California Human Trafficking Report Released

SACRAMENTO — California is a top destination for human traffickers who coerce people into the sex trade or hard labor through force or fraud, according to an 18-month government study released Tuesday.The report by a 19-member task force of the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery says California is particularly vulnerable to human trafficking because of its international border, ports and airports; its booming immigrant population; and a large economy that includes industries that attract forced labor.

The problem goes far beyond the sex trade, with migrant farm and construction workers, household employees and workers in motels, restaurants and clothing factories frequently vulnerable to abuse, task force members said.

The report, required by a 2005 state law, cites research by the U C Berkeley Human Rights Center. From 1998 to 2003, university researchers found 57 forced labor operations in nearly a dozen California cities involving more than 500 people from 18 countries. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose were centers for the problem.

Researchers say 80 percent of the victims are female, and half are children. The federal government says human trafficking is second only to the drug trade as an international criminal industry.

“We don’t have chains, but the traffickers use coercion and fear” to keep people from fleeing, said a 35-year-old woman who said she was lured from Puebla, Mexico, to a Los Angeles sweatshop in 2002.

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AP: Don Thompson