The Sisters of Mercy in many parts of the U.S. are educating  themselves and others about trafficking and taking specific actions, often along with other women religious. This article, which appeared in a Mercy newsletter, anticipates January as National Human Trafficking Prevention month and focuses on efforts in California. Subsequent articles will discuss actions by sisters and associates in other parts of the West Midwest Community.

“You are a useless house girl.”  The sentence rang in Sarah’s ears. Her employer, a Kenyan woman, had brought Sarah (not her real name) from Nairobi to care for her toddler and her house.  At first, the idea seemed to be a good one. Sarah, in her 20s, believed life would be better in the U.S. There was no food in her village. People were desperate. She worked cleaning houses to support her small daughter and her parents.  When her employer in Nairobi asked her to come to the United States., Sarah felt a leap of hope. She would be able to send money back to her family. The employer even offered to send her to college.

“I was convinced life would be good. When we landed at the airport, everything looked so good and beautiful,” she told an audience of Mercy sisters in Burlingame in 2005.

Sarah saw quickly that she had been trapped. 

Her employer’s manner changed abruptly, from her kindly attitude back in Kenya to a rigid, demanding stance.  She took Sarah’s passport and demanded that she work long hours, cleaning the house, cooking and caring for the little boy. Her pay was to be $50 a month and would accumulate toward paying her ticket home.  Even worse, she was not to talk to anyone. “Everyone is from the FBI,” the woman said.  Sarah's family at home would suffer if she didn't cooperate.

Sarah was terrified, as the employer had intended.  She became so depressed that she  couldn’t look in the mirror. "I saw myself as a useless person," she said. Poverty at home was easier to bear than the emotional beating that her employer delivered daily. Sarah was so despondent that she thought about suicide.

Statistics Hard to Determine

An undetermined number of Sarahs are trafficked to the U.S. in a pattern that many believe is the largest international criminal operation behind drugs.  Statistics of sex and labor trafficking are difficult to verify because these trafficked victims are hidden behind barriers of fear and intimidation. Vulnerable women and children are brought across borders for the sex industry from Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Workers like Sarah willing to work in households, in agriculture and in restaurants can be kept as virtual slaves, imprisoned in the work place and paid far below minimum wage. The U.S. State Department estimates that 600,000 - 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year and approximately 14,500 – 17,500 of them are trafficked into the U.S. 

The problem rages internationally, but the U.S. made a major step to combat it with the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 that is up for reauthorization this fall. The act established funding for Rescue and Restore campaigns, local coalitions which bring police, the courts and human services together to identify and support victims. Fighting well-organized, and potentially violent crime networks must be done collaboratively. The key is finding the appropriate niche for giving help.

In California, sisters from many religious communities have made efforts to help trafficking victims, but finding the hidden Sarahs and deciding how best to serve them has proven difficult. Members of Leadership Conference of Women Religious Region 14 (covering California, Nevada, Utah, Guam and Hawaii) came together several years ago in San Francisco and, after much discussion, decided not to fund a safe house.  The sisters felt it was too difficult to identify victims to justify the expense, and too few would be served.

Individual Sisters of Mercy have worked quietly to fight trafficking in California. At least two sisters have housed trafficking victims in the past several years. One sister who housed a woman for nine months found it a challenging, rewarding and educational experience. She learned that the location of the house and any identification of it could be dangerous for the victim and the community. Sheltering the victim must be as secret as the original trafficking, so she asked that even the region not be named.

“But providing a roof was not nearly enough,” the Mercy Sister said.  The woman needed help with study of basic skills needed for a program in which she was enrolled, but she had had little education in her own country. The program required tools she could not master in the time she was given. The government support was scanty, and the sister and her friends often supplied basic clothing.

“One thing I realized in a new way was that when you uncover one face of the poor, you peel away layers of need, like an onion,” she said. “Her needs were not only educational, but social, psychological and spiritual.”

Other sisters in California are attending training to enable them to recognize victims and to spread awareness of trafficking, often hidden in plain sight. Lenore Greene, a social worker with the Santa Clara County Department of Social Services, has taken training by a local expert, San Jose police lieutenant John Vanek.  Sister Maureen Hally and Sister Therese Randolph have attended Vanek’s trainings. Therese is now the Mercy representative on the Northern Coalition of Catholic Sisters.

Religious communities have tremendous potential power in fighting trafficking with compassionate awareness, according to Sister Kathleen Bryant, RSCJ (Society of the Sacred Heart), a member of the RSCJ international trafficking team.  The effects of speaking, writing and teaching about the issue can be enormous. Influenced by Judy Cannato’s Fields of Compassion, Kathleen said, “One conversation or one action for advocacy or one class you teach builds that field. One act of kindness strengthens the field of compassion and awareness.” Kathleen talks about the  issue wherever she goes—visiting a nursing home, a hair salon, or the doctor's office.

Sarah’s case contained a surprising twist. She begged her employer to allow her go to church where she pleaded with a priest for help. He called on Sister Marilyn Lacey, then Catholic Charities Director of Immigration and Refugee Services in San Jose. With their encouragement, Sarah ran away from her employer.

Marilyn found a shelter for her and connected Sarah with social services and legal counsel. She then referred  her case to the justice department for an application for a T1 Visa which would give her protected status and support as a trafficking victim. With the generous support of a wonderful local volunteer who paid for her professional training, Sarah eventually became a medical technician, and her daughter is now with her and doing well in school.

The note of irony is that Marilyn discovered that Sarah’s abusive employer was on a fellowship at a local university —in the field of human rights.