327 – Labor Trafficking and Forced Criminality, with Anabel Martinez

Ending Human Trafficking Podcast

Dr. Sandie Morgan is joined by Anabel Martinez as the two discuss the challenges of labor trafficking through forced criminality, particularly affecting youth and undocumented individuals.

Anabel Martinez

Anabel Martinez currently works as a Senior Policy Counsel for the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School. She is a committed social justice policy advocacy professional, with over a decade of experience in advocating for marginalized communities through direct legal services and using trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices. Anabel Martinez transitioned to public policy advocacy to seek system changes that are intersectional and inclusive. She’s highly skilled at looking at real-world issues from a nuanced, analytical lens that aids in the development of comprehensive and equitable policies.

Main Points

• Labor trafficking by forced criminality involves individuals being coerced into performing illegal activities as their form of labor. This can include tasks like drug cultivation, shoplifting, or other illegal acts. The labor they are forced to do is illegal according to local laws.
• Anabel emphasizes the need for better systems to support youth who are trafficked into forced criminality. Many young people in juvenile detention may be victims of LTFC but are not always recognized as such. This misidentification can lead to punitive measures rather than supportive interventions.
• There are similarities between the experiences of child soldiers and youth involved in gangs or forced into criminal activities. Both groups often join or are coerced into their situations due to a lack of options and are subjected to severe coercion and manipulation.
• Immigrant youth, particularly those from Latin America or Central America, face heightened risks of being trafficked for criminal activities. There is a need for improved recognition and support systems for these vulnerable youth, who may be caught between the juvenile justice system and immigration proceedings.
• Effective screening tools for identifying labor trafficking by forced criminality are currently lacking. It’s important to have training and tools for professionals who interact with youth, such as those in juvenile justice and social services, to better identify and support victims of labor trafficking by forced criminality.

Resources

• Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative
• 306: Survivor Voices Leading Change, with Jerome Elam
• Freedom Network USA
• Unaccompanied Refugee Minors Program
• California Department of Social Services
• Covenant House 2023 Impact Report
• 259: Which Screening Tool Should I Use?, with Dr. Corey Rood
• 315: Keeping Our Children Safe Online, with Susan Kennedy
• NCMEC
• National Human Trafficking Hotline

Transcript

Sandra Morgan 0:14
Welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast here at Vanguard University’s Global Center for Women and Justice in Orange County, California. This is episode #327: Labor Trafficking and Forced Criminality. My name is Dr. Sandie Morgan, and this is the show where we empower you to study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference in ending human trafficking. I am so glad to have Anabel Martinez with us today. She currently works as a Senior Policy Counsel for the Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School. She is a committed social justice policy advocacy professional, with over a decade of experience in advocating for marginalized communities through direct legal services and using trauma-informed and culturally responsive practices. She transitioned to public policy advocacy to seek system changes that are intersectional and inclusive. She’s highly skilled at looking at real-world issues from a nuanced, analytical lens that aids in the development of comprehensive and equitable policies. So Anabel, welcome to the Ending Human Trafficking Podcast.

Anabel Martinez 1:51
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really happy to be here with you today.

Sandra Morgan 1:54
Well before we dive in, I have a personal question, because your bio says that you transitioned to public policy advocacy. Can you tell me a little bit about how and why you have done that?

Anabel Martinez 2:10
Sure. I feel like in some ways, as a direct client, when I was doing direct client services within the legal context, or whether that be social service, you’re always doing a little bit of policy advocacy in the sense that you’re letting your supervisors or your co-workers know, “Hey, this is a policy or an issue that doesn’t work for my clients or is causing me issues.” I noticed, as I was doing my work, that the people making policies were not folk who have experience providing direct client services, so oftentimes there’s policies are created with good intentions, but if you don’t have that understanding of how it looks on the ground or how that will be carried out, then you later on, you have to come back and fix those issues. So I was like, okay, why isn’t someone like me, who has this experience, providing this direct client service? Also, the person making the policy? Because then, I’ll be able to see those issues before they arise and be able to hopefully work around them or plan around them. It’s not possible to identify all the issues, but I do think we need more folks who have their client service experience, and be part of the people who are making the policies

Sandra Morgan 3:14
I love that. It’s so important for us to begin to figure out how to get further upstream in designing solutions.

