afford to spend more time talking about specifically Chinese trends in trafficking. I would also critique Tran for limiting her discussion to illegal Chinese migrants. There are significant numbers of Chinese migrants who come legally on a temporary visa and then remain in the US illegally. Tran only glosses over this trend in Chinese trafficking to the US: to
Groves 26 adequately discuss the “Exploitation of Chinese Migrants in the Western Hemisphere,” I believe she needs to discuss other trends beside illegal Chinese migrants.
Tran’s assessment is strong in many other regards. I believe that the assessment is an appropriate tool to introduce governments to the prevalence, trends, and legal complications of Chinese human trafficking to the Western Hemisphere. Tran obviously understands the trends in clandestine Chinese migration to the West; she skillfully illustrates how smuggling debts can easily lead Chinese migrants into debt bondage.
Suggestions for Future Research
The assessment is a great segue into future research on Chinese trafficking to and within the West. The report is already four years old, and no follow up has been done (to my knowledge). Judging by their website, it appears as though the OAS Anti-Trafficking in Persons Section has been largely inactive since 2006. Their lack of a follow up report may not be a lack of interest, so much as a lack of resources or funding. An appropriate follow up report could compare trends in the last four years with trends during prior years. In the report, Tran suggested a few future areas of research. Precise numbers of illegal Chinese migrants, let alone numbers of Chinese victims of trafficking, in the
Western Hemisphere remain unknown. Since the majority of Chinese immigrants to the
Western Hemisphere are eventually trying to get into the US, it would help to know exactly how many Chinese migrants attempt to illegally enter the US, as well as how many people are trafficked. From there, one could evaluate the percentage of smuggled people who are trafficking unwillingly. Tran also notes that no research has been done on Chinese migrant prostitution in the Western Hemisphere. Such research would need
Groves 27 to look at the prevalence of Chinese migrants trafficked into prostitution, demographics of prostituted migrants, trafficking circuits, the role of organized crime groups, etc.
Tran provides a great introduction to Chinese trafficking in the Western
Hemisphere, but her research is not exhaustive. The assessment introduces governments in the Americas to Chinese migrant trafficking, but governments must take the initiative to investigate Chinese trafficking within their own country. I commend the Organization of American States for funding such an assessment, and hope they will sponsor a follow up report. Out of all members of the OAS, the US has collected the largest amount of data on Chinese human trafficking (indeed, the assessment would hardly have been possible without US government-sponsored research). As the primary destination country in the Western Hemisphere, the US must continue such research as well as initiate collaboration with transit countries.
Groves 28 “Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States”
Introduction
Illegal Chinese migration has become a major immigration issue in the US, yet little research has been done on the subject. In his book, “Smuggled Chinese:
Clandestine Immigration to the United States,” Dr. Ko-lin Chin weeks to fill in this void by presenting “extensive quantitative and qualitative data” on illegal Chinese migration to the US (xvi). The book, published in 1999, was the first major work to explore the
“causes and processes” of Chinese human smuggling (Chin xvii). In the eleven years since the book was published, “Smuggled Chinese” continues to be one of the most important works on clandestine Chinese migration.
Dr. Ko-lin Chin is perhaps the greatest authority on Chinese migration to the US.
His interest in Chinese migration began after the Golden Venture incident made national news. Since then, Chin has researched Chinese immigration and organized crime. Chin currently serves as a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Rutgers, Newark
(Rutgers-Newark). His research and expertise garnered him an invitation to the, “High
Level Political Signing Conference for the United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime in the United States in Palermo, Italy” in 2000 (Rutgers-
Newark). Chin has continued to research illegal Chinese migration and organized crime.
Chin utilized a variety of research methods in preparing “Smuggled Chinese.”
With the help of a research team, Chin collected three hundred interviews of illegal
Chinese migrants living in New York City. He also pursued interviews with authorities on smuggling. His research was collected over a trip to Chinatown in NYC, as well as two trips to “sending communities” in China (xvi). Chin was the first researcher to
Groves 29 collect such a large and diverse amount of data on Chinese immigration. The research was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (xx).
The book is organized into three sections. The first, “Leaving for the Beautiful
Country,” examines the push and pull factors that influence Chinese people to illegal immigrate to the US. In the second section, “Following the Snakeheads,” Chin describes the Chinese human smugglers and their smuggling routes and methods. “Climbing in the
Mountain of Gold,” the final section, describes life for clandestine Chinese immigrants in the US.
