Job Opportunities As A Mean Of Human Trafficking

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Welcome to an amazing episode, really, of Lantern Rescue. Today, when providing for your family leads into a life of exploitation, you know, some job opportunities as a means of human trafficking. And so, Ren, you want to go into that a bit?

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the types of human trafficking that we encounter and one of the types that we're working against is labor trafficking. So, and part of that, some labor trafficking is perpetuated by false job opportunities that are advertised to people to entice them to move.

Sometimes it's a different place in the country, sometimes to a different country, stuff like that. So we're going to talk about that a bit today and what those opportunities look like, the false ones, but also that there is a really good side of working internationally. And some of these opportunities are legitimate and people can start great lives, which makes this trafficking bit of it more dangerous because they have this false hope for these jobs. They've maybe seen a family member, someone they know, get a good job in another country and have a great life.

And they think that they're going into a similar situation and it ends up being an exploited situation. So that's what we'll be talking about today. Yeah. And we got Ryan with us as well. And Ryan, do you have sort of an opening comment on that?

Yeah, I think once again, thanks for having us again. But as Ren said, you know, this one really is difficult because it sits inside a real job opportunity and an industry that is legitimate and trying to differentiate between the two is difficult. When you're talking about sexual exploitation, it can be quite clear cut, whereas this is a very murky area that is very resource intensive. And sometimes in a lot of cases across multiple countries, right?

So trying to gather the story and the evidence and that to help somebody is made that much more difficult. Yeah. So, so what are the job opportunities look like that they're talking about? Yeah. So these opportunities can look like maybe becoming a waitress in another country or some type of a nanny or a maid, some type of usually a service industry.

Right. And a lot of people speak English or they'll be maybe they're a French speaker in parts of Africa that are French speaking and they get a job opportunity to offer in somewhere in France, somewhere that they speak the same language. It can be in the Middle East, somewhere in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, stuff like that. So these job opportunities, they're often service based, whether it's in a restaurant, working as a nanny, working as a housekeeper, stuff like that. And they seem really legitimate because there are there is a legitimate industry. We've all heard of au pairs and women that are hired to come and be nannies for families. So these jobs really look great and they've probably seen their family members take similar jobs and have a really good opportunity there. So they'll get into these countries and accept the job offer, be really excited, change their lives, go to another country and realize once they get there that the situation isn't as advertised and it ends up being a situation where they're maybe they are actually working in a restaurant, but it's not eight hours a day, five days a week.

It's, you know, 15, 16 hours a day every day. They're not being paid. They're not getting anything taken care of for them. They're being charged rent at a ridiculous rate, ridiculous interest rate to stay in home provided to them by these people. So and again, that kind of contradicts some of the legitimate job opportunities. And that's what makes it so dangerous.

Wow. And Ryan, what are what are some of the factors that cause victims to accept those offers? Yeah, I mean, I think it's sort of everyone around the world is always trying to improve their life and their family's life, right?

It doesn't really matter where you come from or what rung on the ladder you start at. Everyone is always trying to improve where they live and what opportunities they have. So this particularly preys on people who, you know, from a low socioeconomic background, you know, they don't have very much. And that's why it's so enticing to take that those risks. You know, even though, like Ren said, a lot of them are successful in going and improving their life. So it makes it even easier to sort of justify it to themselves to take that risk. And it's really driven by that wanting to provide for, you know, themselves and for their families. So what kind of like vulnerabilities to the traffickers really look for?

Mainly financial. So people that are they're going to be looking for people in more remote villages or even larger cities, but they're just at a lower socioeconomic status. So people that don't have a lot of jobs, you know, in villages and remote villages in Africa and parts of Asia where there's not a lot of opportunity in the physical area around them. Those people are going to be moving regardless.

Right. So if you live in a really remote village, 100 miles away from anything, you're moving regardless. So if someone comes in and offers you a job that's a thousand miles away, well, what's really what's the difference in countries like this? One hundred miles seems short in America. You can drive that in a couple hours. In other countries, that could be five, six, eight hour drive.

Right. So to them, there's really no difference. So these people are generally isolated, lower socioeconomic status and the desire. You know, maybe they have a family, they have kids or they're just very young and want to they just want to start somewhere else. They want to not live in their country.

There's no opportunities there. There's a lot of different ways that traffickers can get in. If it's a young mom that has kids, maybe that's what they use. You know, you can send money home to your kids.

You're going to have this great job. In a lot of other countries, children are raised in a more of a generational structure where grandparents often are doing a considerable amount of providing for the children. So it's easier to exploit that. Or it's a young person, you know, early 20s, late teens just starting out on their life.

