passover Slavery Today? From Hebrew slaves in Egypt to modern-day human trafficking and lax labor laws. LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER W experience at all.” hat does slavery mean to us today? She started the clinic in 2009; now it is At the seder on Passover, “the staffed by three law professors and from 16-24 season of our freedom,” when we law students. celebrate release “from the house of bondage,” Jewish families gather to discuss freedom and slavery. That discussion has now, as always, EXPLOITED WORKERS relevance. What does slavery mean to us The headlines emphasize sex workers, but today? Carr says she has seen badly exploited work- In this country, the 13th Amendment to the ers in a wide variety of industries: nail salons, Constitution, passed in 1865, outlawed “slavery landscapers, restaurants, food processing and involuntary servitude.” We do not typically plants, janitorial services, farms, hair-braiding see examples of classical slavery anymore: no services, and on and on. “It is harder to find slave auctions, no manacles keeping work- an industry where I’ve never seen compulsion ers at their work stations, no gangs searching and exploitation,” she says. for runaways to bring them back in chains, The headlines emphasize undocumented no advertisements in newspapers offering immigrants, but “plenty of legal residents and rewards for the return of escaped slaves. U.S. citizens get exploited,” Carr says. But we do have workers in slave-like “Youth, poverty, lack of access to conditions. Bridgette Carr, clinical markets, personal history of abuse professor at the University of Michigan and trauma, all create vulnerability. Law School and director of the Human “Exploiters are skilled at finding Trafficking Clinic, knows more about vulnerability. Traffickers do not gen- these workers than she ever expected to erally feel distressed if they lose a vic- find out. tim. They can easily find a replace- Carr came to law school wanting to ment. There is not much danger that Bridgette Carr work in asylum and refugee law. the trafficker will get into trouble. It “When I was contacted by women who is hard to find a prosecutor willing had been forced to work in a strip club to take on a criminal case against on Eight Mile Road in Detroit, I tried to turn a trafficker, even if the victim wants to pros- them down: It was not my specialty,” Carr said. ecute, and many victims do not.” “They had trouble finding representation. The victims have reason to want to remain Eventually, I agreed to represent a few of these silent. clients.” “If there is a case,” Carr says, “the victims That case attracted nationwide media atten- are always on trial: Are they the perfect vic- tion because, as Carr explains, “the women tims? Did they never make bad choices? If were white, college-age and the case involved not, watch out. The system scrutinizes every sex.” The women thought they were coming thought, belief and choice of the victim, when to the U.S. from Eastern Europe for legitimate it should put on trial the thoughts, beliefs and employment. When they got here, the traffick- choices of the trafficker.” ers explained the job had dried up, and the So, prosecutors might decide not to pros- women had to work off the expenses for their ecute, not trusting a jury to convict a wealthy, travel. The traffickers took their passports. articulate, successful businessman on the The case developed when a few women testimony of poor, unsuccessful workers who escaped. It was the first federal prosecution of might be ill, inarticulate, foreign, addicted to traffickers in Michigan. As it turned out, Carr drugs and probably feel ashamed. says, “It was a totally atypical case.” Carr calls attention to highways in Michigan, “Since then, I have never had a case that where you can see big billboards with mes- checked all the boxes like that one,” she says. sages like: “But, after that one case, other cases came to Oriental Spa. Open 9 a.m.-1 a.m. me. I was an expert for having the experience Parking for Tractor-trailers. of that one case. When I looked around, I real- “What is the message to us as we drive by ly was a relative ‘expert’ because others had no those billboards?” Carr asks. “Who is for sale? continued on page 58 56 March 29 • 2018 jn Taking Action What can an ordinary citizen do? Bridgette Carr of the Human Trafficking Clinic at U-M, says, “Watch the rhetoric. Rhetoric matters. When we commodify people, we help the exploiters. If we call people ‘illegals,’ we push them into the camp of ‘others,’ who are no concern of ours. Then we do the work of the traffickers. “In this discussion, there is no neutral. We either give each individual human dignity, acknowledge that each individual has human dignity or we take away human dignity from ‘others.’ “When we do not acknowledge the human dignity of certain people, we take away human dignity and do the work of the exploiter.” What if you see an exploitive situation? Call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888. It offers one-stop “shopping” for reporting trafficking anywhere in the country and is staffed 24/7. If the case should involve the U-M Human Trafficking Clinic, the people at the resource center will contact the clinic at (734) 615-3600 or at humantrafficking@umich.edu.