Somebody has to speak for them. Lord knows they can’t speak for themselves – at least, not in English.
“I like it here,” says one of the group of 20 Thai men who found themselves at the center of an international controversy this summer.“You like it here,” repeats the KDKA-TV reporter who interviews him on a day in July when the men’s story came to the attention of the media ever so briefly. “Yes. It’s nice,” he says haltingly, nearly exhausting his total English vocabulary.
Nice isn’t the word that Mary Burke, PhD, a Carlow University professor of psychology, uses to describe the situation that has befallen these men. “It’s slavery,” says Burke. “They were forced to work under harsh conditions without compensation.”
Burke is one of the founders of the Project to EndHuman Trafficking (PEHT), a Pittsburgh-based, nonprofit organization that was founded in 2004 as part of the anti-slavery movement. Its mission is to work toward the elimination of trafficking in persons, especially women and children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Although the men were not trafficked for sexual exploitation, they are still victims. They left their native Thailand approximately one year ago and traveled halfway around the world before eventually arriving in Worthington, Pa., in Armstrong County, where they were to work harvesting mushrooms.
Burke is quick to point out that the local mushroom farm has done nothing wrong in this matter. The company could not find enough local workers to take the jobs picking mushrooms underground in an old limestone mine, so they contracted with a California company called Global Horizons, to hire legal guest workers. Under the arrangement, the mushroom farm would pay Global Horizons, and they, in turn, would supply and pay the workers. The only problem with the arrangement is that Global Horizons didn’t pay the workers regularly, and the Thai men would often have to go fishing in the river to feed themselves.
“The men came to the United States legally under an H2A visa—a nonimmigrant visa that allows foreign nationals to enter the U.S. and perform agricultural labor or services of a temporary or seasonal nature,” says Burke. “Global Horizons charged them $20,000 each—a sum that would take two or three lifetimes to pay in Thailand—for a guarantee of three years employment with 40-hour work weeks.”
Burke says there were long stretches when the men weren’t working, so they weren’t being paid, but also times when they were working and still weren’t being paid. A representative from Global Horizons told KDKA that some workers were paid late because the company is having financial troubles, but she denied they were engaging in human trafficking. Others don’t see it that way.
“Without a doubt, this is a case of debt bondage,” says Burke, who was put in touch with the Thai men by local attorneys who discovered their situation and began working on their behalf.
Mary Burke, PhD
Initially, PEHT was formed simply to give educational lectures and raise awareness about the problem, which is significant and growing all the time. Various sources, including the U.S. State Department, cite different figures about how prevalent human trafficking is. Part of the reason for this variance is that the people engaged in trafficking work hard to hide it, and certain nations are thought to underreport the extent to which this is happening so as not to cast their country in a negative light. One source—Kathryn Farr, PhD, a sociologist—estimates as many as 4 million people trafficked worldwide each year, with 800,000 to 900,000 individuals trafficked across international borders. Approximately 80 percent of the people trafficked internationally are females and up to 50 percent are minors.
Burke says the combination of the interest in information about trafficking and victims being present in the local communities created a need for some organization to connect the various constituencies. That’s what PEHT has been doing for the past year and a half.
“In early May, I was invited to talk to a group at East Liberty Presbyterian Church, and a local lawyer with the Community Justice Project talked to me after the lecture,” Burke says. “She knew the 20 Thai men, and was concerned that their basic needs were not being met.”
Burke realized that there was a need for action and engaged various constituencies in the community to provide help. As PEHT has evolved, the organization has begun to engage in anti-trafficking coalition building, educational outreach, direct service to victims, and collaboration with other national and international organizations in the global fight against human trafficking. It was this network that Burke was able to access, and she received strong support from the Carlow community.
“We announced a food drive for the men, and the Carlow community responded so well,” she says. “It was amazing. It was the best food drive of all the ones we organized on behalf of the men.”
Burke says PEHT’s work hasn’t ended. She has been busy writing letters to the U.S. Department of Justice to be filed with documents on behalf of each of the 20 men to allow them to remain in this country.
“I try to explain what life was like for them before, what it is like now, and what the mental health consequences may be for each person,” she explains. At first, as community advocates worked to remove the men from Global Horizons’ control, some of the men were placed in area homeless shelters, where they encountered people who were struggling and behaved aggressively toward the men, which created some additionally stressful situations for them. The latest news is that almost all of the men have been absorbed into the Thai community in Pittsburgh, Washington, DC, and California. Their immediate needs will now be met as advocates work to break their ties to Global Horizons, which is being investigated by a number of state attorneys general.
“Their debts are actually to various private lenders, banks, and family members in Thailand,” explains Burke. “They took out loans from these places to pay Global Horizons.
Advocates working on behalf of the men are applying to get their visa status updated. This is necessary because Global Horizons illegally confiscated the men’s passports and visas, and, despite promises to keep them updated, failed to do so.”
As the case unfolds, not only does Burke believe her work will continue, but that it will become more important than ever.
“It has become clear to us how critical it is to advance the work of the Pittsburgh Anti-Human Trafficking Coalition,” she says, adding that the Pittsburgh area needs to become more aware that human trafficking exists. “Other cities have been forced to deal with this much sooner than Pittsburgh has, so the network of resources for victims of human trafficking isn’t as well established here. But Pittsburgh is an amazingly generous city, so I’m confident that the resources can be put in place very soon.”
How does she answer people who criticize the need for such work?
“My value system is such that I have a commitment to human rights, and I believe I have a responsibility to give back. I’m trying to make the world a better place,” says Burke, who believes her values mesh quite nicely with those of her employer. “This is the work that Catherine McAuley started in the streets of Ireland, the work that the Sisters of Mercy who first came to Pittsburgh and founded Carlow continued, and it’s work that we are still doing today. Until recently, I never realized how much that mission resonates with me, but it does.”
As one who spoke on behalf of the people who couldn’t speak for themselves, undoubtedly Catherine McAuley would agree.
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