Summary
“Smuggled Chinese” is not just a study of Chinese human trafficking, but of
Chinese human smuggling as well. With that said, not everything in the book pertains directly to this study on Chinese human trafficking to and within the US. I will limit my summary to those parts that discuss smuggling as it pertains to the trafficking of Chinese persons.
The number of Chinese illegally entering the US is not as the numbers of other national and ethnic groups, yet illegal Chinese migration has greatly alarmed the US government. Illegal Chinese immigrants seem particularly prone to abuse and accidents during smuggling. Chin explains that, “Many smuggled Chinese have reportedly lost their lives in accidents in transit countries or on U.S. borders…. Those who do make it to the United States safely may be subject to kidnapping and torture at the hands of debt- collectors…” (Chin 7). Chinese immigrants are apparently more willing to take greater risks in order to live in the US.
Groves 30 Illegal Chinese immigrants are drawn to the US for a variety of reasons. Most recent illegal Chinese immigrants come from the Fujian Province (Chin 8). Fujian are characteristically driven people who look outside of their own community to find economic success. Going to the US has become a status symbol of prosperity and honor.
Chinese migrants usually desire to come to the US in order to make money. Some desire to escape absolute destitution; others desire to live more comfortably—yet both believe that it is feasible to become rich in the US. Most illegal Chinese immigrants are influenced by their families to migrate to the US. This is probably because the family shares the burden of the smuggling fees with the family member being smuggled.
Families may consider this a kind of economic investment outside of China, namely a way to ensure economic stability independent of China’s economic status. The Chinese illegal migrants are willing to bear such a weight in America. “A thirty-five-year-old
[Chinese] Changle male said, ‘I am sacrificing myself to bring happiness to my family’”
(Chin 18). Chinese illegal immigrants are largely influenced to migrate by the hope of economic success for themselves and their families.
Other Chinese migrants may be more personally motivated to leave the US. At least some migrants are criminals evading arrest and imprisonment. Others migrants are unsatisfied with the Chinese government, and some are even fleeing political persecution.
There was a particular surge in Chinese human smuggling after Tiananmen Square massacre. Regardless of the specific motivations, most illegal Chinese migrants have thought about migrating to the US since childhood. According to Chin’s various interviews, only a small number of people were tricked by smugglers to migrate.
Groves 31 The growth of the Chinese community in America has created room for increased illegal migration. Migrants face a smaller risk in migrating: Chinese communities in the
US make the transition easier, as well as insulate many immigrants from US authorities.
As more people desire to migrate, there is a greater demand for smugglers. Smugglers have even gained positive status: “Most [illegal Chinese immigrants] tended to see [big snakeheads] as respected business people rather than criminals” (Chin 30). These “big snakeheads” oversee larger smuggling operations and employ little snakeheads to be more directly involved in smuggling. Illegal Chinese migrants are more apt to despise their big snakeheads. Successful smuggling requires a variety of actors, from corrupt officials to smuggling guides. The actors most involved with illegal migrants in the US are debt-collectors, who are authorized by snakeheads to use any means necessary to collect the debt. US law enforcement has long argued that Chinese triads dominated the
Chinese human smuggling industry, but Chin’s research indicates otherwise.
Chin next describes how smugglers use various air, sea, and land routes to transport their human cargo. He explains that however they may come, Chinese illegal immigrants “are vulnerable to many forms of abuse and victimization. Their lack of proper documents, language barriers, and need to avoid capture by authorities prevent them from seeking help and make them easy prey to all manner of exploitation (Chin 89).
Clandestine Chinese migrants are vulnerable to being robbed by their smugglers while en route to the US. Women are particularly prone to sexual abuse and sex trafficking, especially if they cannot pay the arbitrary fees that little snakeheads charge along the way. They are also vulnerable to rape and forced prostitution while they are at safe houses in the US. Most illegal Chinese immigrants are forced to remain in safe houses
Groves 32 until they can pay off their debts. Others are allowed to leave the safe houses on the condition that the smuggling fees are repaid within a set period of time.
Chinese immigrants seem particularly prone to kidnapping. Chinese gangs frequently kidnap both legal and illegal Chinese immigrants. Should the immigrants be unable to repay their smuggling debt in the set time, they may be kidnapped by the debt- collector. There is also a high incidence of kidnapping of illegal Chinese immigrants, in which cases snakeheads must pay off the ransom. Similarly, snakeheads will commonly hire lawyers to defend Chinese immigrants who are caught by US authorities.
