By David Beltran
“We were scared to talk to any officer because we could get deported,” Alex Herring said. Hope Lloyd and Herring shared their testimony through a presentation titled “Survivor Leadership in Labor Trafficking,” promoting the importance of awareness and exposing the hidden side of human trafficking at the Ninth Annual Human Trafficking Conference on March 24.
“If a work situation includes any of the words force, fraud or coercion, it can be considered human trafficking,” Herring said. While human trafficking is often associated with sexual exploitation, labor trafficking is less recognized. Due to this misunderstanding, confusion can lead victims to not know whether they are being trafficked. “Isolated environments and language barriers are factors that constantly limit reporting this crime,” she said.
“The only worth you have is the hand labor you can give me,” they said their trafficker told them.
This and other phrases make them feel extremely vulnerable, while also creating a sense of lost identity and legal value. In addition, both emphasized the subtlety and control that traffickers may have over their victims. They described a sense of isolation when their TV, radio and other sources of communication were controlled by their trafficker.
Herring then connected these experiences with the constant lack of information immigrants have regarding their rights, explaining that immigration status can heavily influence and increase vulnerability to human trafficking.
However, Lloyd distinguished between labor trafficking and migrant smuggling: In migrant smuggling, an immigrant is paid to be transported across a border, but this illegal process can ultimately lead to labor trafficking.
When asked how long they remained with their trafficker, they said it lasted around 13 years.
Experiences like Lloyd’s and Herring’s are pillars for change in recovery centers and in education aimed at preventing this type of trafficking. However, both emphasized that their testimonies are often turned into “tokenization” in advocacy spaces, meaning organizations use them as images of survivors but silence them when they try to contribute further.
Before closing, faith and hope filled the air as Herring explained that the only thing that kept her moving forward was her belief in God. Regardless of the religion they profess, they emphasized a non-human power that helped them continue onward.
Their testimony revealed how hidden and misunderstood labor trafficking can be. More importantly, it showed the need for awareness and for survivors to have a real voice in the spaces that claim to represent them.