Slave Next Door (53 page)

this should not deter the federal government from structuring a reliable

system of evaluating its own efforts. The aim we all should share, gov-

ernment and citizens, should include but transcend the immediate need

for arrests of traffickers and the support of those enslaved; it should be

nothing less than the end of slavery in America.

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10

A F U T U R E W I T H O U T S L AV E R Y

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are

created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

All persons held as slaves . . . shall be then,

thenceforward, and forever free.

Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863

The last time America brought slavery to an end, the price was high.

Over six hundred thousand Americans died in our Civil War—more

than the total loss of American life in all our other wars combined. Not

every Union or Confederate soldier was fighting to end or preserve the

institution of slavery, but make no mistake: slavery was the spark that

ignited the war. After the war the emancipation of four million

Americans, promised by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution,

was badly handled and incomplete. The government’s failure to offer

freed slaves the full rights of citizenship was a mistake that America is

still paying for today. Legal slavery in America ended in 1865, but slav-

ery continued, pernicious, hidden, and cruel. There has been slavery in

America from the moment of the country’s birth; and just as it has been

America’s greatest burden, the true eradication of slavery could be

America’s greatest triumph. Ending slavery in America would also be a

victory for all humanity, for slavery has dogged our steps from the begin-

ning of history. Nothing shows this better than the interweaving of slav-

ery into the tapestry of civilization.

A W O R L D O F S L AV E S

Walk through the cool marble halls of the world’s great museums: the

Smithsonian, the British Museum, the Louvre. The lofty ceilings and

enormous galleries make them more than a little awe-inspiring, and an

automatic hush often falls on those who grasp what they are seeing. The

honey-colored columns and the tall marbled-walled rooms contain the

2 5 1

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treasure chests of empire and the accumulated store of human knowl-

edge. They hold the finest and most durable glimpses into our distant

past. From the Acropolis come the stirring marble sculptures of horses

and men in battle. Huge stone lions that graced the palace gates of

ancient Assyria now look down on gaggles of wide-eyed schoolchild-

ren. A stone pharaoh, impassive as the day he was raised as a god-king

over his river empire, glows with the last remnants of the desert sun.

And in all of this, there is slavery.

From Uruk in Mesopotamia comes a six-thousand-year-old clay cylin-

der. On it are etched images of war captives roped at the elbows and

knees, over whom stands a man raising a whip. Here are the wall paint-

ings of the ancient Maya; under the eye and club of a warrior in a feather

headdress are neck-bound slaves marching to their deaths on the sacrifi-

cial altar. A victory celebration is carved into the golden stone of

Babylon, and chiseled slaves crawl along its base. From a tomb over-

looking the Nile come the lush colors of a mural, still bright after thou-

sands of years. It depicts an oversize pharaoh stepping forward to meet

the jackal-god Anubis, gatekeeper to the afterlife, who will present him

to Osiris for a welcome into paradise. Beneath the pharaoh’s feet are long

lines of tiny slaves—hundreds of them—chosen to serve him after death.

Behind these ranks are men carrying baskets of grain, and beneath the

baskets slave girls fight for the gleanings. Hebrew slave musicians march

along a Babylonian wall painting, guarded by a soldier with a drawn

sword. Here are the exquisite terracotta vases and cast bronze statues of

ancient Greece, showing slaves spinning, weaving, and stacking finished

cloth. Here is Homer’s Ulysses with the seven women he enslaved on the

island of Lesbos. In a Roman triumph the victor’s chariot is followed by

hundreds of shackled slaves. In a medieval illuminated manuscript stands

a feudal lord, one foot resting on the neck of his slave. Here is the carved

and painted statue of an African king; his footstool is the back of a kneel-

ing slave. In a Renaissance painting, a slave boy holds the musical score

while sumptuously dressed men and women play and sing.

In other galleries are the printed records and illustrations of the eigh-

teenth and nineteenth centuries, documenting ships packed with slaves,

slaves in coffles, standing on auction blocks, bent in labor in the fields,

whipped, burned, and hanged from trees. Like a cancer in the blood,

slavery has infected every society, every culture that we admire for

artistry and genius. The cool, dim halls of these magnificent museums

stand as a monument to human achievement and, if you look more

closely, a reminder of the endless suffering of slaves.

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The inspiring history of humanity’s climb out of the Stone Age and

into a wondrous world of our own construction runs parallel to the

story of enslavement. For thousands of years, we have loved, dreamed,

sung, and built lives of security and beauty. We have also murdered,

starved, tortured, and denied the common humanity of millions. Our

vaunted civilization has been, and is today, nourished by the lives of

slaves. But for the first time, we are seeing that the same genius for cre-

ativity and innovation that led to our greatest achievements, combined

with compassion, can finally bring slavery to an end.

W E H O L D T H E S E T R U T H S . . .

