Human Trafficking in the News: Construction

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

(Disclaimer: Human Trafficking is an extremely serious issue, wherever and whenever this dehumanizing crime is perpetrated. I do not wish to make light of it in any way. I also have the utmost respect for Construction Workers, the Construction Industry, and Sex Workers and their clients. The following is satire (albeit perhaps in bad taste), and no serious comparison of construction and sex is intended in any way. I hold nothing but the utmost contempt for Human Traffickers. Like any piece of satire, you might find at least one single grain of serious message lurking somewhere in the following mess of non-sequiturs. Or you might not.)

 

Ahem. I can't help but wonder: where are the legions of outraged citizens, editorialists, and politicians in the wake of the horrific crime reported below -- which one expert is quoted as calling the largest case brought to date under Canada's Human Trafficking Law?

 

Why no strident calls for legislation outlawing the Canadian Construction Industry? Which, after all, we have known for a very long time is a business rife with organized crime, corruption, and back-alley intimidation? (At the very least!)

 

Sure, it's the world's oldest profession. We've always had construction workers -- ever since the Sumerians raised the Tower of Babel, anyway. The God of Abraham punished the builders of the Tower for a reason -- construction is plainly immoral, and working construction destroys the precious, unique soul that resides at the core of every man. Oh yes, many Construction Workers will admit that it's a tough job, but then turn right around and claim that it's rewarding for them to see the fruits of their labours raised in the form of steel and glass, ultimately making other people's home-lives happier. And they'll claim that the money is very good, thus making the hardships of the job acceptable. But we know better. They're lying to themselves, these pathetic, politically-naive victims. They're stuck in the Dark Ages, and just have not been properly educated in Constructivist Theory.

 

Not to mention the poor, destitute, subsistence-level handmen who'll mend your fence or fix your taps for cash-under-the-table. I bet you know where their money goes, just as soon as they get it. The least we can do is arrest homeowners and contractors who dare discuss business on the sidewalks of respectable residential neighbourhoods. And don't get me started on used shingles blowing all over the neighbours' lawns. Would you want your young and impressionable children to see a construction worker lugging a hod of bricks up a ladder on a sweltering summer's day and think, "hey, I'd like to grow up and do that for a living"? I didn't think so!

 

It's shocking and dehumanizing that some people think they can buy a man's body like that. And have you seen the statistics for deaths of Construction Workers every year in Canada?? It's an activity that just can't be made safe, no matter where it occurs. Stop Human Trafficking Now! Outlaw Construction Work!

 

(Now what was it I started to post? Oh yeah -- )

 

Adrian Morrow reports for the Canadian Press, 8 Oct 2010:

 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/10-family-members-charged-in-human-trafficking-case/article1749707/

Out of work and impoverished, the men from the town of Papa in western Hungary were offered jobs in Canada, where they believed they could start new lives or at least earn enough money to support their families back home.

 

The RCMP say the reality they faced after their new bosses picked them up from John C. Munro airport in Hamilton was far different: housed in the basements of their employers? homes and fed scraps from the table, they were made to work long hours at construction sites for no money.

 

On Friday, police announced charges against 10 members of a family of Hungarian descent in what is believed to be the largest human-trafficking case since Canada enacted legislation against it eight years ago. Nineteen workers have come forward to authorities.

 

"Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery," Inspector Steve Martin, commander of the RCMP?s Hamilton Niagara Detachment said in a statement. "Public awareness is the first step towards putting an end to this horrific crime that robs one person?s freedom to benefit another."

 

The family?s associates in Hungary would recruit the men and send them to Hamilton, where they were instructed to make false refugee claims and start collecting social assistance, police said. Officers said the men never saw a penny of their welfare cheques, which were taken by their employers.

 

With poor English skills and their employers watching over them often, the workers were unable to inform authorities, police said. The alleged traffickers are accused of threatening to harm the men?s families back home to ensure their obedience.

 

"They limited the contact they had with anybody," said RCMP Sergeant Marc La Porte. "It?s been going on for several years."

 

While elements of the alleged trafficking ring in Hamilton are similar to those in other cases ? such as the withholding of money and the isolation of the victims ? it is unusual to see a case of this size, said Benjamin Perrin, author of Invisible Chains: Canada?s Underground World of Human Trafficking.

 

"Ever since Canada has had a human trafficking law, there hasn?t been an arrest with this number of suspects or this number of alleged victims," he said.

 

Mr. Perrin, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, said the issue, which at one time was thought to relate almost entirely to the sex trade, is actually much broader, extending to any dirty or dangerous industry, from agriculture to cleaning work.

 

The purported scheme in Hamilton began to unravel late last year when one of the workers who had been brought before an immigration officer used the opportunity to tell him what was going on. That started "Project Opapa," a 10-month long investigation by the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency.

 

In March, police dismantled the alleged trafficking ring and charged three members of the family. Two more were charged weeks later.

 

Some workers are believed to have escaped over the years, others opted to return to Hungary, while others have applied to stay in Canada and are still being assessed ....

[rickoshadows 937]

I love good satire. Unfortunately, mosty of the religous-right-wing and nanny-state-extreme-left are to stupid to understand it. They are completely unable to to place themselves in another persons situation and predict the logical outcome of their agendas.

[Guest s******ecan****]

I love good satire. Unfortunately, mosty of the religous-right-wing and nanny-state-extreme-left are to stupid to understand it. They are completely unable to to place themselves in another persons situation and predict the logical outcome of their agendas.

 

Its not a question of stupidity but rather cynicism. The religious right are only claiming to be worried about trafficking because they are trying to hide their true motivations. They are well aware that most Canadians do not want to be preached too.

[tiimde71 176]

I totally agree. When my mom was sick my family tried the religious thing only to find an undercurrent of hate and fear. The purest of motives were shown but under it all was a desire to control and punish nonconformists. The whole wolf in sheeps clothes thang described the religious right. Sad really because they don't want solutions to social problems they want to use them to forward their agenda.

 

The sad thing is we all fund this through massive tax breaks to all religious organizations.