Anabel Martinez 3:23
Yes. Unfortunately, sometimes we know nonprofits have limits on how much policy they can engage in, which is a lot of the folks providing those direct client services, work with the nonprofits. I’m very lucky to have found a job where I’m allowed to do that full time, which is very rare to find a job that’s full time policy.

Sandra Morgan 3:39
Well, let’s dive into our topic. What is labor trafficking by forced criminality? We even have an acronym, LTFC. Can you explain what that is?

Anabel Martinez 3:53
Essentially, within human trafficking we have sex trafficking, we have labor trafficking, and labor trafficking by forced criminality essentially means that the labor that is being asked of the person to do, or the person is being coerced to do, is an illegal activity. Whether that be cultivating, transporting drugs, deaths, shoplifting, sometimes even being the person who recruits people into sex trafficking, or being the person who arranges the dates for the person who’s being sex trafficked. That is what it is, the labor is the illegal activity they’re being asked to do.

Sandra Morgan 4:26
Okay, so when they’re given a job, a task, like go shoplift five necklaces or recruit somebody to be part of a brothel, those are considered labor trafficking examples?

Anabel Martinez 4:47
Yes, and it’s within the context off what is illegal within the state and city that you’re in, right? If that’s considered an illegal activity, then yes. For example, herein California it’s legal to cultivate, and grow marijuanaarijuana and sell marijuana.marijuana. But Then there’s also illegal farms that are doing that, and then they’re recruiting people into labor trafficking for that specifically. That’shat’s also another form of labor trafficking byby forced criminality becausecause they’re working at an illegal marijuana farm, doing the cultivating. Thehe growing, that might be considered legal if it was in a form that was actually permitted to do that work, if that makes sense.

Sandra Morgan 5:25
For our listeners, I want you to remember the interview in episode #306 with Jerome as he explained during his exploitation, first in commercial sexual exploitation of a child, he was very young, and then as he was older, he was required to do certain things, drop products in places, collect money, whatever. And when he was arrested, picked up, and put in juvenile detention, he was labeled a delinquent, even though it was all part of the trafficking experience. In your study at Loyola, you have used Los Angeles data. Let’s keep in mind everybody listening in other parts, I think a lot of this is a place where you can begin to ask questions in your area to see if there are parallels. I believe there are a lot of parallels. Let’s look at why you did focus on the youth in Los Angeles.

Anabel Martinez 6:41
I wanted to focus, because my policy work is Los Angeles city and county, and so that’s one of the major focuses. Also, right now we do have a movement to essentially close down all the juvenile detention centers, but they’re still open right now. Also because LA itself has done a lot of work to help survivors, youth, survivors of sex trafficking, and being able to provide them with services and identify them, but we have not done as much to also support youth who are experiencing labor trafficking by forced criminality. And we just wanted to bring to light to the county, and people within social services within the county, who are helping CSEC youth that those services that you’re providing to CSEC youth can also be provided to kids who are experiencing labor trafficking by forced criminality. Further, there’s probably a crossover because if a youth does not choose their exploitation, and more than likely than not, they might be experiencing more than one form of exploitation, kind of like you talked about Jerome. They experienced sex trafficking, and then they were being forced to do other criminal acts. That could also happen to other individuals, and maybe they’re not arrested for the sex trafficking, right? Because they’re not supposed to be now. Now in California, there’s a safe harbor law that protects them from being arrested if they’re youth. If they’re engaging in what is perceived as prostitution, they’re automatically seen as a survivor of sex trafficking so they shouldn’t be prosecuted, they should be sent to social services. But if a youth who is being sex trafficked could potentially also be asked to sell drugs and be arrested for that, but is there an assessment being done there, for that youth? And if there’s not, then you’re putting that child into the criminal legal system and sending them down a path that could potentially give more control to their trafficker, in terms of forcing them to do more things.