Snakeheads will use various methods to extract smuggling fees from their clients.
In contrast to US governmental opinion, Chin argues that most snakeheads demand a single, immediate payment (as opposed to a debt bondage arrangement). Only 39 of 300 smuggled individuals he interviewed reported that they were permitted to pay in two installments. To coerce smuggled Chinese into paying, snakeheads make life within safe houses as miserable as possible. Illegal Chinese migrants are charged room and board fees daily until they pay off their smuggling fees in full. They live in crowded conditions, and are fed little if any food. Safe house staff commonly beats both men and women. As previously mentioned, women are particularly prone to sexual assault. Chin elaborates, stating: “the longer a subject was held in a safe house, the more likely he or she was to be seriously and frequently abused by the safe house operators” (101). Debt collectors seem to treat illegal immigrants better when they pay their smuggling fees off quickly—that is, within hours or a couple days of arrival. After a sort of grace period, debt collectors were apt to become especially harsh with the immigrants. However they
Groves 33 may collect the debt, snakeheads are apparently willing to use violence and abuse to collect smuggling fees.
After illegal Chinese immigrants are permitted to leave the safe house, they face many new difficulties in the US. Limited knowledge of English, homesickness, and poor living conditions are just a few of the challenges. Many illegal Chinese immigrants report frustration in finding and maintaining work. They live on extremely tight budgets exacerbated by family members in China who expect that they send money home. Most immigrants work in low-income jobs, particularly in “the garment, food, and construction businesses” (Chin 115). Most work twelve hour days, six days a week. Chin found that most illegal Chinese immigrants he interviewed actually make a decent wage. However, most immigrants use at least some of this income to pay off residual smuggling fees. The accumulation of all these stresses has caused many illegal Chinese migrants to develop psychological disorders.
Chinese migrants are especially vulnerable to criminals, in that illegal migrants will usually not contact US authorities if they are victimized. There is a particularly high prevalence of mugging and home invasion of illegal migrants. While Chin did not find cases of women smuggled for the purpose of prostitution, he did find cases in which women “fell into prostitution after their arrival as a way of paying off their debts” (109).
Migrant women may be willing to enter prostitution if they feel they cannot pay off their smuggling debt doing legitimate work. Other migrants may enter criminal industries if they cannot pay their debts and cannot find other work—however, few illegal migrants seem to choose illicit professions. Illegal Chinese migrants seem more likely to be criminals’ prey than to be criminals themselves.
Groves 34 Both China and the US have taken measures to curb human smuggling. China has launched numerous campaigns raising awareness about the dangers of illegal migration. In addition, they have imposed prison sentences on repatriated illegal Chinese immigrants. Since the Golden Venture incident, the US has drastically increased measures to curb illegal migration in general. This includes increased border security, deportations, and employer sanctions. The US has only been mildly successful in identifying and prosecuting snakeheads. This is probably because smuggling is so deeply imbedded and protected by Chinese communities in the US that, “its power, connections, and flexibility make law enforcement measures largely ineffective” (Chin 152). The networks that make Chinese human smuggling possible also protect smuggling from the
US authorities.
Chin concludes the book by making a series of policy recommendations to US and China. He suggests that China take such measures as increasing anti-illegal immigrant campaigns in sending communities. Among other things, Chin suggested that the US reexamine its political asylum program—which apparently lures a lot of illegal
Chinese immigrants to the US. He is convinced that Chinese people will continue to migrate, regardless of legality. He ends with,
“In the meantime, the best the world community can do is to create more opportunities for Chinese to emigrate legally, thus decreasing the human suffering associated with clandestine immigration and breaking the unfortunate link between immigration and the trafficking in human beings” (Chin 165).
Review
I commend Chin for pioneering the study of illegal Chinese immigration to the
US. He assembled a comprehensive study of clandestine Chinese migration to the US; it undoubtedly paved the way for similar research conducted in the last eleven years.
Groves 35 Over that period of time, some of this research has been overturned. Primarily,
Chinese human trafficking is a much greater problem than Chin presumed. Chin only directly references human trafficking twice: once in the first chapter and once in the concluding sentence. He glosses over immigrant abuse, yet is slow to dub such dire circumstances ‘trafficking.’ The context in which he uses the word ‘trafficking’ could lead one to believe that it is synonymous with smuggling. This may be because the term
‘human trafficking’ was not widely in use at the time. Regardless, I wish that Chin had devoted more time to discussing the debt-bondage of illegal Chinese migrants. I suspect that the immigrants he had access to were not the immigrants most deeply entrenched in debt-bondage.
