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On Child Labor and Human Trafficking
Mar. 5th, 2011 12:08 pmChild labor laws were intended to prevent the abuse of children by industry; union efforts to improve working standards and prohibit exploit of children were often intertwined. Here's a brief timeline.
So when I post the following quotations, which have context removed, when do you think these abusive practices against a teenager happened?
• Was permitted to attend school about one day a week because working for [company] took priority.
• Spent his childhood working at least 40 hours a week, and often more than 100 hours a week for pay that ranged from $35 to $50 a week.
• Had no work permits required of minors.
• Was made to work back-to-back 12-hour days in the fall, when the [company] was pushing its staff to produce and sell a new book release.
• From [year] to [year], was punished along with other workers for lack of production. He was made to run laps wearing a jacket and tie, clean grease traps and do push ups.
• Worked past midnight for two months in [year] after rising at 6 a.m. each day, and was made to do push ups and dig ditches for lack of production.
• Suffered an accident at age 16 while cleaning a "notching" machine at the printing unit. Half of his right index finger was cut off and no ambulance was called, the lawsuit asserts. It says [minor] was taken to the hospital but told by the [company] to tell doctors he was a volunteer.
...would you expect that this happened in the last few years? In California?
It did. It's still happening.
Context here.
Now, in California, Human Trafficking law says:
[T]he peace officer shall consider whether the following indicators of human trafficking are present:
(a) Signs of trauma, fatigue, injury, or other evidence of poor
care.
(b) The person is withdrawn, afraid to talk, or his or her communication is censored by another person.
(c) The person does not have freedom of movement.
(d) The person lives and works in one place.
(e) The person owes a debt to his or her employer.
(f) Security measures are used to control who has contact with the person.
(g) The person does not have control over his or her own government-issued identification or over his or her worker immigration documents.
All of the above are true within the context mentioned.
Why is it not being prosecuted when it is known about and has been being documented for years?
Because it's a church.
Currently, we exempt churches from many of employment laws. It's in the law that churches are allowed to practice bigotry in hiring and employment that we do not permit the society at large (e.g., sexism in the hiring of clergy; I do have to concede that permitting churches to require that one be a member to work there in certain positions doesn't seem odious in context).
Churches did get exemptions on taxes, too. Originally, that was granted because churches were the safety net: the unwed mothers' home was often on church property as were orphanages. Feeding of the underprivileged was a church function.
Now, with so many denominations, many of which own no land at all (in the case of very small denominations that meet at community centers or hotel conference rooms), and many do no works of public benefit -- but still receive a pass on labor laws and taxes.
Current law in the US about trafficking in church cases was set by the Claire Headley ruling last year. I quote:
Claire was sixteen when she started in the Sea Org.
All sex traffickers need to do is become a "religion" and exploitation becomes, per that ruling, constitutionally protected.
So when I post the following quotations, which have context removed, when do you think these abusive practices against a teenager happened?
• Was permitted to attend school about one day a week because working for [company] took priority.
• Spent his childhood working at least 40 hours a week, and often more than 100 hours a week for pay that ranged from $35 to $50 a week.
• Had no work permits required of minors.
• Was made to work back-to-back 12-hour days in the fall, when the [company] was pushing its staff to produce and sell a new book release.
• From [year] to [year], was punished along with other workers for lack of production. He was made to run laps wearing a jacket and tie, clean grease traps and do push ups.
• Worked past midnight for two months in [year] after rising at 6 a.m. each day, and was made to do push ups and dig ditches for lack of production.
• Suffered an accident at age 16 while cleaning a "notching" machine at the printing unit. Half of his right index finger was cut off and no ambulance was called, the lawsuit asserts. It says [minor] was taken to the hospital but told by the [company] to tell doctors he was a volunteer.
...would you expect that this happened in the last few years? In California?
It did. It's still happening.
Context here.
Now, in California, Human Trafficking law says:
[T]he peace officer shall consider whether the following indicators of human trafficking are present:
(a) Signs of trauma, fatigue, injury, or other evidence of poor
care.
(b) The person is withdrawn, afraid to talk, or his or her communication is censored by another person.
(c) The person does not have freedom of movement.
(d) The person lives and works in one place.
(e) The person owes a debt to his or her employer.
(f) Security measures are used to control who has contact with the person.
(g) The person does not have control over his or her own government-issued identification or over his or her worker immigration documents.
All of the above are true within the context mentioned.
Why is it not being prosecuted when it is known about and has been being documented for years?
Because it's a church.
Currently, we exempt churches from many of employment laws. It's in the law that churches are allowed to practice bigotry in hiring and employment that we do not permit the society at large (e.g., sexism in the hiring of clergy; I do have to concede that permitting churches to require that one be a member to work there in certain positions doesn't seem odious in context).
Churches did get exemptions on taxes, too. Originally, that was granted because churches were the safety net: the unwed mothers' home was often on church property as were orphanages. Feeding of the underprivileged was a church function.
Now, with so many denominations, many of which own no land at all (in the case of very small denominations that meet at community centers or hotel conference rooms), and many do no works of public benefit -- but still receive a pass on labor laws and taxes.
Current law in the US about trafficking in church cases was set by the Claire Headley ruling last year. I quote:
The Ministerial Exception Applies to Plaintiff's Trafficking Victims Protection Act Claim.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act ("TVPA") prohibits, inter alia, knowingly obtaining the labor or services of a person by means of force, threats of force, physical restraint or threats of physical restraint to that person or another person. 18 U.S.C. § 1589(a)(1). A victim of a violation of the TVPA may bring a civil action against the perpetrator.
Defendants [Scientology, in this case] argue that this claim fails because of the First Amendment's ministerial exception. The Court agrees.
[...]
Determining whether Scientology's practices of routing out, censorship, or heavy manual labor as a form of discipline, for example, constitute involuntary servitude within the meaning of the TVPA is precisely the type of entanglement that the Religion Clauses prohibit.
Claire was sixteen when she started in the Sea Org.
All sex traffickers need to do is become a "religion" and exploitation becomes, per that ruling, constitutionally protected.