The Atlanta Lawyer April 2013 | Page 16

LAW DAY 2013 ABA President Laurel Bellows on Human Trafficking [email protected] By Laurel Bellows President, American Bar Association A s a 13-year-old growing up and going to school in Mexico, Gloria saw her life change in an instant when she was thrown into the back seat of a car and punched until she fell unconscious. Waking up in an unfamiliar hotel room, she was raped four times that day by her kidnapper. The trafficker soon made her leave her home country, forcing her into prostitution across the border. Because of Gloria’s young age, the trafficker found her to be in high demand. She was sold for sex up and down the East Coast. Gloria was forced to meet quotas of 120 clients per week. After multiple pregnancies, an involuntary abortion, an attempt to flee, a savage beating and more rapes, she was finally able to escape when Immigration and Customs Enforcement stopped her on a bus and asked for identification. With a lawyer from the Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network (GAIN) and the assistance of Tapestri, an organization in Atlanta that helps immigrant and refugee families affected by domestic violence, sexual assault and exploitation, Gloria was able to receive a T-visa this February. A T-visa allows victims of human trafficking and immediate family members to remain and work temporarily in the United States if they agree to assist law enforcement in the investigation or prosecution of their traffickers. Human trafficking is one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative crimes in the world. According to the U.S. State Department, 27 million people are held involuntarily as modern-day slaves across the globe. Eighty percent are women and children. Thousands of those human trafficking victims, like Gloria, are in the United States. Many victims are compelled to perform labor in homes and sweatshops. More than 100,000 U.S. citizens are forced to provide sex and labor services for their captors’ profit. Human trafficking is taking place here. According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, around 500 girls are 16 THE ATLANTA LAWYER April 2013 trafficked for sex all around Georgia each month. The FBI named Atlanta as one of the cities with the highest incidence of children exploited in prostitution and one of the cities with the most incidences of human trafficking. Every night, girls are hidden from public view in brothels, massage parlors and truck stops, held captive through sexual exploitation. The inspiring story of lawyers who represent human trafficking victims motivated me to choose the battle against human trafficking as one of the American Bar Association’s priorities this year. My own experience also guided me. As a young lawyer, I handled prostitution cases and helped women who were victimized by traffickers, prosecuted in the courts and denied their freedom. They were also left without services — such as job training or housing placement — that would have provided opportunities for their recovery and self-sufficiency. Fortunately, awareness of human trafficking in our own country is growing, as are the programs to combat this crisis. As lawyers, we must commit ourselves to the fight for trafficking victims’ fundamental human rights. The ABA combats trafficking by urging courts and police to screen for victim abuse and exploitation. We also seek to protect victims by encouraging lawyers to provide pro bono legal assistance. But our work is far from complete. The ABA’s Task Force on Human Trafficking has begun several initiatives to strengthen pro bono networks to address the civil le gal needs of trafficking victims. The task force recently conducted one of three national training sessions for individuals in the legal system to learn how to treat victims as victims and not as criminals. These programs are attended by medical personnel, social service agency employees, prosecutors and judges, nonprofit representatives, volunteer lawyers interested in helping trafficking victims, and policymakers. The goal of these training programs is to help those likely to come into The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association