(California) State is 'slave' worker gateway

[UpInArms]

http://www.sacbee.com/content/business/story/10854499p-11772183c.html

WASHINGTON - More than 10,000 foreign-born people are working under slave-like conditions in the United States, and California is a major port of entry for them, a new report said Thursday.

The study by the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and the nonprofit Free the Slaves said that about half those brought into the country for forced labor end up in the sex business, many as prostitutes.

The second-largest category of forced labor is domestic service, where about 27 percent of the forced labor ends up.

"Forced labor persists in these sectors because of low wages, lack of regulation and monitoring of working conditions, and a high demand for cheap labor," said the report, which urges tougher federal and state action to help the public identify the hidden victims.

<snip>

Eric Stover, director of the Human Rights Center, said it becomes virtually impossible for those recruited into forced labor to escape because of the fear of violence, threats to family members back home and a staggering sense of isolation that gives their captors enormous influence and power.

...more...

[tom_paine]

1. "...O'er the Land of the Sheep and the Home of the Slave"

THAT is a much more appropriate line for Imperial Amerika, so different from the Old American Republic for which the anthem was first written.

[JanMichael]

3. But, but, but...Wasn't slavery a big deal when it was written?

Is it really so dfferent?

BTW~ Hi! How's it going?

[joefree1]

2. The Big Secret/Lie in California

I always listen with astonishment when rethuglicans try to blame liberals for the mass of illegal workers in California. I just tell them to go to Sacramento and fight the lobbyist from the corporate farms and sweat shops owners.

Just see what politicians want to cut the budgets for border patrols and Immigration.

We liberals would like nothing better then to register cross border workers so they could have better work conditions and we could shut down the leaky borders plus protect worker's jobs here in California.

But the slave masters will never let it happen.