Sandra Morgan 8:37
When we think about our juvenile justice system, as opposed to our criminal justice system, this is very problematic. In many parts of the world, there is not as clear of a division between juvenile and adult, or criminal justice. But here we have that advantage, and there should be another pathway. This re-emphasizes that we have to look further at why is this child, literally under the age of 18, and may be already six foot tall, but has not finished school, many times doesn’t have the same resources, and may have been involved in some kind of gang activity that has increased that vulnerability. One of the things that really drew my attention to your presentation was linking this to child soldiers. We hosted one of the Sudanese children that were child soldiers, for a semester here at Vanguard, and we learned so much about how their forced labor, forced soldiering experience, was built on coercion and force. We glibly say, “There are three elements of human trafficking, force, fraud, and coercion,” but for a child with no resources, in a country at war, so that all the systems that might exist are broken down, then you begin to see the desperation, and nobody argues that. That’s why I loved moving from this focus on youth in forced labor to this parallel. Can you flesh that out a little bit more for me?

Anabel Martinez 10:50
Yes, and I also want to touch on one point you said earlier. These are youth who are under 18, under 21, and there’s been many studies done that show that the brain is not fully developed until 26. I think when I did my data, the youngest person in juvenile hall was 13 years old. So how is a 13 year old being held in a juvenile hall without there being any assessment as to what happened? But in terms of the child soldiers, when I started doing my research for my white paper, that’s something that I started to think about. There’s very much a parallel between child soldiers and youth who are involved in gangs. The more that I looked into it, the more I could see those parallels in the sense that, child soldiers are considered a form of child trafficking because the acts required of the child soldier are dangerous, they interfere with their fundamental human rights to education. And if you see the reasons for why a child soldier becomes a child soldier, and why some youth decide to join gangs or are in gangs, they start to look the same, in terms of that they’re looking for a sense of belonging, they’re looking for protection, they live in an area where that might be the only choice, or they didn’t have a choice, it’s either you join or your life is in peril. And then, forcing kids to stay both within an army or in a gang, the same the same tactics are used. Other eople are punished in front of them to instill fear upon them, they’re manipulated, they’re brought in very young. They’re they’re made to feel like that’s their only choice. I think the more you look into those issues, the more you look into the reasons for why that happens, the more you start to see that. I see the US recognizing this outside of our country, but we’re not willing to look inward and see the same dynamics are happening within certain areas of our country, and we really need to start looking at that, from that perspective.

Sandra Morgan 12:41
So you mentioned gangs, and we’ve seen a lot of evidence of that in many, many municipalities here in California and in other states. But for youth that are coming across the border, escaping violence and then find themselves here, exposed to further violence, is there a parallel in labor trafficking, forced criminality, and the prevalence of immigrant youth being victims?

Anabel Martinez 13:19
I’m part of Freedom Network USA, which is like a lot of different nonprofits or service providers that work with human trafficking survivors. They recently released their, every couple years they aggregate the data of who’s being served, and their service providers have seen an increase in youth who are undocumented seeking out services from them. We are seeing an increase in just undocumented youth in general, needing help because they’re being trafficked. Something that we’re seeing, which right now is anecdotal because we need to collect more data, that’s something we’re always asking for, is data. But there does seem to be an increase of youth who are from Latin America or Central America, being forced to sell drugs, and that being the labor trafficking that they’re being forced to commit. Some people are recognizing it as such, but other people are still not connecting the dots that that’s what’s happening there.

Sandra Morgan 14:15
When these youth are picked up, where did they take them? Do they take them to juvenile detention, where do they take them, an what kind of court do they end up in?

Anabel Martinez 14:29
Essentially unless there’s an assessment made, yes, that’s where they would end up, is juvenile detention. Potentially, if they have an immigration case open, or if they don’t, that could be the next step, is that they’re then referred to immigration court or immigration proceedings, depending on what the issue is. That’s something that puts them severely in danger of them being sent back to a country that they were fleeing in the first place, because they were probably facing similar threats back in their home country.

Sandra Morgan 14:58
Do we see any remedies in the unaccompanied minor resources?

