http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2009/11/05/local-ice-billboards-focus-on-human-trafficking/ Politics in the Bay Area and beyond Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:39:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/2009/11/05/local-ice-billboards-focus-on-human-trafficking/comment-page-1/#comment-9245 RR, Uninvited Columnist Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:45:19 +0000 http://www.ibabuzz.com/politics/?p=9157#comment-9245 Child-trafficking is one thing, but smuggling some adult into the country to act as a housemaid and babysitter hardly would have shaken the 19th Century Abolitionists; they probably would have approved. The defendant in question, Ms Dann, certainly broke immigration law, acted without regard for proper working conditions and ignored the interests of the Peruvian woman who was treated as an indentured servant. But nothing in the U.S. attorney's statement indicates physical cruelty or mistreatment other than making threats that played upon the ignorance and social isolation of the servant. Years in federal prison seems overly harsh. As for Oakland's "well-documented, and shocking" human trafficking, it appears to involve minor girls and other neglected children, something not out of place in the poorest, most crime-ridden parts of urban America. The problem has been aggravated by people-smuggling, it didn't start with people-smuggling. Child-trafficking is one thing, but smuggling some adult into the country to act as a housemaid and babysitter hardly would have shaken the 19th Century Abolitionists; they probably would have approved. The defendant in question, Ms Dann, certainly broke immigration law, acted without regard for proper working conditions and ignored the interests of the Peruvian woman who was treated as an indentured servant. But nothing in the U.S. attorney’s statement indicates physical cruelty or mistreatment other than making threats that played upon the ignorance and social isolation of the servant. Years in federal prison seems overly harsh. As for Oakland’s “well-documented, and shocking” human trafficking, it appears to involve minor girls and other neglected children, something not out of place in the poorest, most crime-ridden parts of urban America. The problem has been aggravated by people-smuggling, it didn’t start with people-smuggling.

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