Farmworkers and Human Trafficking

Legal Aid of NC’s Caitlin Ryland was featured in a recent WRAL Investigates story about human trafficking. The news story shines a spotlight on the disturbing ways that traffickers abuse individuals: 

Caitlin Ryland, an attorney with Legal Aid of North Carolina, says human trafficking does not always involve the sex trade. Some people are forced to perform other labor, such a farm work.

“Essentially, individuals are held somewhere against their will, and through force, fraud or coercion are forced to perform a commercial sex act or do labor,” Ryland said.

“Human trafficking is real, it’s here, it’s in North Carolina,” she added.

Douglas Coasey says he has worked on three farms in North Carolina and lived in labor camps where workers slept on the floor or in unsanitary beds with bed bugs. They also lived with leaky roofs and had rudimentary bathroom facilities and little access to food. The camps are often deep in the woods where workers are isolated and have no transportation to leave.

“They promise you these different things, but you don’t ever get it,” he said. “You end up sleeping on the floor. You end up taking a bath outside in the woods because of the crowdedness.”

Coasey says he finally left farm work last year and went into construction. He snuck away when his boss left the farm and was able to call a friend to help him escape from the camp.

Click here to watch the report:

Several years ago, there was another high-profile trafficking case involving workers from Thailand who were forced to do farm labor in North Carolina. CNN has the report here:

These horrific stories remind us that farmworkers are often extremely vulnerable to abuse. In many cases, workers are isolated and rely completely on their employer for every aspect of their livelihood, including access to food, transportation, and medical care.

Farmworkers, like all people, deserve safe places to live and work. Be part of the solution – join the Harvest of Dignity campaign today.

Another human trafficking case involving farmworkers

The NY Times recently reported on a massive human trafficking scheme that brought workers from Thailand to the U.S. in order to work the fields.  

The charges, prepared by Justice Department civil rights lawyers, were brought against the president, three executives and two Thai labor contractors from Global Horizons Manpower, which recruits foreign farm workers for the federal agricultural guest worker program, known as H-2A.

The indictment, which was unsealed Thursday in Hawaii, accuses Global Horizons executives of working to “obtain cheap, compliant labor” from guest workers who had been forced into debt in Thailand to pay fees to local recruiters. The company, according to the indictment, sought to “to compel the workers’ labor and service through threats to have them arrested, deported or sent back to Thailand, knowing the workers could not pay off their debts if sent home.”

North Carolina saw a similar case several years ago.  Here's the report from CNN on the NC case:

The sad reality is that conditions in this industry can sometimes lend themselves to the despicable tactics of traffickers.  For example, in many cases farmworkers are isolated, unable to speak English, and tied to a single employer who may or may not obey the law.  As long as workers remain disempowered from controlling their own circumstances, the possibility of abuse - even trafficking - will remain.  

This fall, FAN is launching a new campaign that will help to ensure that cases like this never happen again.  Join us today.

Click here for more information on the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' campaign against human trafficking.