Florida Catholic | Human Trafficking Affects Florida

Human trafficking affects Florida

ARLEEN SPENCELEY | FLORIDA CATHOLIC CORRESPONDENT

Published: 08.02.08

TAMPA | A woman who serves in silence. A child who doesn’t make eye contact. A house with darkened and barred windows, full of people coming and going. These, said Nola Theiss, during a July workshop, could be signs of human trafficking.

The executive director of the Human Trafficking Awareness Partnerships spoke at Christ the King Parish in Tampa on behalf of the organization that she helped found two years ago. She presented the workshop to raise awareness on trafficking in the hope that knowledge will lead people to action.

“(Human trafficking) is modern-day slavery,” Theiss said. “Human beings are a very profitable commodity. If you sell cocaine, you sell it once and it’s used up. If you sell a person, that person can be used over and over again.”

In human trafficking, a person’s free will is lost. Theiss said victims are coerced, defrauded or forced to do what they don’t want to do by traffickers, who often physically and psychologically constrain them.

“Many of the victims are women imprisoned, but others are working as housekeepers in a hotel, for instance,” Theiss said. “They’re taken to the hotel by someone, kept in apartments under bad conditions and forced to work because of threats against themselves or their families back home.”

Human trafficking, she said, can be forced commercial sex, forced labor or domestic servitude. It can easily be found in industries such as agriculture, hospitality and tourism.

And it can be closer to home than you think, she said.

“I live 50 miles away from Immokalee where a 13-year-old girl was brought from Guatemala … (and) was forced to be a sex slave and work as a domestic servant. (She was) grossly mistreated, kept imprisoned and impregnated,” Theiss said. “When you hear about those things, it’s hard not to do something.”

Helping other people “do something,” has been Theiss’ goal. She championed efforts to start a human trafficking task force and co-founded her organization.

Romeo Ramirez of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers also spoke at the workshop. His and Thesis’ stories sparked emotion in some of the participants.

“I think, initially, the response is shock – a certain level of horror,” said Richard Wright, 50. “It’s a little bit of a dichotomy from an emotional standpoint. That initial shock leads into a sense of sorrow for the victims and, at the same time, a real sense of outrage that this is going on.”

According to Theiss’ presentation, internationally there are 600,000 to 800,000 victims of human trafficking each year, earning traffickers $32 billion. The crime is second only to drug trafficking, she said, and Florida is regularly one of four states with the most human trafficking cases. Theiss hopes her workshop raises awareness and will spark a fight against the crime. She said the local church is an ideal place to organize such a fight because of the Catholic Church’s interest in social justice.

Wright agreed. “One of the things that really drew me to the Catholic Church was a real apostolic mission,” he said. “This is a great example; this is really an area where people should consider being involved.”

Sabrina Burton Schultz, diocesan director of Life Ministries, said action on behalf of trafficking victims can be as easy as letting more people know of the problem and the signs.

“We need to spread the word, telling friends, family and groups that we belong to about what to look for,” she said. “Our action could be as simple as hanging posters with contact information for reporting suspected cases, or as involved as converting an empty home or rectory to safe housing (for victims).”

Getting involved, Wright said, isn’t going to be easy. But, he learned at the workshop, involvement starts with open eyes.

“The overarching takeaway from the seminar, really, if you want to boil it down, is the advice to become aware,” he said.

“There (are) a lot of comfy, social, feel-good things to be involved in,” he said. “This is one of them. But this is a great example of a problem we can’t turn our backs on, no matter how comfortable that may be.”

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