Adoboe-Herrera left Togo, a small country on the west coast of Africa, at the age of 7 in 2006. He came to the U.S. under the presumption that he would be able to get an education and ultimately help support his family.
But the family friend who brought him to the U.S. smuggled him here illegally and made his life a “living hell” from 2006 to 2013 through physical and emotional abuse. He was put into the school system where a teacher recognized something was wrong and built a rapport with him. He said he is here today “by the grace of God alone.”
Adoboe-Herrera is not alone in his testimony. According to the Human Trafficking Institute, 72% of those trafficked in the U.S. are immigrants. Migration is a large factor because many, like Adoboe-Herrera and his family, are desperate enough to leave their homes in the hope of something better — and are often taken advantage of.
Sister Maria Orlandini, OSF, from the Franciscan Action Network, spent time in Honduras and El Salvador. She explained that poor conditions often compel people to make the dangerous trip, which leads to being trafficked. In Honduras, 1 in 5 Hondurans live on less than $2 a day while violent crime runs rampant.
“I saw poverty, people living in shacks. The only brick houses either finished or half-built were the ones of those who had relatives in the United States [to] send money home,” Orlandini said. “People live to find a job in the U.S. hoping to send enough money to the house and to support their family left behind.”
“… Desperate people become vulnerable to human traffickers” said Sister Ann Scholz, SSND, Ph.D., who moderated the panel.
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