Furthermore, Chin’s findings sometimes seem too positive. For example, only one female he interviewed self-identified as a prostitute. Other women mentioned that they knew someone who became a prostitute. While these are the findings of the interviews, I suspect that more women were coerced into sex work for some period of time—even if it was not long enough for them to consider themselves prostitutes.
However, I must give Chin credit for stating, “It is not clear how many smuggled Chinese have been recruited into the sex industry” (125). Interestingly, Chin “found no evidence” of Chinese migrants smuggled for the purpose of prostitution—though some migrants later decided to enter the field (109). Since the publication of “Smuggled Chinese,” Chin collaborated with James Finckenauer on “A Case Study of Human Trafficking: The
Transnational Movement of Chinese Women for Sex Work.”
Chin’s findings may be surprising because they targeted the smuggling of one ethnic group to one region of the US. While his research may accurately reflect the
Groves 36 experiences and circumstances of one large illegal Chinese population, it does not necessarily reflect all Chinese human smuggling or trafficking.
Suggestions for Future Research
Chin’s research is a great start to research on Chinese human smuggling. By discussing the abuses of clandestine Chinese migrants, he prepares his audience to better understand human trafficking. I would love to see a parallel study done, in which similar data is collected. Since the Palermo Protocols (passed the year after the book’s publication), the international community has become more cognizant of the prevalence of human trafficking. Perhaps now that human trafficking has been identified and defined, we would be more likely to identify human trafficking victims within a study like Chin’s.
I think a larger study in the same style would provide better understanding of
Chinese human trafficking at-large. Such a study would research smuggling from all regions in China to all regions in the US. I believe that there would be a greater prevalence of trafficking among smuggled people than was indicated in Chin’s 1999 findings. Finally, I think it would be important to include research on Chinese who enter the US legally on a visa, and then illegally overstay their visa. I am curious to see how the experiences of such illegal migrants compare with smuggled migrants in the US.
Groves 37 Case Study: Chinese Human Trafficking in the San Francisco Bay Area
Introduction
To examine Chinese human trafficking in the US on a smaller scale, I did a case study of Chinese human trafficking in the San Francisco Bay area. While there is some research on Chinese human trafficking in the US, little research has been conducted on
Chinese human trafficking in specific regions. In her assessment for the OAS, Nathalie
Tran explains that, “Official global data are currently not available for the number of detected Chinese illegal immigrants in the Western Hemisphere nor are there any reliable estimates at the regional level” (19). Human trafficking research itself is relatively new, and only a fraction of it has studied ethnic trends in human trafficking. Therefore, I was particularly inspired to pioneer ethnic human trafficking with this case study.
I chose to study San Francisco for two particular reasons. I primarily chose San
Francisco because it is home to one of the largest Chinese communities in the United
States. According to Tran, many Chinese victims of human trafficking in the US are trafficking into migrant communities—particularly San Francisco. I also chose San
Francisco because of its commitment to eradicating human trafficking. In 2006, San
Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome led a major anti-human trafficking crusade in San
Francisco. I thought it would be interesting to look at the current prevalence of Chinese human trafficking in the Bay area after such a large anti-trafficking campaign.
Methodology
The University of Arizona Honors College sponsored this research with an
Undergraduate Research Grant. It was supervised by Dr. Karna Walter of the University
Groves 38 of Arizona Honors College. In addition, the University of Arizona Institutional Review
Board has approved it for “Human Subjects Clearance”.
This study includes a compilation of interviews with professionals who work with
Chinese victims of human trafficking in the Bay area. I had initially desired to interview victims of human trafficking, but found it very difficult to get clearance. Victims are extremely vulnerable, and therefore carefully protected by research protocol.
Furthermore, it is very difficult to contact victims: a researcher can only leave contact information with an organization and leave it up to victims to return contact. At the onset of this research project, I contacted individuals working in a variety of sectors who would be most likely to have ongoing or significant contact with Chinese human trafficking victims. I identified individuals working in: government; health care; mental health care; social care workers; lawyers and advocates; and law enforcement.
I contacted several government agencies and individuals. I had especially hoped to interview San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome and District Attorney Kamala Harris.
