– Photo by John Meiu
Among the presenters at the recent symposium on human trafficking were (left to right) Cooley Professor Michael McDaniel, Stephanie Hamilton, Dr. Sabrina Black, the Rev. Bonita Laudeman, Kristen Suarez-Junquera, James Springer and Elijah Buxo.
By Debra Talcott
Legal News
On a recent snowy evening, high school students, law school students, lawyers and other community members gathered on the four Thomas M. Cooley Law School campuses to hear informative presentations on the topic of human trafficking.
Cooley-Auburn Hills Professor E. Christopher Johnson Jr., has spearheaded the school’s efforts to raise public awareness about the issue of human trafficking in the world today.
Sponsors of the live simulcast event included the International Law Society, the American Constitution Society, and the Graduate program in Corporate Law and Finance that Johnson
founded and leads.
Johnson’s eyes were opened to the magnitude of the problem during his visit to an orphanage in Mumbai, India with his wife, Ronda, during a mission trip with their church in March 2011.
He opened the event by describing what he learned and experienced there.
“These were children born to mothers in slavery,” Johnson recounted. “Many were forced to stay hidden under the bed while their mothers were involved in acts of prostitution. Had they not been rescued out of the red light district, they would have become the next generation in slavery.”
Johnson said he could almost “feel the evil” in the red light district, where women from the rural areas of India have been put into sexual bondage after being sold by their families, tricked or kidnapped.
“The pastor of the church on the edge of the red light district told me that many of these women would attend church services during the day but that, ‘some of these women will not live through the night.’”
Providing additional statistics and anecdotes intended to get the general public involved were a host of speakers from a variety of walks of life.
Wendy Sale represented the Human Trafficking Task Force and shocked the audience by reporting that the problem exists in 160 countries around the world and in every state in the U.S.
“People are becoming cheaper, and, unlike drugs — where once you sell a drug, it’s gone forever — you can sell a person over and over,” said Sale. “There are no initials after my name; I am just a mom, a wife, and a professional who had my heart broken when I looked into the face of a 7-year-old in Cambodia. In that tiny little face, I saw my daughter’s face.”
Sale said U.S. federal law defines human trafficking as an act or attempted act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receipt of a person by means of force, abduction, fraud, coercion, purchase, threat of sale or abuse of power for the purpose of exploitation.
“In slavery 100 years ago, there were true chains,” said Sale, “but the majority of ‘chains’ now are invisible. They are force, fraud, and coercion.”
Next to present was Dr. Sabrina Black, vice chair of Michigan Rescue and Restore Coalition, who talked about the problems around the world and close to home.
She provided a global perspective highlighting specific areas such as India (where the majority of the world’s slaves are in Asia), Haiti (which was hit by the earthquake, the flooding, cholera, and now trafficking), Africa (where eight countries received a tier-3 ranking for non-compliance with the standards set forth in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and for not addressing a known major problem), and the U.S.
“When we think about human trafficking, we think about ‘over there,’ but it is happening here —in our own backyard,” said Black, who explained that major gatherings of people, such as the North American International Auto Show, and major sporting events, such as the Super Bowl, are prime targets for human trafficking.
Stephanie Hamilton took the podium as a representative of the International Justice Mission. She spoke about the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), a piece of legislation that would monitor and combat human trafficking until 2015.
“Senator Debbie Stabenow has already sponsored this bill. We are hoping to get Senator (Carl) Levin to do so as well,” said Hamilton. “Rescue and rehabilitation of victims and dealing with poverty are important. Equally important is making sure perpetrators are held accountable.”
Hamilton suggested that one easy step attendees and others who care about this problem can take is to call Senator Levin’s office in Washington, D.C. at (202) 224-6221 and ask him to co-sponsor TVPRA.
Pastor Bonita Laudeman of the Clarkston Community Church took her turn at the podium to speak about the faith-based response to human trafficking.
She told a simple story that she said served as a metaphor for the fight against human trafficking: While shopping with her mother, a little girl convinces the mother to buy her a flashlight and some batteries to make it work.
Walking out of the store, the little girl is fascinated with flicking her new flashlight on and off. She said to her mother, “Mommy, now we need to go find some darkness.”
“If we keep our concerns in this room and do nothing, the darkness [surrounding human trafficking] will not change,” said Laudeman.
Law student Sarah Warpinski presented as the founder of the Michigan State University School of Law Modern Abolitionist Legal Society (MALS).
Warpinski focused on the issue of labor trafficking in the U.S. and explained that because Michigan borders Canada as well as other states, labor trafficking occurs here.
It can be found in the work force in many areas such as: agriculture, landscaping, migrant work, food service, nail salons, construction, hospitality, and domestic situations such as house cleaning and child care.
Warpinski, a former social worker now attending law school, said lawyers can play a unique role in fighting the war on human trafficking by interpreting and improving laws and conducting legal research.
When attorney Forrest Pasanski took his turn at the podium, attendees learned about Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s response to the problem of human trafficking.
Pasanski first became involved in the fight while in law school and working as an intern in Attorney General Schuette’s office.
After noting that Schuette serves on a National Association of Attorneys General Leadership Council dedicated to fighting human trafficking, Pasanski added that Schutte also started a Human Trafficking Unit.
He added that law enforcement’s perceptions of human trafficking are shifting as they did with the issue of domestic violence 40 years ago.
“Now people are starting to pull back the curtain on human trafficking and are finding that it’s not Julia Roberts [portraying a character] in ‘Pretty Woman’ but a 15- or 16-year old sex slave,” said Pasanski.
The evening came full-circle when Johnson returned to the podium to speak about corporate responsibility in reducing legal trafficking.
With 20 years spent on the General Motors legal staff and as Director of the Corporate Law and Finance Program at Cooley Law School, Johnson called for accountability on the part of corporations to make sure their supply chains are clean.
A common theme ran throughout the entire presentation: “Do for the one what you wish you could do for the many.”
Attendees were encouraged to get involved through the 3 Es: Educate others within their spheres of influence on this issue; Evaluate where they, as individuals, fit in the fight; and Engage by sharing their resources and freedoms with the cause.
“It is my prayer that events such as these will serve as a wake-up call to America about the ravages of slavery and human trafficking and cause everyone — whatever their current station in life, faith, or political persuasion — to get engaged and do something about it,” Johnson said. “Otherwise, as Edmund Burke said, ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.’ More particularly, the existence of slavery and human trafficking is a breakdown in the rule of law, and it is incumbent upon lawyers, law students, and members of the law enforcement community to become fully engaged in the fight against it on a global basis, because, as Dr. Martin Luther King said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”
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