Its busy tourist, construction, and agricultural industries, large military population, and location as a Pacific transit point make Hawaii a high-risk region for human trafficking. Although victims are brought from all over the world for many different types of labor, women are most commonly trafficked into Hawaii & the Pacific from Asia or the mainland U.S. for work in the sex industry, including strip clubs, massage parlors, brothels, and street prostitution. They are also brought here as mail-order brides and for the purpose of domestic servitude. Men who are trafficked into Hawaii typically come from other Pacific Islands or Asia, and are often subject to forced labor in construction, agriculture, landscaping, and on fishing vessels.
Victims who are trafficked into Hawaii and other Pacific Islands often come willingly, sometimes taking out exorbitant loans to pay the recruiters, who have deceived them with regards to the type of work and amount of payment they will receive. They are promised good living conditions and the opportunity to earn money to support their families back home. Once they arrive, however, their passports are confiscated, they are threatened and/or physically assaulted, forced to live and work in conditions they didn’t anticipate, and are paid nominal or no wages.
Some
examples of human trafficking in Hawaii & the Pacific are listed
below. Please visit the testimonial page for other case studies of trafficking and torture in the United States and worldwide.
Labor trafficking in Nanakuli
In 2004, Lueleni Maka, a Waipahu businessman, was charged with trafficking young Tongan men into Hawaii and forcing them to work for his landscaping businesses, keeping them in line with beatings and threats of deportation. The men were housed in squalid conditions on a pig farm, underfed and underpaid, and forced to work long hours. In April 2006, Maka was found guilty by the U.S. District Court in Hawaii and sentenced to 26 years in prison. (Read more)
Sex trafficking in Honolulu
In March, 2009, a police investigation into Waikiki massage parlors resulted in the arrest of Joseph Faauga Vaimili, a 27-year old Samoan man. He was charged with terroristic threatening, promotion of prostitution and two counts of kidnapping for bringing a 24 year-old mainland woman to Hawaii, beating and threatening her, and forcing her to work in prostitution. (Read more)
Hawaii pimp faces charges of kidnapping and assault
A 28-year-old alleged pimp subjected a 30-year-old Ewa Beach woman to five days of terror in June to force her into prostitution. After four months of a casual sexual relationship, he began pushing her into "working the track," which he explained as walking the streets as a prostitute, the affidavit said. (Read more)
The Daewoosa Case in American Samoa
In 2001, over 200 Vietnamese and Chinese workers were tricked into paying thousands of dollars each to travel to and work in a sewing factory in American Samoa, in exchange for free food and housing and monthly wages. However, once the workers arrived into American Samoa they were beaten, confined to the factory, barely fed and forced to live in filthy conditions while the employer kept their travel documents. This special report tells the story of 12 women who escaped the factory and their brave rescuers. (Read more)
In 2005, a federal judge in Hawaii, sentenced Kil Soo Lee, the former owner of the American Samoa Daewoosa garment factory, to 40 years in prison for involuntary servitude and trafficking, ending one chapter in the largest such case ever prosecuted on U.S. soil. (Read more)
Two Chinese Nationals Sentenced for Sex Trafficking in American Samoa
Shengji Wang and Fu Sheng Kuo, both Chinese nationals, were sentenced in federal court in Hawaii for their roles in conspiring to force women into prostitution in American Samoa. They were accused of transporting women from China to American Samoa and forcing them into prostitution in brothels and nightclubs. Their victims were threatened, beaten, and physically restrained. Wang was sentenced to 62 months imprisonment. Kuo was sentenced to 63 months imprisonment, and both will be deported after serving their sentences. (Read more)
Sweatshop labor in Saipan
According to U.S. government reports and information contained in lawsuits, garment workers from China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Thailand and elsewhere paid $2,000 to $7,000 per worker to obtain jobs in the Northern Mariana Islands that frequently had them working 12 hours a day, seven days a week for $3.05 an hour, often without overtime pay. The largely female work force was housed in prison-like barracks, six to eight people to a room. Inward-facing barbed wire surrounded the barracks, and in many cases, workers were never allowed to leave the barracks. Several transnational corporations settled the case out of court, but subpar labor conditions and sweatshop work continues today in some areas of Saipan. (Read more here and here)
Chinese Woman Sentenced for Role in Saipan Sex Trafficking Ring
Wei Qin Sun, a national of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was sentenced on Feb. 22, 2008 to 41 months imprisonment for sex trafficking. A federal jury found Sun guilty in her role in luring a young woman from the PRC to the Northern Mariana Islands' capital city of Saipan by promising the woman a job as a waitress in a karaoke club managed by Sun. Evidence at trial showed that Sun charged the woman $5,000 for "recruitment fees" and travel expenses. Only after the victim arrived in Saipan on March 2, 2007, and began to work at the club, was the victim informed that she must work as a prostitute to repay Sun. (Read more)