Did You Know That Human Trafficking is Happening at USA Slaughterhouses?

Imagine this happening to you. You’ve been promised a better life. Full of desperation and with a glimmer of hope, you take a chance. You arrive in New Jersey. English is not your first language, and you are suddenly at the complete mercy of your new boss.

He takes advantage of you. You find yourself working for approximately $3 an hour, doing one of the most horrific jobs imaginable at a chicken slaughterhouse. You’re absolutely miserable, traumatized, filthy, and exhausted. You find yourself working anywhere from 70 to 100 long hours a week, and working overtime with no additional financial reward, and your boss is also deducting $40 a week from your less than minimum wage pay to live in a filthy boarding home in front of a derelict slaughterhouse.

You can’t take it anymore. You complain to your boss that you want to leave, only to be met with frightening threats of arrest and deportation if you speak out to authorities. You’re trapped... and no one even knows you exist.

The worker noted in the story above is a true and recent account of an undocumented migrant sent to work in New Jersey. Thankfully, his boss was busted by federal agents for human trafficking last November and faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years. A similar case has also just surfaced in Idaho this January after four qualified veterinarians from Mexico were forced to shovel manure in lieu of a factory farm's promise of jobs as animal scientists.

We’re talking about this, because the negative impact of the animal agriculture industry causes horrific animal suffering and simultaneously strips vulnerable human beings of their rights and freedoms. As consumers, we have the power to make a difference. We can demand that all animals, including humans, are not exploited just to put food on our tables.

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