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Human trafficking slips under radar
By SHAWN COHEN AND BILL HUGHES
spcohen@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: September 25, 2005)


There are reasons why victims like the 22-year-old Guatemalan woman who allegedly was kept as a sex slave until last week don't go to the police.

"They're told by their captors, 'Go ahead, they'll just deport you,' or they're told, 'If you do, I'll kill you, or your family back home will get hurt,' " said Hamra Ahmad, an immigration attorney with My Sisters' Place, a service provider for domestic-violence victims. And it's almost certain that there are similar victims throughout the region because the punishments for the crime of trafficking people are not as severe as they are for trafficking drugs, Ahmad said.

"Hopefully, this case will raise people's awareness of this problem, which has been around for a long time but just hasn't been talked about because these aren't people you run into every day, or if you do, you probably don't know about their situation," Ahmad said.

Last week, investigators from Westchester traced two suspects to a Pennsylvania hotel â€â€