Anabel Martinez 15:05
If there’s an uaccompanied minor, essentially, when they get here they should be able to apply for CDSSf if they don’t have a parent or another parent. But in terms of being able to qualify for that, you have to have, when immigration is called, good moral character. You have to show that you’re someone who’s worthy of being allowed to be in this country. So any crimes that you commit sometimes weigh against that. You then have to apply for a waiver to see if they would be willing to forgive whatever it is that is in your criminal record, even if you were never arrested for it, those are crimes that they look into. That’s the risk right there, that maybe they might qualify for this remedy, but then they won’t be able to get that remedy because their trafficking experience was not recognized as trafficking, and they were charged with that instead of it being something like, “Hey, this is actually a victim of labor trafficking by forced criminality, let’s not put them through this criminal legal system that’s going to maybe x them out of this opportunity.”

Sandra Morgan 16:07
That’s why vacature and similar movements are so helpful because they were wrongfully charged. I just don’t like using the word charged for a kid, but I don’t know any other way.

Anabel Martinez 16:25
There’s also the T-Visa, so they could also apply, essentially, for a T-Visa, it just doesn’t seem to be the way. But again, you also have to be asking for this waiver. I would even take it a step further and say that, I mean for everyone, I think people are more open since we’re already doing it for youth who are survivors of CSEC. We have the safe harbor law in California, where they’re not supposed to be charged for anything related to prostitution, they’re supposed to be recognized as a survivor of trafficking. I would ask that the same Safe Harbor law also be extended for youth who identify as being victims of labor trafficking by forced criminality, because even putting them through that, to the point where they’re where they’re potentially being charged for something they were forced to commit by the person who’s causing them harm or trafficking them, I don’t think should happen, so we should be able to stop them from even entering the system in the first place.

Sandra Morgan 17:18
That’s wonderful. I love that. Okay, so let’s shift to another population of really vulnerable youth. On this podcast, we’ve discussed the Covenant House study findings a couple of times back in 2016 and a few different approaches. Let’s talk about labor trafficking, forced criminality, and homeless youth.

Anabel Martinez 17:49
Thank you for mentioning the Covenant studies, because they have been super helpful, the 2016 and the 2023, for me in providing data that, like I said, data is always really hard to find, specifically on this topic. We are seeing more and more data coming out, but still, not as many as we have related to sex trafficking or CSEC. I believe the 2016 study showed that of the youth who were experiencing labor trafficking, 81% of those youth were experiencing labor trafficking by forced criminality in the form of being forced to sell drugs. We’re seeing a high percentage of homeless youth who are being labor trafficked, who are experiencing labor trafficking by forced criminality by selling drugs. I think that’s an indicator, ideally, we would be screening all youth who come through the criminal legal system for labor trafficking by forced criminality, but even if that’s not possible or whatnot, at least if you’re seeing a drug crime, or a drug charge, or anything related to that, that raises like, “Hey, maybe this is a youth that I need to look further into and not just automatically label as a criminal or as a delinquent.”

Sandra Morgan 18:56
So what kind of screening tools are available?

Anabel Martinez 18:59
Right now there are a few that are trying to develop more concise screening tools. I’ll send you some of the links that we have to them, sorry, I can’t remember them off the top of my head. But there is a study being conducted by a researcher from NYU who’s working with public defenders to do a study, to flesh out a study, a research-based screening tool for labor trafficking by forced criminality. I believe it’s adults only so hopefully from that, we’ll be able to get one that’s more youth-specific. It has been hard to find one that we’re able to recommend to people. One of the things we always say is, the simplest thing you can ask a youth when you encounter them when you suspect this is happening, is, is there someone else who’s benefiting from from you doing this? Is there someone else who is getting your money? Is the money, or whatever the benefit of the crime was, is there another third person, a third party who’s benefited from it as well? I think just asking that question in the terms that that youth is going to understand, and when the youth feels ready to talk to you about it, that would open up so much. That whenever people ask us that question, even just that simple question, should be able to give you so much information.