As previously mentioned, Newsome spearheaded an anti-trafficking campaign in 2006.
The anti-trafficking effort included several major sweeps of Asian massage parlors as prostitution fronts. Harris has been a tour de force in San Francisco’s ongoing effort to eradicate human trafficking. Unfortunately, I was not able to interview either Newsome or Harris. The Chief Counsel of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for San
Francisco expressed great interest in this research, but was unable to schedule an interview (he was in process of retiring). His successor did not respond to my requests for an interview. Likewise, the Pacifica and San Francisco Police Departments did not return my messages. The San Jose Human Trafficking Task Force, however, was very
Groves 39 eager to schedule an interview. I also tried contacting the Chinese Embassy in San
Francisco, but they did not respond to my messages.
The remainder of the individuals and organizations I contacted were affiliated with the San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking. The Collaborative is very new: it was only formed in January 2010. It is a network of over twenty governmental and nongovernmental individuals and agencies that are, “…committed to ending human trafficking through collaboration, education, outreach, advocacy, and supporting survivors of human trafficking by taking a zero tolerance stance on exploitation, violence, and human trafficking” (SFCAHT vi). The two major agencies orchestrating the Collaborative are the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the
Department on the Status of Women. Early this year, the two agencies put together a
“Directory of Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking” for the Collaborative. The directory gives contact information for individuals working at each of the collaborating agencies. It also provides a brief description of the agency, including: the mission, types of clients they serve, languages spoken, service hours, fees, services, and advocacy activities. I filtered through the directory for any organizations that service Chinese victims of human trafficking and contacted each of the appropriate organizations. I contacted: Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach; Asian Women’s Shelter; Bay Area Sex
Worker Advocacy Network (BAYSWAN); Because Justice Matters; Catholic Charities,
CYO; Center for Gender and Refugee Studies; Department of the Status of Women;
Donaldina Cameron House; Freedom House; Gum Moon Residence Hall; Human Rights
Commission; the Mary Elizabeth Inn; Newcomers Health Program, Department of
Health; Not for Sale; the Riley Center; Refugee Medical Clinic; SDS Hope House;
Groves 40 Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE) Project; and the San Francisco Mental
Health Clients’ Rights Advocates. Many agencies were very enthusiastic about my project, but few individuals felt they had enough experience with Chinese human trafficking victims to be able to speak with me in an interview.
In August 2010, I flew out to San Francisco to conduct my interviews and otherwise continue my research. This report is the product of four major interviews and several correspondences. The four interviews were with individuals who work at the
Asian Pacific Islanders Legal Outreach, San Jose Anti-Trafficking Task Force,
Newcomers Health Program (San Francisco Department of Health), and San Francisco
Mental Health Clients’ Rights Advocacy. Due to the stipulations of “Human Subjects
Clearance,” I am not permitted to identify names or potentially damaging information.
Therefore, I will only identify the interviewees by their organizational affiliation.
Findings
I had a plethora of findings namely because there is such a lack of research on
Chinese human trafficking. I have not found any other studies on Chinese human trafficking in the San Francisco Bay area; a few individuals and organizations have studied human trafficking in California (and even San Francisco), but there appears to be no specific research available on Chinese human trafficking in the region. I will now proceed to discussing my findings.
1. Trends in Trafficking
Most Chinese victims in the Bay area enter the US legally on a visa. However, instead of returning to China, they illegally remain in the US. There are also a significant number of victims who are legally present in the US. These individuals may have a
Groves 41 greencard or even citizenship, yet they have still fallen prey to human trafficking. Trends of trafficking in minors were remarkably different than trafficking in adults: most child victims of human trafficking were smuggled across the US-Mexico border. The children frequently spent time in various border states before reaching San Francisco.
Victims were most commonly trafficked by someone familiar. Snakeheads were not necessarily triad members, trusted friends and family members. In one case, an elderly person was trafficked by his or her son or daughter to work in a restaurant. They were made to work against their will and received no compensation for working several days a week. One interviewee expressed that it is relatively common for spouses to trafficked one another. Although they may have had a respectful, loving relationship in
China, the stresses of a new life in America sour the relationship. Relationships become abusive for the first time, and may eventually result in trafficking.
