Modern Day Slavery: Human Trafficking
Case#1
Thirteen year old Natalia was told by her parents she was moving to the United States with family friends who would allow her to receive an education and learn English. Born and raised in a small village in Ghana, Natalia’s family was struggling to pay the school fees for their children’s education and welcomed the opportunity for Natalia to receive an education in the United States. Shortly after she arrived in the United States, the father she was living with began to physically and sexually abuse the young girl, creating a constant environment of fear for Natalia. For the next six years she was forced to clean the house, wash clothes, cook, and care for their three children, often working 18 hours a day while receiving no form of payment. She was never allowed to enroll in school as the family had promised, go outside, or even use the phone. One day, after she was severely beaten, Natalia saw an opportunity to run away from the home and a neighbor called the police. She was then taken to a local hospital for medical care. The nurse assisting Natalia was aware of the National Human Trafficking Resource Center and referred her to Polaris Project New Jersey. The Polaris Project New Jersey team met Natalia at the local hospital and immediately coordinated emergency services including clothing, a safe shelter, counseling, emotional support and case management. Now, nearly a year later, she is volunteering at a local animal rescue shelter, participating in a weekly poetry workshop, and is pursuing her education to become a nurse.
Case#2
A man approached Brittany at a mall in her hometown, asked if she was looking for a job, and gave her a business card for a local restaurant he owned. When Brittany called the number on the card, the man con- firmed that he was looking for waitresses to start working immediately. Brittany needed the job and asked for the restaurant’s address, but the man told her he would pick her up at the mall where they first met. Instead of going to the restaurant, the man drove her to a nearby hotel and told her that she was going to be a prostitute instead of a waitress. At gunpoint, Brittany was forced to drink bottles of vodka and take blue pills that made her dizzy and disoriented. Brittany tried to look for help but was locked in the hotel room without access to a phone. After three days of being beaten, drugged, and forced to have sex with men, Brittany managed to escape and asked the first car she saw to call the police. Polaris Project provided case management services to Brittany, and, with time and a strong support system, she was able to enroll in school.
Case#3
At exactly 7:58 a.m. on the final Thursday in January, the front door opened to a condominium on a busy street in the eastern part of the city.
Juan Griles, head coach of the powerhouse Paterson Eastside High School boys basketball team, shuffled out the front door. He was followed by his starting point guard, who hails from Puerto Rico and is the son of a former NBA player. The pair hopped in the coach's white BMW, backed out of a parking spot and headed down the street.
Over the next 27 minutes, five more Eastside players exited the two-bedroom, 922-square-foot condo and began their six-block walk to school. They were: a starting forward and a key reserve player, both from Puerto Rico; a limping 7-foot-2 Nigerian; and two other lean, athletic-looking Nigerian players.
All six players, according to student profiles in a district database obtained by NJ Advance Media, are 17 or 18 years old and have enrolled the past two years -- two in 2015 and four since September. As recently as last week, five of the boys listed Griles, 50, as their legal guardian and claimed his condo on East 19th Street as their primary address. The other player listed Eastside assistant coach Alberto Maldonado as his guardian.
If the living arrangement and murky guardianship situation sounds unusual, consider:
The state Division of Child Protection and Permanency (formerly known as the Division of Youth and Family Services) is investigating the whereabouts and safety of the teenagers, how they arrived in Paterson and who has legal custody, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to NJ Advance Media on the condition they not be identified. The people asked to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association assistant director Larry White said the situation at Eastside could violate several state rules regarding recruiting, athletic advantage transfers and coaching protocol. White said he contacted Eastside officials Friday and asked the school to provide additional information.
Several people within the school district expressed concern about the players, fearful the boys were being moved from place to place without concern for their welfare. One player, a source within the district said, was told he needed to leave the condo because the food now belonged to another player who had just arrived. Another player was in tears at school because he feared being sent away.
One player said Griles did not provide enough food in the house and that dinner was spaghetti for "a whole two weeks" or "just a loaf of bread to last two people for like two weeks." The player, who also spoke on the condition his name not be used, said the teens sometimes would seek out food at a local church, often had to fend for themselves on weekends and that "we didn't eat anything" on Thanksgiving.
