On Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo vetoed a bill intended to crack down on human trafficking within New York State.
Sponsored by Senator Alessandra Biaggi, whose district encompasses part of the Bronx, the legislation would have required that public transportation workers be formally trained to spot signs of trafficking. Although Biaggi contends that these trainings would be an "important line of defense" in the fight against trafficking, others have suggested that they might inadvertently escalate profiling.
The bill, S3465, would have instructed workers not only on "the nature of human trafficking" and its legal definition (i.e., the illegal extraction of labor, through fraud, force, or coercion), but also "how to identify victims." Additionally, it would have mandated that employees learn about the "social and legal services available to victims," and what their recovery options might be.
In his veto memo, Cuomo noted that the New York Interagency Task Force Against Human Trafficking already offers a training that "meets the minimum requirements" outlined in Biaggi's bill. While "transit agencies are, and will remain, cooperative," he said, obligating them to divert attention away from their "core mission" — transit — and toward a program that's already available would be "poor stewardship of limited ... funds."
In a statement responding to the veto, Biaggi noted that "human-traffickers rely heavily on public transportation to move their victims, in plain sight, across the country."
"As human-trafficking continues to grow in the Bronx and across the state, we must do everything we can to protect New Yorkers against exploitation," she continued. "As I write these words, people are being trafficked in and around our city and state — there is no time to waste unless we have no regard for human life."
The worry when it comes to these trainings, according to Kate D'Adamo, a sex worker rights advocate who focuses on economic justice, anti-policing, and public health, is that they might inadvertently reinforce stereotypes about what trafficking victims and perpetrators look like.
"Asking someone who is already in a chaotic place to, in a brief moment, look at someone and make an assessment that a person is a victim in need of intervention is not only illogical, it's dangerous," D'Adamo explains. "It's going to be scaffolded by that person's pre-conceived ideas of who is and isn't a victim, who they need to make decisions for, and what that intervention should look like."
D'Adamo pointed to flight attendants' trainings in human trafficking identification: In 2011, an Alaska Airlines employee named Sheila Frederick saw a "well-dressed" man traveling with a "disheveled" girl. The man spoke for his young travel companion, who wouldn't answer any questions, reportedly leading Frederick to the intuitive conclusion that something wasn't right. She subtly signaled the girl to go to the bathroom, where she'd left a note asking if everything was okay. The girl wrote back that she needed help, and the flight crew alerted the police, who met the plane upon landing. And while this case has been touted as a positive example of how training can improve bystander intervention, D'Adamo emphasized that the girl, in that case, asked for help. Meanwhile, presenting people with "a list of red flags, which are often explicitly or implicitly raced and gendered," has also meant more profiling.
In February, for example, Cindy McCain — wife of the late Senator John McCain, and co-chair of the Arizona Human Trafficking Council — mistakenly reported a case of what she believed to be human trafficking at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. McCain saw a woman traveling with a toddler of a different ethnicity and raised a flag with local police, only to learn that this was just a mother traveling with her adopted daughter. McCain apologized, but she's not the only official to make this type of mistake.
In 2017, an Arizona man was stopped getting off a plane in Phoenix, when a flight attendant noticed him traveling with his adopted daughter and raised a trafficking concern. In both cases, bystanders did what they thought was right. But asking people to read a situation and, based on a specific set of characteristics, to quickly draw conclusions without all the information means mistakes will be made.
"People care, including Senator Biaggi. I get that," D'Adamo said. And training, she continued, is "handed to people as a really easy solution: we aren't identifying enough people, which everyone agrees is true, and here's this training that can make people identify people in need. It seems so obvious that there are these red flags and everyone should know them. No one wants to think, 'I could have done something so easy and I didn't.'"
The problem, she added, is that "it just doesn't play out on the ground the way people think."
What might work better, D'Adamo suggested, is "low-barrier, specific outreach, and having more options and resources for when people ask for help."
"People are interacting with others experiencing trafficking all the time," often without realizing it, she continues. "Outreach workers who meet people where they're at, who are resourced enough to do it regularly, who can develop the kind of relationship where someone feels safe asking for what they need — in every community and industry — makes a huge difference and can identify people who are looking for support and help already."