I found that Chinese are almost exclusively trafficked by other Chinese. Ethnic
Chinese living abroad are primarily trafficked by Chinese nationals. Furthermore,
Chinese nationals frequently traffic other Asians to the US. A significant number of
Filipinos have been trafficked to the US to do domestic work for Chinese families or individuals. While these domestic workers might have previously worked for the family in China, the workload vastly increases in the US. A prominent family in China might easily afford a cook, a housecleaner, a nanny, and a chauffeur. However, with higher living expenses in the US, the can now only afford one person—whom they expect to complete the work of all domestic positions combined. Overall, Chinese victims are usually trafficked by another Chinese person—though Chinese traffickers also dabble in trafficking other Asians.
Groves 42 2. Rescue and Rehabilitation
In every interview I conducted, the interviewees expressed how impressed they were with Chinese victims of human trafficking. Chinese victims are often very positive and resourceful. However, their resilience sometimes has unintended consequences.
Because these resilient victims do not fit victim stereotypes (e.g. weak, helpless, etc.), they may not receive as much care as victims who do meet such victim stereotypes. One interviewee expressed that she has frequently witnessed caseworkers and law enforcement officers give resilient poorer service. While this is not the case with all caseworkers and law enforcement officers, it does raise concerns about the quality and consistency of victim care for resilient Chinese victims of trafficking.
Resourceful victims are surprising vulnerable to further abuse. Victims often try to help themselves, but may not be able to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate sources of help. For example, someone who escapes a trafficking situation may desire to stay in the US. Not knowing how to get a greencard or being afraid of authorities, some
Chinese victims of human trafficking are lured by notaries who falsely promise to help them get US citizenship. If a victim chooses such ‘bad help,’ they may unknowingly enter a new trafficking situation.
Identified victims of trafficking may be voluntarily placed in a shelter. While there are no shelters solely dedicated to trafficking victims, some shelter workers have been trained in human trafficking victim care. Women who have been trafficked may go to the Asian Women’s Shelter or the Donaldina Cameron House to receive such care.
Both of these shelters are part of the Asian Anti-Trafficking Collaborative.
Unfortunately, no men’s shelters have officially trained their employees in caring for
Groves 43 trafficked men. Trafficked Chinese men are placed in homeless shelters unless law enforcement can arrange for a make-shift shelter. When possible, law enforcement officers work with area churches to create a temporary shelter and food for recently rescued male victims.
3. Community Involvement
The religious community has expressed particular interest in participating in eradicating human trafficking. The religious community of the Bay area has consistently tried to learn more about the issue. For example, not a week goes by that the San Jose
Police Department does not do a presentation for a local religious group. As previously mentioned, law enforcement may call a religious group and request a temporary shelter be arranged within a matter of hours. A member of the San Jose Human Trafficking
Task Force explained that law enforcement is able to rely upon religious groups because they are good at organizing. Law enforcement can call a group to set up a shelter and know that the victim will be adequately provided for—therefore freeing up law enforcement to focus on the upcoming raid.
The Chinese community of San Francisco, however, has not been as eager to combat human trafficking. An individual from the Asian Pacific Islanders Legal
Outreach explained that the Chinese community tends to feel singled out for a bad human trafficking reputation. This loss of face has made the Chinese community less eager to participate in anti-trafficking campaigns. Portions of the Chinese community in San
Francisco community will not even recognize human trafficking as an issue. This unwillingness to recognize the issue often surfaces in human trafficking trials. Chinese and Chinese-American people who have witnessed trafficking commonly refuse to
Groves 44 testify—they feel that one should not “touch other people’s dirty laundry.” Therefore, if a victim was trafficked by a family member, Chinese witnesses will not want to intervene in family business. Additionally, witnesses may not be willing to testify in sex trafficking cases, seeing as though prostitution is culturally taboo. Because members of the Chinese community are the most common witnesses to Chinese human trafficking in the Bay area, their unwillingness to testify can make legal cases very difficult: it may be impossible to prove trafficking occurred without testimony from someone other than the trafficker and the victim.
4. Legal Issues
Finding cooperative witnesses is not the only challenge lawyers face in Chinese human trafficking cases. Not only are many witnesses hesitant to come forward, but many victims are as well. Sex trafficking victims are particularly reluctant to come forward and accept legal services. One interviewee explained, “Generally speaking, our sex trafficking clients, of which we have seen many Chinese women and Korean women, it’s harder for them to accept the services in the present, in the moment when they’re still in the situation or right after the situation. I think a lot of it has to do with the shame associated with what they’ve just been involved with, a lot of shame and embarrassment.” One interviewee explained that it commonly takes Chinese sex trafficking victims five years to come forward.