Well, why not go start my life in Saudi Arabia instead of here? So there's quite a bit. But mainly they're going to prey on the socioeconomic factors is going to be pretty much the reoccurring theme. If someone is already in a job well paid, well taken care of, they're not going to be as high of a risk for this.

Yeah. So what happens when the victim accepts the opportunity and sort of what is the traffickers goal? How do they maintain control? Yeah, I mean, there isn't really one sort of template or profile of that, you know, sometimes the trafficking occurs at the recruitment level, you know, and, you know, that it was it was doomed from the beginning, right? Because the labor organization who's hiring girls, predominantly girls, not always, but to go to take these job opportunities are involved in that in some way. In other cases, they're not.

They're a legitimate recruitment agency for jobs. And it's not until they get to the end destination that the family they're put with or, you know, the in between actually doesn't know or have any participation in the trafficking. Knowledge of the participation, they obviously facilitate it, but they're not they're unaware as well.

So it really is murky and gray. And that's why it is so hard to help in those cases, because determining where that knowledge exists can be quite hard. Yeah. So when when did they sort of spring the tap trap on them? And, you know, how when the victims like, you know, when they're mostly, mostly the ones that, you know, I've encountered have come when they've got to the end destination. And a lot of these Middle Eastern countries, the person who's brought you over is allowed to take your passport.

Right. So that passport is taken off them. They're now in a foreign country that has very different rules, very different laws around what especially what women can do. And they just feel very isolated and very trapped.

And then very quickly over a period of time, that job goes from being a nanny's job, like Wren was saying, you know, working in a restaurant with normal hours and normal rules to being very, very bad. You know, that can range from physical abuse, sexual abuse, mental abuse, you know, financial abuse. We've seen it all.

And some have all elements and some have a couple. Wow. Wow. And so exactly how are they exploited at that point? It's going to look different, really, per situation. But a lot of it is, is taking people and like, like we just said, they're enticed in by this job, say they're going to be a nanny, right? So they're enticed in by this job, they're going to be a nanny or an au pair somewhere different from where they're at. And they, you know, they've seen people go to Saudi Arabia and get these great opportunities.

So they go, maybe the first couple of these weeks are good. And it seems normal. And then all of a sudden, well, you're a nanny, but you also have to clean the house. And you're a nanny and you have to clean the house and you have to, you know, do all the cooking as well and do all the market running. And now this nanny job that was supposed to be, you know, we'll say nine to five is now it's 4am to well past midnight, they're doing everything in the home, their accommodations were originally you'll have your own room, you'll have your own space and it's, they're getting a small mattress on in a closet somewhere and it's slowly or quickly some of these, some of these situations, it's just you get there. And you're into exploitation, others, it's going to be a slower burn, they're going to start as when someone gets to the country, they usually are going to call or somehow get ahold of their families got here, everything's great, love it.

You know, that's cool. That might happen in some situations. And then slowly over time, they're going to start abusing them more and more. So the family isn't alerted or authorities aren't alerted as quickly in those situations.

Wow. That's a really it just, you know, I guess that's kind of like how Alston goes, it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse. And so, you know, what kind of really in what areas of the world do you guys just see this, you know, really happening? Yeah, so that the recruitment and the movement, if we see in Africa, we see it in Asia, in places in Central and South America, really anywhere where, in countries where there's conflict, right? So say you're, Sudan recently had some issues. So you're living in Sudan, you're already not financially well off, then the government's going through upheaval, there's, you know, stuff going on that's starting to become more violent, more chaotic. In the country, you have no incentive really to stay. So recruitment, that's a great time for a recruiter to come in and be like, hey, you know, this, this country is going through some stuff, you already didn't have a great job here, come over. Come, come to Saudi Arabia, come take this opportunity.

South Africa, yeah. And the best way I can describe it, thinking about it is, it's almost like counterfeit money. So say you have a stack of $100 bills, most of them in there are legitimate, kind of like these job offers, a lot of them are going to be legitimate. But there's probably a couple of counterfeits in there that you don't realize. And say you go to, you know, buy a car and you bring a stack of $100 bills, well, you as the purchaser, you're being, you're the agency in this situation, you're the agency. And you hand a stack of $100 bills to buy this car, you unknowingly get some counterfeit out, kind of like the agency.

There's some unknowingly, they're going to have some recruitment profiles in there that are counterfeit in a sense, where the job opportunity is not what's represented. Wow. Well, we've got to go to a break. And when we come back, we're going to give you ways that actually you can be involved in the process and certainly involved in the prayer for the process. And we got a lot of opportunities.

When we come back, we'll be right back. Lantern Rescue is a USA based organization that conducts international rescue operations for people suffering from human trafficking. Lantern specializes in sending former US Special Operation law enforcement and intelligence personnel to partner with host nations and assist them in creating specialized units to combat ongoing security problems, such as genocide, terrorism, and human trafficking.

