If you stayed in a hotel in Missouri, it's possible that the person who made your bed was a slave.
Although slavery was abolished in our country in 1865 with the adoption of the 13th Amendment -- it still exists -- in a new form -- with a new name -- human trafficking. Don't believe me?
Here in Missouri, a federal grand jury recently indicted 12 defendants on RICO (racketeering) and human trafficking charges. The indictment charges many of the victims of this scheme were forced to work at hotels in Kansas City and Branson, MO.
People who are the victims of human trafficking are typically immigrants, tricked into coming to the U. S. with promises of good pay and steady work. What they find instead is that they are paid far less than minimum wage, cheated, and forced to live and work where their trafficker tells them. They are threatened and told that if they quit working for that, their families in their homeland will be harmed or forced to pay thousands of dollars. Some are sexually abused; others live in fear, making their traffickers wealthy, while they're given barely enough money to subsist.
In a recent interview Dr. Deb Hume of the University of Missouri and Co-Chair of the Central Missouri, "Stop Human Trafficking" group, explains how to spot people who may be human trafficking victims and how to help them.