Trafficking victims face additional pressure by the Statute of Limitations.
California Civil Code 52.5c states that, “(c) An action brought pursuant to this section shall be commenced within five years of the date on which the trafficking victim was freed from the trafficking situation, or if the victim was a minor when the act of human
Groves 45 trafficking against the victim occurred, within eight years after the date the plaintiff attains the age of majority” (Onecle). If victims are not yet healed enough to come forward within the time period of prosecution set by the Statute, they may be limited in getting justice. Prosecution attorneys sometimes try to get around this by pressing charges other than human trafficking. For example, they may prosecute a pimp for pimping instead of human trafficking, because there is a greater possible penalty for pimping than for trafficking. This method, however, skews human trafficking data—if human trafficking cases are tried under different charges, court records do not record the case as human trafficking.
Suggestions for Future Research
In my small case study, I was able to uncover a lot of information on Chinese human trafficking in the San Francisco Bay area. My research, however, is far from comprehensive: I would love to see a more extensive study on Chinese human trafficking the Bay area. I got a lot of leads while in San Francisco that I did not have time to follow up with. I think that this subject is particularly important as a piece of ethnic human trafficking research. It would be fascinating to conduct similar human trafficking studies in New York City, Los Angeles, and other overseas Chinese communities in the US.
Several cities in the San Francisco Bay area are sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities,
“…cannot stop federal authorities from making arrests….But no [city] employee will help with immigration enforcement” (Fimrite). Sanctuary cities in the Bay area include
San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Jose to name a few (Sanctuary Cities). I am curious to see the relationship between sanctuary cities and prevalence of human
Groves 46 trafficking. One interviewee suggested that sanctuary cities are particularly attractive to human traffickers, because their victims are less likely to be caught and deported.
In addition, I would love to see research on the role of victim stereotypes in victim care. I think that it would be highly beneficial to study what stereotypes people have of human trafficking victims, and then to study how these stereotypes manifest in victim care. I would be curious to study how law enforcement, social workers, lawyers, and medical professionals treat victims who they are resilient, optimistic, or resourceful as opposed to victims who are slow to recover, hopeless, or apparently helpless. I am also curious how a victim’s gender factors into the facilities, resources, and quality of care available to them.
It is not only important to look at professionals’ perceptions of human trafficking victims, but it is equally important to study community attitudes toward trafficking victims. I think it is especially important to study the Chinese community’s reluctance to participate in trafficking trials and anti-trafficking efforts. If most Chinese victims truly are trafficked through Chinese communities, then it would only make sense to do everything possible to learn how to positively engage the Chinese community of San
Francisco (and elsewhere) in combating trafficking.
The problem with the Statute of Limitations is obviously one of the largest problems I came across in my research. I would love to see a detailed study done on how many trafficking cases are tried under different charges and why they are not accurately tried as human trafficking cases. If the Statute of Limitations is a factor in why human trafficking cases are tried under other charges, it would be important to research an
Groves 47 appropriate time allotment that would better accommodate victims who desire to press civil charges.
I hope to continue researching Chinese human trafficking in the US. I am currently applying for graduate school; I desire to help establish better tools of measurement for human trafficking, as well as continue my field research. At this time, I have no definite plans for future research. I am open to collaborating with other individuals, organizations, and institutions on future research projects.
Groves 48 Conclusion
Chinese human trafficking to and within the US is a relatively new field of study; most existing research has been conducted within the last ten years. In concluding this paper, I would like to take inventory of what we know and do not know about Chinese human trafficking in the US. I will do so by comparing and contrasting the findings of the TIP Report, the OAS Assessment, “Smuggled Chinese,” and my own case study.
We know that most Chinese victims of human trafficking in the US initially desired to come to the US. The US is perceived as a place of ample opportunities for finding work and making money. Most Chinese human trafficking victims hired snakeheads to smuggle them into the US. Smuggling fees are so great (costing at least
$30,000), last many illegal Chinese migrants cannot instantly pay off the fee upon arrival in the US. They may try to get friends and family in the US and China to loan them money, in which case they become indebted to those individuals. Immigrants without such resources are at the mercy of their snakeheads. Virtually all illegal Chinese migrants experience or witness elements of threats, intimidation and violence from their snakeheads, who employ all means necessary to extract smuggling fees. We now know that snakeheads are not necessarily members of major Chinese triads, but tend to be individual actors, family or friends.