As a nonprofit charity, they offer services free of charge to their host nations. Human trafficking has grown into the second largest criminal activity in the world, reaching an estimated $150 billion in annual activity. Lantern Rescue has developed rapidly to combat trafficking. Lantern operates through a trained international network in order to rescue women and children from sex and labor slavery and facilitates holistic aftercare services. They're gearing up for operations right now. And you can go to lanternrescue.org to see how you can support them financially.

Welcome back to Lantern Rescue. Today we're talking about when providing for your family leads to a life of exploitation. And wow, it's really disturbing to hear, you know, this information. And it's amazing how traffickers just play on people's emotions.

Right, Wren? And so can you kind of go into that? Yeah, so these people that are taking job opportunities that fall victim to some of these scam jobs, they kind of are operating under the sunk cost policy a bit. So when they get into these other countries, and they probably start to realize internally, even if they haven't expressed it to anyone, that this, I was sold a false bill of goods. This is not what was advertised, you know, the situation is becoming very exploited. They're working crazy hours doing way more than they should be. Maybe they're even being sexually exploited at this point, mentally and emotionally, financially abused, stuff like that.

But they're in this other country, thousands of miles away from home, they've probably made, you know, pretty excited to go made a big deal about it. And they're here, they're realizing they're not getting paid, they're getting paid way less, whatever the situation is. A lot of times they won't raise the red flag or seek help right away, if ever really, because they convince themselves that this will get better. Or, you know, the classic, they deserve this, or they asked for this or wanted this, right? A lot of victims will start to think in that mindset, which is usually perpetrated by the traffickers, that, hey, you came in here willingly, or they maybe have kids or family back home that they want to support desperately. So they'll stay in these exploited situations, because they're hoping that, okay, well, I only have to pay this bit off, and then I'll be able to start sending money home, or it'll get better, I just have to get through this, and they'll end up kind of getting stuck in this cycle of abuse over and over because they're still hoping that it'll get better.

Wow. And again, then it just keeps getting worse and worse. And so you guys have some examples of where we've actually seen this happen?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We see this all the time. It really is one of the issues we deal with in Africa quite a lot.

Because of that low socio-economic situation that a lot of people find themselves in Africa, and the draw and the wealth of the Middle East. So we see it in all forms. Like we said, a lot of it is good stuff, but hidden inside that is the really bad stuff. The job opportunities, sometimes you get them and we're asked to look at them for people, which is great, and you sort of see a contract and you can pull it apart and show the girl or the guy why this is a fake contract. So we see it like that. Other times, some of these countries have actual registrars that the government keeps on recruiting recruiters. So we're always recommending people do their research before taking a job opportunity.

And that's a great place that the governments of these countries have put in place to be able to try and help out that. But then there is the ones where the people just fall foul at the other end. So it's a legitimate job opportunity, it is a legitimate recruitment agency, and they just get placed with people who are horrible.

And that abuse takes place regardless of all the checks and balances. And really, that's probably the hardest one because those people have done everything right and they have tried to mitigate the risk as much as possible. But they're now in a foreign country and they have less rights than possibly in their home country. They may not have their passport anymore. You see a lot of girls in Dubai that that has happened to and then they run away from that job and they end up being prostitutes on the street in Dubai and in the bars and that sort of thing. And that sort of their downward spiral was taking a legitimate job, but the person was abusive in some manner and now they find themselves on the streets. So can you give us another example of something that happens or actually a case? One of the cases that our law enforcement partners brought to me probably about six months ago was a contract that was for a job in Australia on a cruise ship as a nurse.

And obviously, being Australian, they brought that to me. But when I started to look into the company, it was based on a real company, but the logo was a little bit off and the website was a little bit off. And what we found was that they basically tried to hide it inside a real cruise ship company and use that real opportunity because they have employment opportunities on their website and they were hiring people for these sorts of roles. But this one was a variation of that. And when you checked into the details of it, it didn't stack up.

Wow. So what happened if, or did you find out what happened if they happened to end up getting trapped in that scheme? Yeah, no, thankfully that lady had reached out because someone who worked at the Department of Anti-human Trafficking was a family friend. So she sent that contract to them and said, you know, look, I'm thinking about applying for this job.

What do you guys think? And luckily she was aware that these sorts of things do happen and these sorts of scams are out there. So we were able to provide her that feedback.

And obviously she didn't apply for the job and didn't go forward with it. So it had a good ending. Yeah, because I could see even, you know, some girl in America going for that one, Wren. Yeah, absolutely. Scary. Scary. You got another one?