In a mostly state-funded public school district where it costs nearly $16,000 to educate a student, some are questioning why taxpayers are footing the bill for six players not from Paterson, while saying the athletes are taking spots from home-grown kids in a city where basketball is perhaps the most popular sport.
Meanwhile, in the sometimes cutthroat and always competitive world that is New Jersey high school basketball, the status of the six players and the actions of the coaches have sparked intense scrutiny and even jolted those who thought they had seen it all.
"It's absolutely ridiculous what's going on in this state," said Phil Colicchio, the long-time coach at Linden High, one of Eastside's biggest rivals in the Group 4 section. "Is winning a state championship that important to people's lives that you'd have six kids living with you? "I don't care if you gave me LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul, they're not living with me."
Over the course of four mornings in late January and as recently as Thursday, NJ Advance Media observed the same pattern at Griles' condo: The coach would leave with the point guard around 8, and the remaining players would stagger departures over the next 30 minutes. The trailing players would either walk alone, in tandem or once in a group as big as three.
It's not clear how the players made their way to Eastside, although two Nigerian players transferred to the school from Idaho, according to their student files. The third Nigerian player appears to have played for a private school in Connecticut last year, and he also was listed on the 2016-17 roster of a post-graduate program in Delafield, Wisc.
When questioned Wednesday at Eastside before practice, Griles denied any wrongdoing, saying "everything we do here is legit." He admitted being legal guardian to two players from Puerto Rico, and said he has paperwork to prove it, although he has yet to produce it. Griles also said he used to live in Puerto Rico, has "lineage" there and is the godfather to one of the players.
The coach also insisted numerous times Wednesday that he was not guardian to more than two players. His denials came even though Eastside student profiles listed him as being guardian to five players until late January. At some point in the past week, the profile for the 7-foot-2 Nigerian player was changed to show Maldonado, the Eastside assistant coach, as his guardian. As of Friday, Griles was listed as guardian to four players and Maldonado two.
Paterson public schools spokeswoman Terry Corallo said Thursday the district confirmed Griles has legal guardianship of two student athletes and Maldonado has legal guardianship of two others -- all Eastside boys basketball players. Corallo declined to say how the district confirmed the coaches have guardianship of the players.
"Additionally, for approximately three months, Coach Griles had two additional players living with him temporarily as these students were displaced with nowhere to live," Corallo said in a statement. "They no longer live with him."
"I know people are jealous of our success here," Griles said Wednesday. "I'm a coach, I'm a mentor to a lot of kids in the city of Paterson. If a kid is struggling at home ... if a kid wants to sleep over for a couple days before we can join him back with his family, I'll do it.
"If you pass by my house, you might see six, seven or four, but they all don't live here."
Jealousy is not the motive for several people within the school district to sound alarms about the living arrangement, sources and teachers within the district said. The sources asked to remain anonymous because they fear retribution from Paterson officials. When teachers heard a player complaining about the lack of food in the house, "We looked into it and we realized, 'How does someone become guardian for six teenage athletes and how are you expected to take care of them financially?'" one of the sources said. "How are you expected to feed all of these boys?"
The district sources said they're concerned most about the well-being of the players, some of whom are thousands of miles away from family. One of the players has "been passed around from person to person" since coming to the United States to pursue an education and basketball opportunities, a source added.
"They're not doing their job," the source said of the Eastside administration. "They don't really care about the kids, unfortunately."
In addition to the peculiar living arrangement, at least two players staying with Griles have complained about the lack of food in the house, according to a player and sources familiar with the situation at Eastside. One of the boy's complaints led a teacher to reach out for help, and that's when DCP&P was contacted, sources said.
One of the players said Griles grew tired of feeding the boys and told them, "You guys gotta look for other ways of eating. I cannot be feeding y'all all the time." The same player said Griles had promised to take care of them when they arrived. When questioned, he maintained the food was the main issue. The condo itself was comfortable, with players sleeping in bunk beds.