Experts differ on what happens next to illegal Chinese migrants. Chin argues that most migrants leave the safe house and work to pay off any residual debt. Though they may work long hours in terrible conditions and experience threats and violence from debt-collectors, Chin will not deem the migrants “indentured servants” (101). In her
Assessment for the OAS, Tran contends that the whole system of smuggling and labor
Groves 49 abuse is debt-bondage, and therefore human trafficking. Though my own research in San
Francisco, I also found that there is a high prevalence of debt-bondage of smuggled
Chinese in the US.
Chin and Tran agree that most illegal Chinese immigrants find work in the garment, food, and construction sectors. I also found that Chinese victims of human trafficking were forced into a fourth industry: prostitution. This reflects the prevalence of Chinese sex trafficking in the US Insular areas recounted in the 2010 TIP Report.
Yet so much remains unknown about Chinese human trafficking in the US. We know how snakeheads have smuggled Chinese migrants into the US: by boat, plane, car, or walking. However, human traffickers constantly revise their routes to evade US authorities. We therefore need to reevaluate common Chinese trafficking routes to the
US. In my research, I found that a significant number of Chinese victims of human trafficking are now coming by visas. I have not found any data on Chinese victims of human trafficking who initially entered the US legally.
We also know that most traffickers are not part of large Chinese criminal organizations. They may be friends or family of the victim, or they may be individuals seeking supplementary income. It would be interesting to research what drives these individuals to begin trafficking, particularly what triggers these individuals to traffic friends or family for the first time.
Very little research has been done on Chinese sex trafficking victims in the US.
In his research, Chin found no cases of forced prostitution, though he did find cases of sexual abuse. The TIP Report, OAS Assessment, and my own research indicate otherwise: that there is a significant amount of sex trafficking of Chinese people in the
Groves 50 US. However, there are no estimates on the number of Chinese sex trafficking victims in the US.
There are thousands of Chinese victims of human trafficking in the US. They sew our clothes, prepare our food, wait on our tables, and service our sexual fantasies. They are hidden in front of us, and held hostage by people they once called friends and family.
They left China for the Golden Mountain, in search of political freedom and better economic opportunities. There are too many Chinese victims of human trafficking in the
US to ignore. We must create better tools of measurement and identification to find them; we must learn why they are willing to take such great risks to come to the US; and we must destroy this phenomenon of Chinese debt-bondage in the US. We know so little about Chinese human trafficking to the US, yet we know that it is a major issue. If the
US is truly committed to “liberty and justice for all,” we must rescue the hostages here at
Golden Mountain.
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Groves 55 Bibliography
“Anti-Trafficking in Persons Section.” Organization of American States. 2005. Web. 11
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“California Cities and States Information Resource.” Sanctuary Cities. 2010. Web. 02
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“California Civil Code Section 52.5.” Onecle. 8 Mar. 2010. Web. 02 Dec. 2010.
Chin, Ko-lin. “Smuggled Chinese: Clandestine Immigration to the United States.”
Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 1999.
“Faculty Kudos: Professor Ko-Lin Chin.” Our Faculty. Rutgers-Newark, 2010. Web. 05
Dec. 2010. kudosDetail&expertId =132>. Fimrite, Peter. “Newsom Says S.F. Won't Help with Raids: Mayor Pledges to Discourage Feds' Immigration Sweeps” SF Gate. San Francisco Chronicle, 23 Apr. 2007. Web. 02 Dec. 2010. Free the Slaves, Washinton, D.C., and Human Rights Center, University of California, Berkeley. “Forced Labor in the United States.” Hidden Slaves (2004): 13. Print. “Human Trafficking.” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2010. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. trafficking.html>. “Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.” U.S. Department of State. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. Groves 56 Organization of American States. Department for the Prevention of Threats Against Public Security. Anti-Trafficking in Persons Section. An Assessment of the Exploitation of Chinese Migrants in the Western Hemisphere: A Modern Form of Trafficking in Persons. By Nathalie Tran. 2006. Print. “Topics of Special Interest.” Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. U.S. Department of State. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. “The 2010 TIP Report: Methodology.” Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. U.S. Department of State. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. “Trafficking in Persons Report.” Office To Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. U.S. Department of State. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. “United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime and Its Protocols.” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2010. Web. 29 Nov. 2010. “Who We Are.” Organization of American States. 2010. Web. 11 Nov. 2010. Groves 57