Yeah. I mean, one with a bad ending is a young lady from an East African country took a job as a maid in the Middle East. And not long after she arrived, she woke up in a hospital. Now the people had told her in the hospital that she was in a car accident and that basically that she'd had to lose her kidney from that car accident. Now she ended up bouncing through a couple of medical facilities before getting the recruitment agency involved. And they flew over and ended up taking her back to the East African country where she found out that she'd actually had her kidney surgically removed. So there's a case where she was recruited deliberately for her organ, for organ trafficking.

So she wasn't in country very long from memory about a week or so before they pounced. Oh my word. Yeah, there's just all sorts of, you know, that just leads to, you know, the next question.

Obviously, guys, you know, how can people, you know, be aware of this problem? Yeah, right. So the registries that Ryan was talking about with employers that have actually been vetted and verified, those are great. You know, it's even hard to say because some people have recruiters that are more organic that are in the community and they are voting for the jobs and they're still not legitimate.

So those registries are great. Always getting a second set of eyes on stuff, you know, passing it up if there's counter-trafficking organizations working in the countries that someone is potentially applying for a job or they're in the country trying to leave. Passing those contracts up to those agencies and letting them take a, you know, look at them and determine kind of like he was saying with the differences and, you know, some of these contracts, although just have crazy terms like a contract for 100 years or, you know, some stuff is very obvious. But most of it's going to be more discreet.

It's going to be little things that are off, little things that are different. And some of us have seen, you know, you'll get kind of fishing trolls online where they look pretty legitimate. But if you look long enough, you'll start to see some discrepancies and realize that that's probably not what it's claiming to be. So getting that second set of eyes, trying to go to places that are verified that are actually proven to be legitimate, which is hard, you know. And some of these, like he was saying, some of the recruiting agencies, they're legitimate, the job's legitimate, but you might get placed with the family or an end company that is not, that is very exploitive. So, and in those situations, they're really not going to know until they're there and the situation's happening.

So in those situations, the best thing that they can do is try to contact the authorities as quickly as possible and get someone involved. Yeah, absolutely. And so how can our listeners, how can, you know, we support the effort? You know, I know you guys are, you know, part of the reason for this episode is to make people more aware of what's going on.

Yeah. You know, there's a book I can recommend, actually, if people want to learn kind of a first person account. It's called In Contempt of Fate.

You can get it on Amazon. And the author is the person that actually lived through this situation. Her name is Beatrice Fernando. She's a Sri Lankan that was, became a house slave, essentially, and went through some really traumatic stuff.

But that's a great first person account if people want to read this and, you know, listen to the podcast and follow on social media and stuff like that. But one of the issues that we encounter with this form of labor trafficking and the false job opportunities is a victim blaming mentality, kind of like I talked about earlier. Well, you know, you shouldn't, if it looks too good to be true, you should have known better and stuff like that.

That's just not helpful. That's not the narrative that we want to be hearing out in the world. You know, as well as when we talk about trafficking, most people think automatically sex trafficking. And some of these situations, the false job offers can absolutely turn into a sexually exploitative situation. But labor trafficking and the abuses that they suffer, especially when they're far from home and they've been tricked and they have, you know, their dreams are crushed.

They thought they were doing something great for their family. And not only are they not doing that, they're being horribly abused. Those victims matter. Those stories matter.

They're not any less important than any other type of trafficking that we work against. Right. And clearly our prayers are huge. And so you guys have the Lantern prayer community, right? We do, yeah. And if you want to join that, you just text PRAY in all capital letters to 336-234-3302.

And you'll be able to get some more of the, you know, real time updates. And we get stuff passed out there pretty frequently about what's going on. Yeah.

And once again, it's, you got to text the word PRAY, P-R-A-Y, to 336-234-3302. And of course then there's the Liberator team, right? Yeah. So we have the Liberator team going on and that's a monthly recurring donor of at least $35. When you sign, if you do want to sign up for that, when you do sign up online, you get a little swag bag that's really fun.

It's exclusive gear that is just for the Liberator. So when you become a recurring donor, you also get the opportunity to join a different texting situation that gives real time rescue updates and stuff going on with that. But when you do, if you want to sign up for the Liberator specific reoccurring donor, when you sign up online, you have to select that campaign. Because if you sign up to be a reoccurring donor, we appreciate that. But if you don't sign up for the Liberator campaign, we don't know to send you your swag bag. So yeah, those are opportunities that are available at lanternrescue.org. And you can find out on the social media pages as well. Yeah.

So if you go to lanternrescue.org, it's easy enough to see the Liberator program. Just click on that and wow, you can take part in all that that's going on. Well, guys, great, great episode. Thank you so much, Ryan. Thank you so much, Wren. Yeah, thank you. Thanks buddy, as always. Pleasure. Yeah. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us and for caring about this hobby. Oh, of course. God bless. This is the Truth Network.