Proud to be a Member-NJ Coalition Against Human Trafficking

Many don’t realize that Human Trafficking is taking place right in their own communities.  The signs are very hard to recognize because these people blend into the shadows of our daily life.  We assume that every person we encounter has the same freedoms we have because we live in a free democracy.  The dirty secret is the person who braids your hair or manicures your nails may be working for food and board without wages and have fewer liberties than your pet dog.  They cannot flee from their keepers because they have no place to go, they may not have legal citizenship status,  are afraid of being jailed on criminal charges or have no economic means, comprehension or know -how to seek liberty from their captors.  

Since 2007, AAUW-NJ (American Association of University Women) of New Jersey has taken a special interest in this secret atrocity in the suburbs and the communities of New Jersey.  A key tenet of the AAUW organization is educating society on social issues.   In Jan. 27, 2007 at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, AAUW-NJ organized a conference named Human Trafficking – Modern Day Slavery. The audience included leaders and officials from government and social service agencies.  Addressing this 2007 conference were the most current subject matter experts that included the NJ Deputy Attorney General, and the US Bureau of Immigration & Customs of Newark.  The AAUW-NJ Conference proposed that citizens and communities look beneath the surface, notice signs such as no English language ability, and a group leader who always speaks for the group as signs that should signal attention. They were told to report these items to local police or the county prosecutor’s office with their Human Trafficking Liaison.

New Jersey is now making a more proactive stance to address this problem and it coincided with a state and national event.  President Obama designated January 11, 2013 as National Human Trafficking Awareness Day.  On this day NJ gave quick passage of a bill that gave teeth to the fight against human trafficking.  It was a bill that won state bipartisan acceptance, but special credit was given to Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-37) who was the primary sponsor of the bill, called the Human Trafficking Prevention, Protection and Treatment Act.  This act was a unique bill because among other things it called for victims who are forced into criminal activity to be exempted from prosecution and stiffens penalties for traffickers.  So many of these human trafficking victims are forced to work as prostitutes. 

AAUW was one of the 36 group members of the NJ Coalition Against Human Trafficking besides women and human rights organizations it also included religious groups as well such as: Catholics, Lutherans, Unitarian Universalists, United Methodists, Presbyterians and Jewish Federations and Rabbis that help rally behind this bill on January 13th.   I was proud to be a member of this Coalition and boarded the bus the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ (CRC) extended to other coalition groups from the Bergen and Whippany, New Jersey area. We were the cosponsors of this event along with the NJ Office of the Attorney General – Division of Criminal Justice - New Jersey Human Trafficking Task Force.  I and our AAUW-NJ group got to rally support in Trenton on the NJ State House steps for passage of Human Trafficking Prevention, Protection and Treatment Act.  It made me feel that I was taking a big step in making my own community in Sussex County at better place through my own awareness and education of this hidden problem.  Today, I am able to identify suspicious and criminal behavior that may be taking place in my own community.  I know that I should take action and pass this info along to an empowered government authority.

Now, I look at businesses and groups with a more watchful eye.  I recall past events that have happened in my own community that have slipped under the radar without further consideration and investigation.  A few years ago a New York City religious group promised drug addicts, alcoholics and prostitutes a better life by believing in Jesus.  They captivated the most distraught, psychologically and emotionally unbalanced to come into their fold with the promise of redemption.  They found a loyal follower - an emotionally unbalanced single mother with young children and they helped her move away from the city streets of NYC to Hopatcong.  They provided her charity, a home and financial support for her family in one of Hopatcong’s lake cottages.  They made her a promise.  When her faith could not rehabilitate her, they cut off economic support to her and her dependents and even went through the legal process of evicting this family.   They never called authorities to step in knowing she was not of sound mind capable of being a guardian to her young children.  The children almost starved to death before a neighbor became concerned and called authorities.  The woman was convicted for this child abuse, but the group that abandoned them was not even considered in the wrong.  Why, because we were focused solely on parental neglect and not the external contributors and enablers to this tragedy that had total power over this family until they decided to part ways.  Unfortunately, this family was left as an urgent case file for local and county government agencies and for the legal courts to handle and not their spiritual leaders who once spoke to them about divine salvation.       

 Exploited, captive, and victimized people are hard to acknowledge by many communities.  It is something that is hard to accept because the abusers often seem law abiding and honorable or else we would not patronize their services, salons or stores.  It is hard for us to conceive that we would help to perpetuate this crime against humanity.  In the previous example, Hopatcong and Sussex County never asked how many other New York families were being kept by this group and were these followers being exploited, were they getting the proper medical and psychological help they needed for their condition even after this horrendous event.  Without asking these hard questions and giving some investigation to the matter, we help promote an environment where human trafficking is possible in our own neighborhoods.         

Hopefully, through education and the commitment by our Attorney General and the Division of Criminal Justice that is providing a special New Jersey Human Trafficking Task Force, when citizens do report their suspicions it will be welcomed as an important part in the  battle against human trafficking in our own NJ communities.    

You can report suspicious behavior and get additional information at (1-888-373-7888). You call may be the start of someone’s life and liberty.  The AAUW-NJ has branches throughout New Jersey.  Please visit our website AAUW-NJ http://www.aauwnj.org/  to find out more about us.