On Wednesday, Griles called the situation with DCP&P "all false." He said he had taken in the player at the center of the controversy because the teen had no place to go and someone had asked the coach to help. Griles said over the years he often has taken in students who had problems and needed a place to stay.
"It had nothing to do with basketball," Griles said. "He's a terrible basketball player. It had nothing to do with that. I went and helped somebody so that way he could kind of have a place to stay. That's all that was."
The player is now at school in North Carolina after being urged to leave Eastside by Griles, according to sources. In recent days, the sources said, a second player was being encouraged to leave the school by the coach.
"These kids are so scared," one of the sources said. "I don't think these kids trust anybody in the school anymore."
Foreign players have populated New Jersey high school rosters for decades, according to coaches and athletic officials. Some of the state's best players in recent years have been foreign transfers.
But that trend appears to have exploded this season. NJ Advance Media has identified dozens of high-profile foreign players at elite programs such as St. Anthony, the Patrick School, Roselle Catholic, St. Benedict's Prep, St. Mary's of Elizabeth, Pope John and more.
The situation at Eastside, however, is unique -- in terms of sheer volume and because it appears to be one of the first times the trend of foreign players has spread beyond the state's powerful parochial and private school teams.
A historically strong program, Eastside is 14-2 this season and ranked No. 17 in the NJ.com statewide poll. The Ghosts are currently the top-seeded team in the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 4 bracket, with state tournament seeding set for Thursday.
After college, Griles played and coached professionally in Puerto Rico, and also coached at the high school level there from 1996 to 1998. He later spent several years as an assistant at William Paterson University, according to a bio from his time with the school. He took over at Eastside in 2010 and led the team to the Group 4 state championship. Eastside also has won three straight Passaic County championships.
Griles works as a special education resource teacher in the School of Government and Public Administration at Eastside, according to a Paterson Times database. However, a secretary in the government and public administration office said last week Griles worked in another part of the school, but declined to provide more information. He earned $57,483 in 2015 as a teacher. It's unclear if he receives a coaching stipend and how much it may be.
All six players who lived with Griles at one time this school year were enrolled in the Government and Public Administration academy, according to their student profiles. Eastside High is divided into three academies with different pathways and focuses of study -- culinary, technology and government and public administration.
Paterson Public Schools spent $15,629 per student in 2015-16, the latest year state data is available, not including debt service, pension and social security payments made by the state or other costs not associated with an individual student. About 80 percent of the school district's overall funding comes from the state, not city taxpayers.
Human trafficking is a criminal activity in which people are recruited, harbored, transported, bought, or kidnapped for forced labor, sex labor, or to become a child soldier. Traffickers lure individuals with false promises of employment and a better life. Traffickers often take advantage of poor, unemployed individuals who lack access to social services.
The United States Law:
Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) further states that human trafficking is the recruitment of individuals for labor by force, fraud, or coercion.
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 created the first comprehensive federal law to address human trafficking, with a significant focus on the international dimension of the problem along with a framework to fight trafficking at state and local levels. The law provided a three-pronged approach: prevention through public awareness programs overseas and a State Department-led monitoring and sanctions program; protection through a new T-Visa and services for foreign national victims; and prosecution through new federal crimes. The TVPA was reauthorized in 2003, 2005, and 2008 to provide great protections for U.S. citizen victims. In September 2012 President Obama gave an executive order to strengthen protections against trafficking in federal contracts. The following is a summary of key provisions:
Prevention
• An Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking is created within the State Department which is required to report on and rank countries’ efforts to combat trafficking.
• The President may impose sanctions on countries that are neither in compliance with minimum standards for elimination of trafficking nor are making significant efforts to do so.
• Creates public awareness and information programs, and international economic development programs to assist potential victims.
• Requires the U.S. government to provide detailed information about human trafficking, worker’s rights, and access to available assistance to all applicants for work and education based visas.
• Requires the Department of Labor to work toward preventing U.S. citizens from using goods produced or extracted with slave labor and provide of list of goods produced by slave labor and child labor.