291 SLAVERY IS ILLEGAL, BUT IT IS FAR FROM A THING OF THE PAST

Panel Discussion to Shed Light on International and Local Human Trafficking

(MURFREESBORO) – Activists who have dedicated themselves to combating human trafficking and the sex slave trade will participate in a free and open panel discussion at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 21, in Room 108 of the Cason-Kennedy Nursing Building.
Featured speakers will include Amber Beckham, Network of Emergency Trafficking Services (NETS) coordinator for World Relief; Elena Dering, an independent activist against human trafficking; and Colette Bercu, founder and president of Free for Life Ministries, a Nashville-based nonprofit organization.
The underreported crime of human trafficking is described by the United States Department of Health and Human Services as “a modern-day form of slavery. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. … After drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today, and it is the fastest growing.”
“It’s a pretty difficult problem to identify if people aren’t looking for it,” Beckham says.
The United States Department of State estimates that between 18,000 and 20,000 victims are trafficked into the U.S. every year, usually from Asia, Central and South America, and eastern Europe. Experts say these victims either wind up in the sex trade (brothels, massage parlors, strip clubs) or in low-paying exploitative jobs in professions with a highly transient and sometimes loosely documented or undocumented work force (construction, agriculture, sweatshops).
Targets of trafficking usually do not file complaints because they frequently are in dire financial straits, speak only the language of their homelands, and are under threat of physical harm or blackmail if they reveal how they are being treated.
“Often times, human trafficking victims will not self-identify upfront,” Beckham says. “It takes prodding on the part of first-responders to get to the heart of the issue.”
Beckham says trafficking victims can suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological condition in which the captive identifies with and becomes sympathetic to the captor.
Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, federally funded social service programs can be made available to help victims of trafficking, including health care, education, and job training. Some are even eligible for the federal Witness Protection Program. Also, the law provides for the issuance of so-called “T visas,” which allows trafficking victims to become temporary U.S. residents. Previously, many victims were deported as illegal aliens.
The panel discussion is co-sponsored by the American Democracy Project, and two student organizations, GLOBAL (Get Lost Outside Boundaries and Limitations) and AID (Americans for an Informed Democracy).
The American Democracy Project Web site describes the program as “an initiative of 219 AASCU (American Association of State Colleges and Universities) campuses that seeks to create an intellectual and experiential understanding of civic engagement for undergraduates enrolled at institutions that are members of AASCU.”
GLOBAL is “an international organization. We try to bring students together to raise awareness about global issues and general knowledge of different countries and cultures,” Candi Nunley, GLOBAL president, says.
Americans for Informed Democracy is “a non-partisan organization that brings the world home to the next generation of leaders through educational seminars, leadership summits, town hall meetings, opinion pieces, and global videoconferences,” states its Web site.
For more information, contact Dr. Andrei Korobkov, associate professor of political science, at 615-898-2945 or korobkov@mtsu.edu; Nunley at global@mtsu.edu; or AID President Angie Feeney at amf3g@mtsu.edu.

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