LOWELL -- The 25-year-old Cambodian woman came to Lowell with the tangible promise of a husband underlined by a whisper of American prosperity.
It was all there in an advertisement in the back of her magazine -- a Cambodian man living in Massachusetts was looking for a wife.
She paid thousands of dollars to secure her role as bride and American citizen. What she got were regular beatings, daily chores, and mandatory prostitution for the proposed husband and his friends.
Elizabeth Cohen, director of the Greater Lowell Rape Crisis Center, was able to help the woman escape a year and a half ago. It was the first human trafficking case she came into contact with in Lowell, but it hasn't been the last.
Professors and social workers discussed the prevalence of modern day slavery, both next door and in countries across the globe, at a forum sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Lowell yesterday.
About 60 people gathered at the Lydon Library for the UMass Lowell Center for Women & Work's eighth annual forum to discuss ways to stop the illegal trade of humans for cheap labor or sex.
Speakers like Carol Gomez, who runs a center to help trafficking victims in Cambridge, talked about real-life cases, like an Indian woman forced to be a domestic servant in Brookline.
Gomez, director of Trafficking Victims Outreach and Services Network, said she has dealt with 55 New England cases in the last two years. An overwhelming majority of those cases, and the 600,000 to 800,000 international victims trafficked annually, are women and children.
Cohen said she has come across about a half-dozen local victims of human trafficking a year in Lowell, and all of them were mail-order brides from Cambodia. Many of them are afraid to speak out even if they are being abused, Cohen said.
The 25-year-old finally sought help when she became pregnant with her captor's child.
"She was so ashamed. Virginity is so important to Cambodian culture, and she was afraid to go to authorities because she had no money, she didn't have any (immigration) papers, and she didn't speak the language," Cohen said.
Fear of deportation or arrest keeps many trafficking victims from speaking out, Gomez said.
Officials at the U.S. State Department earmarked Cambodia, along with other states like Saudi Arabia and Jamaica, as countries which haven't cracked down on eliminating human trafficking.
Dr. Jean Pyle, senior associate of UMass Lowell's Center for Women & Work and a professor emerita of the Regional Economic and Social Development Department, said the methods of preventing human trafficking are complicated.
While federal officials can sanction countries which have a relaxed attitude toward human trafficking, the move might backfire by isolating the victims who need intervention, Pyle said.
"We really do have a lot of work to do on the international level, the state level and the local level," Pyle said.
Hillary Chabot's e-mail address is hchabot@lowellsun.com
It was all there in an advertisement in the back of her magazine -- a Cambodian man living in Massachusetts was looking for a wife.
She paid thousands of dollars to secure her role as bride and American citizen. What she got were regular beatings, daily chores, and mandatory prostitution for the proposed husband and his friends.
Elizabeth Cohen, director of the Greater Lowell Rape Crisis Center, was able to help the woman escape a year and a half ago. It was the first human trafficking case she came into contact with in Lowell, but it hasn't been the last.
Professors and social workers discussed the prevalence of modern day slavery, both next door and in countries across the globe, at a forum sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Lowell yesterday.
About 60 people gathered at the Lydon Library for the UMass Lowell Center for Women & Work's eighth annual forum to discuss ways to stop the illegal trade of humans for cheap labor or sex.
Speakers like Carol Gomez, who runs a center to help trafficking victims in Cambridge, talked about real-life cases, like an Indian woman forced to be a domestic servant in Brookline.
Gomez, director of Trafficking Victims Outreach and Services Network, said she has dealt with 55 New England cases in the last two years. An overwhelming majority of those cases, and the 600,000 to 800,000 international victims trafficked annually, are women and children.
Cohen said she has come across about a half-dozen local victims of human trafficking a year in Lowell, and all of them were mail-order brides from Cambodia. Many of them are afraid to speak out even if they are being abused, Cohen said.
The 25-year-old finally sought help when she became pregnant with her captor's child.
"She was so ashamed. Virginity is so important to Cambodian culture, and she was afraid to go to authorities because she had no money, she didn't have any (immigration) papers, and she didn't speak the language," Cohen said.
Fear of deportation or arrest keeps many trafficking victims from speaking out, Gomez said.
Officials at the U.S. State Department earmarked Cambodia, along with other states like Saudi Arabia and Jamaica, as countries which haven't cracked down on eliminating human trafficking.
Dr. Jean Pyle, senior associate of UMass Lowell's Center for Women & Work and a professor emerita of the Regional Economic and Social Development Department, said the methods of preventing human trafficking are complicated.
While federal officials can sanction countries which have a relaxed attitude toward human trafficking, the move might backfire by isolating the victims who need intervention, Pyle said.
"We really do have a lot of work to do on the international level, the state level and the local level," Pyle said.
Hillary Chabot's e-mail address is hchabot@lowellsun.com
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