Sandra Morgan 20:11
It’s so complicated to create screening tools. We interviewed Dr. Corey Rood here, just about the process and then I talked to people in administration, in juvenile justice and probation in schools. I think these are issues that school counselors and resources, they can all see and identify if they have the tools, but creating those screening tools take time and resources. It’s easier to raise funds to provide direct services because the stories are so compelling, but if we don’t put more value on how to identify, they just keep passing right by us, and their situation gets more and more dire, and then they age out of the opportunity to take advantage of resources. You can tell I’m getting a little passionate about this, so we have to figure out how to identify earlier. How do we maybe just add one question, the one you just gave us, to an existing screening protocol in whatever your department is? In your local youth programs, whether you’re here in the US, or in Europe, or in Africa, or Asia. This is so important for the future generations, that they don’t actually get pretty much disqualified from pursuing the future of their dreams, from education, from becoming entrepreneurs. In another interview we did with Susan Kennedy from NCMEC, we talked about other forms of coercion through sextortion online. And then, “Okay well, if you can’t pay me, then you have to go make this drug delivery,” which falls into this same labor trafficking, forced criminality. Can you talk about what you learned from the Harvard Medical School study? That was fascinating.

Anabel Martinez 22:34
Yeah, I think one of the things that stood out to me the most, which I think we already know, but just to have the data, is that over half of the kids who were identified as having experienced trafficking, have been involved in the child welfare system at some point in their lives. I feel like that shows that that’s a missed opportunity, or maybe a factor into why they found themselves in the situation that they found. If we are able to train child welfare agencies throughout the nation or throughout the state on labor trafficking by forced criminality, imagine how many kids we’ll be able to identify and help. It also shows that one of the other issues was that 90% of the children lack adult relationships, just showing how important it is for a child to have a connection to an adult who’s able to guide them and provide them the help. Sometimes because they lack that, they think they found someone else who’s going to be able to provide that for them, but it’s not that, it ends up being an exploitative relationship. Another interesting fact was that 83% of labor trafficking victims faced arrest before the age of 22, so this is happening to them at a very young age. 56% of them were under the age of 18 when they were being trafficked and the youngest person, I believe, was seven years old.

Sandra Morgan 23:53
The key word, I want everybody, if you’re driving don’t do this, but when you’re at your desk, write down the word “missed opportunity.’ Start a little notebook about the missed opportunities, because this data shows how young they start down the path where they have fewer and fewer options. How can we find ways to leverage the opportunities when they’re there? We are often overwhelmed because we have way too many tasks, we have too many, but is there a missed opportunity today? Is there one kid, 18 or seven that we can send on a different path to provide those options? In our juvenile justice system, rehabilitation is built in. It’s baked into how we define justice. It’s not about how to put them in prison, it’s about how to make things more right for their future. I think we have a lot of missed opportunities. When you said this in the presentation I attended recently, that was one of my big takeaways. How do I find those missed opportunities? And honestly, systemically, it’s going to take us, I’m very pragmatic, a long time to get those screening tools in place. They have to be evidence-based. Go back and listen to Dr. Rood. I don’t have time for that but I’m trying to be very patient, and I want all of our healthcare professionals, and our social workers, our educators, to be partnering on those kinds of tools so that everyday people can do this. But in the meantime, we are really depending on individuals, those adults who see a child and say, “We need to look at this a little bit more,” and it changes their whole life. If you’re in the US and you see that, and there is nobody in your community, nobody in your department, just call the hotline and they’ll connect you to somebody. There’s always a way, and we’ll put links to that as well. Anabel, I do know that there are amazing examples in your research. Can we have just one story?

Anabel Martinez 26:47
Yes. Some of the stories that we highlighted within our white paper are actually from the Covenant House studies, that we felt really brought home the issues that we were talking about. One of them is a quote from the 2016 study, which is, “It’s like a job where you have a schedule and you have to meet a quota, you have to sell a certain amount in a certain amount of time, or you get threatened and smacked around, or whatever. There’s times where they freak out and spaz, and they scare you and stuff, smack someone else around in front of you, show you that they’re powerful and stuff, just mentally, you can’t go anywhere. I’ve seen it happen to other people, where you can’t get out, and if you get out, you end up in the hospital for a while.”

Sandra Morgan 27:30
Wow.

Anabel Martinez 27:31
So it’s like stories that we have heard from probably youth who are involved in the delinquency system, but we’re not really being like, “Hmm, what is going on here?” We’re not recognizing it for what it is, which is, there’s some coercion going on here, there’s some psychological tactics going on here, that we’re able to see within the context of maybe CSEC youth, but we can seem to recognize it within this context.

