EDIT: I revised the title to reflect the correct bill number.
This is a Guest Post from multiple authors who wanted to discuss some of the weaknesses of HB SB 197 as they see it. As always, this Guest Post doesn’t represent the views or opinions of the editors of Delaware Liberal — we’re giving other voices a forum to air their concerns. I’m hoping that the folks who wrote this will join in the discussion.
We (multiple authors) decided to write this post to outline where exactly we see the land lies with SB 197. This particular piece of legislation has been a long time coming, and we roundly applaud Sen. Blevins and all the co-sponsors on the bill. It should sail thru the legislature easily – who would be against stopping Human Slavery.
However it seems other agencies, with the responsibility for enforcing the law seem to be either unaware or uncaring about the problem.
For example: The Delaware Department of Professional Regulation is the state agency responsible for monitoring massage establishments through the Board of Massage and Bodyworks. While massage is recognized as a legitimate form of healing, criminals are using massage parlors as a front for human trafficking and prostitution. The Board either doesn’t understand the nexus between massage and trafficking, or they simply don’t care about maintaining the integrity of their profession. The current regulatory rules are very weak and there have been no attempts to amend them despite the numerous arrests of licensed technicians and therapists in Delaware for operating prostitution fronts.
As the regulations stand now, police agencies can make prostitution arrests but, neither the police or DPR can close the shop. There is no requirement that the shop be licensed and therefore cannot be regulated or subject to inspection. The Board has jurisdiction over licensed therapists only. That means when one gets arrested, the store simply ships another girl in to replace her and the business continues to operate.
Several other flaws in the regulatory process exist. First, there is no requirement for “massage schools” to be accredited. That means technicians and therapists could technically obtain their credits in the basement of a Flushing, New York restaurant by watching tutorials from YouTube. Secondly, massage licenses do not bear photo ID of the licensee which facilitates license substitution. The fines for violations of operating without a license are a mere $500., the equivalent of one morning’s work and not nearly enough to deter repeat offenders.
The current Board of Professional Regulations namely David Mangler and Dave Dryden need to wake up to the reality of this problem. Massage is the perfect venue for criminal activities of prostitution and trafficking. If DPR does not tighten their regulations, the profession of massage will lose credibility as a modality of therapy. DPR could play an essential part in eradicating this scourge of illegal massage establishments. And there lies the question – do they care enough to do it or will it simply be business as usual?
There are other hidden away issues that folks may not see. For instance, Labor trafficking, and the right of the victims to receive compensation. The law is clear as to what trafficking is – and the trafficker is both criminally and civilly liable for the crime. But how can simple farm owners and summer store owners, locals be human traffickers?
Hypothetical examples – let’s say a landowner that has crops, be it strawberries, melons, mushrooms, what have you…they offer jobs to people coming in on a temporary work visa – there is a verbal contract for wages and when the wages are paid to the labor force, they are well below what it would reasonably cost to pick said crop or to work for the season for the employer.
Or the employer provides a house for the workers to stay in, in a farm situation; those workers never leave the property all through the season and a percentage of their wages are taken for room and board. The property maybe many acres in size and the home situated well away from prying and public eyes. The employer holds all immigration documents and intimidates and threatens the workers into silence, or threatens them with deportation. The landowner keeps the workers on their property, the fields are worked and the crop is picked at a nice profit. Everyone is happy, except of course the actual laborers, who may be under 18 or simply unable to get help, as they have been told and believe they have no recourse.
Is the landowner guilty of human trafficking? Absolutely! And the same goes for store owners that use foreign students in the summer to work in their stores. For years it has been public knowledge that some of these store-owners keep their worker’s immigration documents, disallowing them the opportunity to find other employment if the boss is not paying correctly, or with-holding wages to “pay” for lodging. It happens every year, and every year there are complaints and every year if they ever DO report it, they are told is a civil matter or a wage dispute and to take it to the courts, which of course does not happen.
Unscrupulous users of foreign labor have been getting away with this in our own back yards, despite the fact that there has been a statute on the book since 2006. We are not talking organized traffickers from out of state or international traffickers here, but locals who take advantage of the visa system and the fact that these foreign workers do not know our laws, and do not report the crime, and even if they do report, to date there have been no prosecutions for criminal activity. They are told, again and again, this is a civil matter for the courts.
Until this issue is taken seriously by law enforcement and not considered a simple wage dispute, it will continue to happen. This legislation is not a first step, it is actually a second step, the first step was obviously not taken seriously by agencies that have the ability and the jurisdiction to solve the problem.
Laws do not live in a vacuum – they need follow through, like actual enforcement and prosecution. We remain hopeful that this bill is not just window-dressing to make the state look good.