The following is Wikepedia’s definition of the title: “The trafficking of human beings is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of people for the purpose of exploitation. Trafficking involves a process of using illicit means such as threat, use of force, or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability.”
Exploitation is meant to include forcing people into prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. For children exploitation may include also, illicit international adoption, trafficking for early marriage, recruitment as child soldiers, for begging or for sports (such as child camel jockeys or football players), or for recruitment for religious cults.
Fraud, deception, the abuse of power or taking advantage of a position of vulnerability is the most likely form of exploitation in human trafficking in the CNMI.
Given the above, how could anyone say that human trafficking is not rampant in the CNMI? In the production of fraudulent documents alone, not to mention the deception in worker recruitment, incidences are more than a handful.
Of course, there will be those who’ll say that one’s deception is another’s creativity. Provision of fraudulent documents is an established ancillary industry in many Asian cities. Claro M. Recto Ave. in Manila used to boast the ability to produce a facsimile of any document issued from anywhere in World. The CitiGroup office in Beijing has people outside its doors offering their services to produce all kinds of documents that employment-applying workers and visa-seeking tourists might need for their documents.
The more dramatic form in the CNMI of late, has been the charges of sexual exploitation of persons brought in unwary of their ultimate employment designation. The fate of the Red Heart Massage Filipino ladies that made headlines is a case in point. However, the recent news that a certain karaoke club is a front for prostitution taxes one’s credulity. Is there a karaoke club on island that is not a front, or at least, a pick-up point for the flesh trade?
I am familiar with a case where the Mama-san was trying to get out of the Karaoke Club business, having discovered that she neither had the temperament nor the acumen to stay in the business. Associates from southern China wanted to come to the CNMI by all means necessary. She called and begged for the chance to come, and typical of our alien worker’s response, Mama-san engaged the services of an intermediary, as she had done previously and others as well, to the deal with issues of labor and immigration, who routinely brings in personnel on fraudulent documents and fake job designations.
Mama-san’s friend came to Saipan as a waitress; she was informed that she would make more money pandering to men’s illusions of their physical potency and sexual adequacy. Unprepared, or so she claimed, she sought the assistance of authorities. Authorities wired her on her next conversation with Mama-san, and used the recording to indict Mama-san. Ironically, this transpired shortly before Mama-san disposed of her further involvement in the business. She was to proceed back home and return with her 6-year old Saipan-born American son in Liaoning who she had not seen for more than two years, and start all over again. Just about when Mama-san liquidated assets in order to move on, the hand of the FBI descended on the lady’s shop and had her incarcerated in the detention center for fraud and human trafficking. This may be a case of overly eager prosecutors to make a case to satisfy handlers with the Department of Justice but this case, save the use of fraudulent documents, hardly fits the requirements of the above definition on trafficking and exploitation.
Guma Esperanza, whose representatives testified recently before the U.S. Congress, has been calling attention to our islands' situation on real human trafficking and they seem to be vilified for their efforts. They certainly merit our sentiments and support. Indeed, the economic casualties of the Saipan garment industry and ancillary services associated with the tourist industry, has produced a stream of workers only too willing to do anything to recoup the investments they made prior to arrival in the CNMI.
The squabbling between government officials on the incidence of human trafficking in the CNMI is so pathetic that it is outright dismissible.
The more insidious form of trafficking is the control of many “sponsoring” employers over the fate and destiny of many house workers, nannies, and farmers in the CNMI. I know of house workers who still work for their former employers, but they had to pay for the cost of the processing of their papers, volunteer a day of their time to work free for the “sponsor,” and go on their own to market their services to those willing to employ them off the record. Anyone who does not see this in our own backyard is not looking, or is deaf to the not-so-innocent suffering of the desperate and trapped.
We shall not use such explosive terms as slave labor, bonded servitude, economic war casualties, and the like. But victims of the more extreme form of human trafficking associated with prostitution is not infrequent. Just go talk to the folks at Guma Esperanza.
That there are human trafficking issues in prostitution goes without saying, but to say that prostitution as a cultural tradition and commercial venture is all about human trafficking is not too accurate.
Prostitution as the selling of momentary pleasures for monetary gain is our current definition of the trade. My favorite lady diplomat with the RP Foreign Service includes those who sell their bodies for more than just momentary pleasures. Thus, she claims that there are more prostitutes in the suburbs than there are in the tenderloin districts of any human settlement. Prostituting one’s human services is even one way a colleague in the teaching profession characterizes her current employ.
Human trafficking is a serious business, widespread in occurrence, and devastating in consequences. It should be a matter requiring immediate response, not an object of further resolutions and political wrangling.
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