America was founded on the principle that personal liberty is a natural

right. Without question, our attempts to embody this concept have been

flawed. We established ourselves as a slaveholding republic, and this

inherent contradiction has plagued us ever since. Yet for all our faults,

and even in times when partisan bitterness and confusion are at their

worst, the thread that binds us all together is the concept of freedom. It

is the rock upon which our nation was built and the light that has guided

our good laws and our progress. Now, if we choose to accept the chal-

lenge, we can end slavery in America once and for all; and if we are true

to our ideals, anything less would be unacceptable.

Ending slavery requires making commitments and taking action. In

this last chapter we outline a number of actions that can be taken by

each of us as individuals and community members, as well as by the

government, to help bring slavery to an end.

B Y O U R O W N H A N D S

If we want to eliminate slavery from this country, we must do it our-

selves, one citizen at a time, and working together. Almost every major

positive change in our country was accomplished through grassroots

effort. From the antebellum abolitionist movement, to the legal recogni-

tion of the rights of women, to the civil rights movement, the demand

came first from the people, not the politicians. It is within our grasp to

end slavery in America once and for all, but each of us has to reach for

it; if we wait for it to be handed to us, people will live and die in slavery

for many years to come.

As citizens, one of the first things we need to do is learn to recog-

nize slavery in our communities. We can all learn to recognize human

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trafficking, what to do with our suspicions, how to help victims once

they’ve been rescued, and how to take an active role in ending slavery in

America. Slavery has been around for a long time and requires a serious,

long-range commitment to make it go away. When we read about a child

being victimized or a woman being kept, beaten, and sexually abused,

we become angry. It’s a natural impulse to want to batter down a door

and dramatically rescue a victim. But that’s not a job for the average cit-

izen. Joining the fight against human trafficking means accepting that

we each have a job to do and that our job might not include being the

action hero. Attempts at dramatic action by the average citizen can hurt

the victim’s chance at freedom and the government’s ability to prosecute

traffickers and can be dangerous to the citizen and the victim. The

organizations that make up the Freedom Network, after years of victim

service, base their efforts on the simple directive “Do no harm.” If we

follow this all-important mandate, we can’t go far wrong. The needs of

the victim should always come first. If we can’t all be action heroes,

there are still many things we can do to help. The question is which

options work best for you. What follows is a list of the key skills we

must cultivate to rid our country of slavery.1

Spotting a Traf ficking Victim

Many clues can spark suspicion that a person is a trafficking victim.

Some, such as confiscation of passports, debt bondage, and lack of con-

trol of earnings, tend to be revealed only during the course of careful

investigation by victim advocates, service providers, and trained and

sensitive police officers. Any of us, however, can pick up on other indi-

cations of human trafficking. One is the presence of trauma—injuries,

bruising—that might indicate a pattern of physical abuse. Not all

instances of physical abuse point to slavery, but it bears watching.

Untreated infections can also be a sign that a person might be enslaved.

Another possible indicator is a person’s demeanor. Does he or she

appear fearful, reluctant to communicate, or generally withdrawn? A

trafficking victim has been programmed to fear outside contact. The

victim is likely to believe that the police are cruel and corrupt and that

any connection with the outside world could result in jail or deportation.

In many instances, the trafficker has warned the victim that an attempt

to escape or communicate with the authorities will mean injury or death

to the victim’s family. In addition, trafficking victims may be unable to

answer very simple questions because of their isolation. They may not

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know what city or state they are in, their street address, or their phone

number. If more communication is possible, trafficking victims often

show the deep psychological signs of enslavement. One of these is self-

blame, the assumption that their suffering is their own fault. Another is

a seemingly contradictory emotional attachment to the trafficker at the

same time that the victim is physically afraid. Isolation, dependence, and

trauma breed this confusion and leave the enslaved person mixed up and

erratic in his or her answers to questions. Confusion can also occur

because some victims will be coached to assume another identity if they

are questioned. Traffickers will often pass off an enslaved person as their

own wife or child, or explain that the person is a tourist or student, and

expect the victim to back up the story.

Yet another warning sign is the victim’s inability to move about freely;

often he or she is watched or followed. Trafficked people are often forced

to live and work in the same place. Many domestic slaves are kept in the

house at all times, while those who are allowed out to shop, or to take

their “employer’s” kids to the playground, are so thoroughly condi-

tioned as to make escape unlikely. The trafficked construction workers

on the U.S. Embassy site in Iraq were compelled to sleep within the

walled compound where they worked. And the immigrant farm work-

ers enslaved in Florida by the Ramoses and Abel Cuello were kept

locked in trailers or shabby huts and were overseen by gun thugs. In one

case an important clue was concertina wire facing
in
toward a factory—

to keep workers in rather than to keep intruders out.

Looking for Victims

The best defense against modern-day slavery is a vigilant public. Be a

nosy neighbor. Slavery often comes to light because a member of the

public sees something odd and speaks up. There are a surprising

number of places on the job and in the community where you might

come across a human trafficking victim. Doctors and nurses, for exam-

ple, are in a prime position to encounter a victim of modern slavery. In

fact, health care professionals have rescued several victims, especially

when they have shown up in emergency rooms. The fact that a trafficker

or slaveholder brings in a victim for medical attention doesn’t imply