With some 27 million people enslaved around the world, human trafficking generates $31 billion annually and rivals the illegal weapon and drug trade as the top criminal activity globally. USF Professor David Batstone traveled to five continents last year to investigate the thriving commerce in human beings. While he prepared emotionally for this experience to bring him to the depths of despair, he said he found a silver lining: a new generation of abolitionists committed to the fight for human freedom. The following is an excerpt from his new book, Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade—and How We Can Fight It.
Twenty-seven million slaves exist in our world today.
Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are forced to toil in the rug loom sheds of Nepal, sell their bodies in the brothels of Rome, break rocks in the quarries of Pakistan, and fight wars in the jungles of Africa.
Go behind the façade in any major town or city in the world and you are likely to find a thriving commerce in human beings. You may even find slavery in your own backyard.
For several years my wife and I dined regularly at an Indian restaurant near our home in the Bay Area. Unbeknownst to us, the staff at Pasand Madras Indian Cuisine who cooked our curries, delivered them to our table, and washed our dishes were slaves.
It took a tragic accident to expose the slave trafficking ring. A young woman found her roommates, 17-year-old Chanti Prattipati and her 15-year-old sister Lalitha, unconscious in a Berkeley home. Carbon monoxide emitted from a blocked heating vent had poisoned them. The roommate called their landlord, Lakireddy Reddy, the owner of the Pasand restaurant where the girls worked. Reddy owned several restaurants and more than 1,000 apartment units in Northern California.
When Reddy arrived at the girls’ apartment, he declined to take them to a hospital. Instead, he and a few friends carried the girls out of the apartment in a rolled up carpet and put them into a waiting van. When the men tried to force the roommate into the van as well, she put up a fierce fight.
A local resident, Marcia Poole, was passing by in her car at that moment and witnessed a bizarre scene: several men toting a sagging roll of carpet, with a human leg hanging out. She slowed her car to take a closer look, and was horrified to watch the men attempt to force a young girl into the van. Poole jumped out of her car to stop the men. Unable to do so, she stopped another passing motorist and implored him to dial 911 and report a kidnapping in progress. The police arrived in time to arrest the abductors.
Chanti Prattipati was pronounced dead at a local hospital. A subsequent investigation uncovered that Reddy and several members of his family used fake visas and false identities to traffick as many as 500 Indian adults and children into the United States. They worked as waiters, cooks, and dishwashers at the businesses Reddy owned. He forced the laborers to work long hours for minimal wages, money which they returned to him as rent to live in one of his apartments. Reddy threatened to turn them into the authorities as illegal aliens if they tried to escape. Reddy was eventually sentenced to 97 months in prison and required to pay $2 million in restitution.
As many as 200,000 people live enslaved at this moment in the United States, and an additional 17,500 new victims are trafficked into our borders each year. More than 30,000 more are transported through this country on their way to other international destinations. U.S. Department of Justice attorneys have prosecuted slave trade activity in 91 cities across the United States and in nearly every state of the nation.
The commerce in human beings today rivals drug trafficking and the illegal arms trade for the top criminal activity on the planet. The slave trade sits at number three on the list, but is gaining on its competitors. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) projects that the slave trade generates $9.5 billion in revenue each year, while the International Labor Office (ILO) estimates a number closer to a whopping $32 billion annually. Whichever figure is closer to the mark, no one doubts that slave commerce is booming. “In terms of profits, it’s on a path to overtake drugs and arms trafficking,” says Barry Tang, an Immigration and Enforcement attaché with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
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