Sandra Morgan 27:53
And what happens to the youth in some of my conversations, is when they are recovered from that situation, they have this sense, “Now there’s someone, the good guys, and they’re going to help me,” and instead, they’re put on probation, they have all kinds of restrictions, and they’re put into rehabilitation programs. For me, you all have listened to me for years, talk about if these are children who have found themselves in our systems where we’ve already identified that they have had a very challenging, early start to life, and now we’re talking about rehabilitation. But they often have attachment issues and suffered malnutrition, suffered trauma from abuse, and so they need building from the ground up. We can’t just hang pictures on a wall that does not exist. Lots of our rehabilitation programs assume they learned that self-control, they learned self-regulation, they have the ability to imagine that if they’re in trouble, somebody’s going to come and help them, which is a key element of attachment. I want to remind us that there are opportunities that we are missing, that are right here and don’t take a huge program, they just take individuals to do that. I want to ask you one more question, Anabel, what have you changed your mind on?

Anabel Martinez 29:50
Well, I grew up in southeast LA. I don’t know if people are familiar with LA, but a lot of my family lived in Compton and south LA, so there was always this bias and perception of folks who were involved in gangs, even if they were young, this negative perception, right? You were just like, they’re bad, or they’re just people you don’t want to hang out with. You just automatically, any kind of tie to a gang, any tie to criminality, you’re just like, “Okay, I’m staying away.” And I think through my work, I have really been challenging those biases that I grew up in, and I understand that maybe back then that was a way my family was trying to keep me safe. But I think as I’ve gone into my work and learned more about this, I learned that you can’t assume or automatically label someone. You have to first see their humanity and question what made that person, or how did that person get to that point where they felt that that was what they needed to do or where they needed to be. I’ve learned to challenge my own perceptions and biases when I when it comes to this issue, and to help others within my family and within my work, and within my communities, to also do the same. Because I think we really have to take accountability for ourselves and the biases that we allow, to sometimes prevent us from helping people that really need our help.

Sandra Morgan 31:10
I’m going to sit in that for a while and take some time to check my own biases. Thank you for that. Wow. So much to dive into here. Anabel, how can people connect with you? How do we add our voices to support this passion you have?

Anabel Martinez 31:31
Well, definitely. I would love it if you all could read my White Paper, and if you have any questions or you want to have a conversation, I’ll make sure that my email can be shared so you are able to contact me, and you should be able to follow our Sunita Jain Anti-Trafficking Initiative on both Instagram and X. We’re just trying to grow our social media base, but we are trying to be more active and post more. You can find us on both with the same handle, which is @sunitajainlls, meaning Loyola Law School, so you can definitely find us there. I think a way to help is, if you are someone who’s in charge of providing trainings on human trafficking, that you include labor trafficking, and that you include labor trafficking by forced criminality, even if it’s just one or two slides. I think that will make all the difference because we want to make sure we’re acknowledging all the spectrum of human trafficking that exists, and the fact that usually, the person does not experience just one form of exploitation. There could be many forms of exploitations, and we need to recognize that and not just focus on one specifically, because then we’re not helping them with the other issues that they’re also facing.

Sandra Morgan 32:40
Thank you so much, Anabel, we’re going to put links to everything you just mentioned in the show notes. I also want to ask our listeners to take this interview and pass it on to someone else. Let’s help the Sunita Jain Initiative grow. We need to be voices for our youth and make sure that we are not missing opportunities to change the trajectory of their lives, which changes their communities. Thank you, Anabel.

Anabel Martinez 33:19
Thank you so much. I really had a great time with you today, and thank you for allowing me to talk about this topic. As you can see, I’m very passionate about it and I just really appreciate being here.

Sandra Morgan 33:29
I’m grateful you came today. And for our listeners, if this is your first time, please go to our website, endinghumantrafficking.org, sign up for the podcast as a subscriber, and every two weeks, you’ll get the show notes. Go to gcwj.org to learn more about opportunities to take our anti-human trafficking certificate, and get involved in learning how you can become part of the solution as we study the issues, be a voice, and make a difference. I’ll be back in two weeks.