Victims of Violence:

TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN

Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and Poder de la Mujer are partnering on a strategy to work with victims of trafficking. The following information is part of the plan we are implementing under the title "Help Prenvent Slavery."

There are currently two separate types of victims of trafficking: undocumented farm workers being held in involuntary servitude to either pay back tremendous debts or under threat of being reported to immigration, and children brought across the border to serve as prostitutes.

Others may be transiting the area and are still being considered willing participants but will become victims once they are taken to their final destination.

Our strategy therefore is more broadly targeted than our current programs. In addition, we live next door to the traffickers. We also realize that like drug dealers, the traffickers are very dangerous people.

This plan was developed in consultation with our current promotores and people who currently work in centers that serve victims. We realize we are in a vulnerable position and do not want to be identified as the individuals who are identifying traffickers for the police.

We also want to be able to help and protect the victims. Therefore, the outreach and education is delivered in a manner we feel both identifies and assists potential victims while providing for both their safety and ours.

We currently conduct outreach programs in both Hudspeth County, Texas to the east and in Dona Ana County, New Mexico to the west. Both lie on the U.S. Mexico border and both have large areas that are sparsely populated desert areas that serve as migrant corridors.

Help Prevent Slavery is limited to the El Paso MSA. We are restricting the program to this area because our liaisons with law enforcement do not cover areas outside the El Paso MSA.

Education and outreach is done using a two-tier system. In addition, our target population is being broadened to include those people who do not live in the immigrant community but have contact with the community for other reasons.

This includes health care workers, business owners and workers in stores in the area, truck stop employees and cable installers. Poder de la Mujer is hiring four part-time outreach educators who have some links to the business and health care communities. Those people are publicly identified as belonging to project Help Prevent Slavery.

They are conducting educational programs to alert those who live outside our community but are in a position to potentially recognize a situation of involuntary servitude, sex slavery or other form of trafficking.

In addition, the public face is presenting educational programs in the immigrant community as well. For example, you may invite them to speak at a meeting in a colonia to explain the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). They attend local events that draw large numbers of recent immigrants like rodeos, fairs, or religious celebrations to reach large numbers of people who may come into contact with victims of trafficking. In addition, the outreach educators contact the press, give interviews and provide public service announcements in both English and Spanish language media in the area. While outreach educators face some risk to their safety, they do not live in the colonias, nor do they have direct contact with victims.

The promotores serve as the eyes and ears of the project. Twenty promotores are being identified who currently work with Poder de Mujer. They have received all the training on community education techniques and the laws pertaining to domestic violence. In addition, we are selecting not only those willing to participate in this project, but those who are deemed most emotionally ready to participate. These promotores are receiving extensive training on:

• The TVPA of 2000 and the reauthorization act of 2003
• Training from the police on ensuring personal safety
• Presentations from those currently doing outreach to this population
• A series of trainings designed to train lay people to provide mental health services to the community to include:
  • Psychology of victimization
  • Psychological effects of severe trauma
  • Assessment of victim’s, family’s and neighborhood’s perception of the problem
  • Psychological first aid
  • Providing emotional support, grief counseling and stress management
  • Problem-solving
  • Availability and accessing services for victims

This psychological portion of the trainings are given as a series of monthly trainings for the promotores and will be designed by mental health professionals following the World Health Organization’s recommendations and curriculum Mental Health for Refugees. These trainings produce promotores who can serve as a resource to the neighbors on TVPA and address the psychological issues of the victims.

The promotores are not publicly seeking out victims but after the training are in a position to recognize locations where victims are being held as they do outreach in other areas. Many of us already are aware of possible locations where the TVPA is being violated in the agricultural fields or in local clubs. This was demonstrated at a training that 10 of the promotores received on September 17, 2004 on the TVPA.

As the distinction between smuggling and trafficking became clear, people began to relate stories they had been told by neighbors or friends regarding a person who believed themselves to be entering the country in the hands of a coyote and then were placed in a labor situation that we could now recognize as a situation of modern day slavery.

When a promotora recognizes such a situation or location, the information is brought to the El Paso Trafficking Task force. In addition, if a promotora does develop a relationship with a victim, the psychological training and safety training equips them to deal with the situation.

Call MUJER at (915) 544-5126 Ext. 30

LEARN AND ORGANIZE!