The women allegedly worked as prostitutes at 10 massage parlors in San Francisco
and one in Emeryville that were raided Thursday by hundreds of federal and
local law enforcement agents. Authorities said the alleged San Francisco sex
ring involved an elaborate operation that used a travel service to entice and
bring in young women from South Korea and a cab company to shuttle them between
brothels.
Authorities believe that operators of the alleged sex ring targeted women from
impoverished parts of South Korea. The operators allegedly told the women they
could work as waitresses and bar hostesses in America if each paid a fee of
$10,000 to $15,000. On Thursday, agents arrested 27 suspects in Northern
California and 18 people in Southern California believed to be involved in the
operations.
The fate of the women will hinge on whether prosecutors determine they were
forced to work against their will or whether they participated in the sex ring
voluntarily, Bradley Schlozman, acting assistant US attorney general for civil
rights, said Saturday. The determination should be made within the next three
days, he said.
The women, who are being kept at an undisclosed location, will be considered
victims of human trafficking if they were forced to participate in labor or
commercial sexual activity, Schlozman said.
"The women need not have been locked in a room in order to be a victim of a
severe form of trafficking," he said. "Maybe they've been forced to do this in
order to pay off a debt that is unreasonable, and maybe there have been threats
to their families or to them. It's a whole variety of considerations."
If they are found to have been victims, then the women will be provided with
help from private organizations.
Ivy Lee, an attorney with Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach in San
Francisco, said the immediate tasks would be getting the women health care,
counseling and help for their children and finding them a safe place to stay,
likely in a shelter for victims of domestic violence.
"We would focus on stabilizing her situation and trying to explain to her what
her situation is," she said. "A lot of them are going to be confused about what
the hell is going on. 'What's happening to me? What are my options? Am I going
to jail? And also, who are all these people?' "
If law enforcement requires them to stay in the United States to help with the
investigation, the women are entitled to the same health coverage, cash
assistance and English classes that refugees and those seeking asylum receive,
Lee said.
The women can at any time decide to return to South Korea, although law
enforcement officials could then declare them a "material witness" to the case,
forcing them to stay in the United States without any benefits.
The women can simultaneously apply for visas, which will allow them -- as
trafficking victims willing to cooperate with law enforcement -- to stay for an
additional three years. They are then eligible to apply for green cards.
Lee said one of the biggest threats to the women is if the alleged traffickers
hire attorneys to find the women and offer them legal assistance. In the past,
she said, lawyers for alleged traffickers would lure the women back into a sex
ring.
If the women are found to have come to the United States illegally, but were
not victims of trafficking, they would be deported. The federal government
would not prosecute them for prostitution, although the San Francisco district
attorney's office could file those charges, Schlozman said.
The women are now staying one or two to a room in a "secure and safe" facility
that authorities won't disclose for fear of others involved in the alleged sex
ring attempting to contact or harm the women in some way, Schlozman said.
Attorneys with the civil rights division of the US attorney's office, FBI
investigators, immigrations and customs enforcement officers and linguists who
speak English and Korean are all present at the facility, Schlozman said.
The women are being interviewed one at a time by federal prosecutors trained in
dealing with victims of trafficking with a translator present. The women will
be provided with legal counsel if they ask for it. Schlozman added they are not
being interrogated.
"We're not trying to get any information on them for use in any kind of criminal proceeding," he said. "We're just trying to get information on whether they're victims."
