Jewish Community News

News: April 2008

Freedom Seder educates on human trafficking
By Diane Fisher

   The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Silicon Valley  joined with the Peninsula JCRC at the end of March to host a Passover Seder educating the community on the reality of human trafficking.  
    Unbelievable as it may sound, there are “human traffickers” who recruit and transport persons from foreign countries to the U.S., for the purpose of exploitation and forced labor.  Impoverished women have disproportionately been victimized—making up about 80 percent of the  victims.  However men are also trafficked and exploited as day laborers, agricultural laborers, sweat shop workers, and restaurant workers. Entering this country with promises of jobs and opportunity, men and women instead find themselves in debt bondage, unable to pay off their traffickers.  Fear keeps them from escaping.  Their documents are taken and their families are threatened.
     The Passover Seder hosted by the
JCRCs attempted to shed light on the 17,000 people who are trafficked into the U.S. each year.
   The Passover Seder is rich in teaching opportunities about freedom. In addition to the Exodus story, the Hagaddah has been adapted to teach about the Holocaust, about African-American slavery, and about current immigrant justice issues.
     Diverse groups in the community came together to co-sponsor the Freedom Seder.  Along with a number of synagogues, the co-sponsors included the Catholic Diocese of San Jose, Northern California Coalition of Catholic Religious Sisters against Human Trafficking, and the San Jose Police Department.   The San Jose Police Department has even placed ads on the outside of buses, hoping to make people stop and think about human trafficking. 
     Sgt. John Vanek of the San Jose Police Department has a special grant to help educate the community, and he organizes training sessions that inform medical workers, county social service providers and others who may encounter victims on how to be aware and what to look for.  Women’s Philanthropy of the Jewish Federation has hosted a presentation on human trafficking.  Anyone who notices that someone living in their neighborhood never seems to come and go unescorted should contact Sgt. Vanek at the San Jose Police Department.