Marie Claire: Forced into Slavery in the United States
April 7, 2007
IN YOLANDA’S HOMETOWN, A TINY COASTAL VILLAGE NEAR ZIHUATANEJO, Mexico, dusty plots of land barely yield enough corn to feed the families who harvest it. Growing up, Yolanda remembers eating iguanas, armadillos, and pigeons when the harvest failed and her father became desperate to feed his 10 children.
Like most victims of trafficking, Yolanda wasn’t ensnared by chains and shackles but by a fantasy of a better life far away from her poverty-stricken village. The Department of Justice estimates that every year, 17,500 people in the U.S. are victims of “human trafficking”—foreigners brought into the country by coercion, threats, or physical violence and sold for forced labor.
