2009 National Ethnic Media Awards Winners

The following are partial translations of the original series of stories.

• Suspected Human Traffickers Arrested
• Betrayed By Faith
• A Hell in Paradise
• Without Another Option: Report or Die

Click here to see the original stories in Spanish at La Opinión.

Claudia Núñez, La Opinión

This report is subdivided into different dates. La Opinión launched the special investigation that culminated in the arrest of the couple mentioned below.

Claudia Núñez, La Opinión, June 13, 2008

San Jose — The alleged masterminds of a group that trafficked people from Mexico to enslave them in local California restaurants were put behind bars yesterday as a result of a raid on their luxurious San Jose mansion by federal agents.

At approximately 5am yesterday morning, 40 federal agents entered the home of Carlos del Carmen and Paula Luna Alvarez, from the state of Puebla, Mexico, and arrested the couple suspected on trafficking money and people for more than three years.

At the time of the arrest, the couple was holding captive four Mexican people who reportedly worked up to 17 hours per day without pay in a chain of restaurants owned by Alvarez, according to a witness's statement given to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

* * *

Claudia Núñez, La Opinión, June 16, 2008

Oaxaca, Mexico — To guess whether it is clay or excrement what Carolina is stepping on is difficult to tell.

The mud, like poverty, invades her town in the cape of Oaxaca, the same place where this indigenous Mexican woman was recruited by a network that imported immigrants for enslavement in California, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations and whose ringleaders were arrested last Thursday in a surprise sting operation in San Jose, California.

Carolina never wore shackles but for three years she was obligated to work up to 17 hours a day without salary, to keep quiet sexual abuse under threat of death, and to sleep on an old mattress in a garage.

She, like millions more, is a victim of the treatment or work enslavement of a population who lives in the shadows and is estimated to be 16 million people around the world according to the United Nations.

The disappearance of Carolina worried her sister who got in contact with this periodical (La Opinión). In December, Carolina was located in Tijuana where she was dumped by her captors- without documents, without money, and scared to death.

From the looks of it, the network appeared to utilize the methods of Nigerian and South American organizations in which they take over all of your forms of identification, and through acts of psychological and physical violence they detach themselves from their victims and their human essence in order to dispose of them later after they have served their purpose and have been taken from their homelands.

"I felt like an animal, thrown just like that- nothing else, on a barren terrain," spoke Carolina.

Taking refuge in her humble home, after years of captivity, Carolina shared her experience with this journal which has appeared in La Opinión after a nine month investigation looking into the trafficking of indigenous men and women in this wide network woven throughout California and Mexico

Pain and Shame

Slowly, as if afraid of something dangerous, she extracted a series of photographs from a small discolored box. The images reflected a coquettish, proud Indigenous woman, dressed with colorful skirts and a perennial smile.

"It hurts me a lot to see these photos," she said, while holding the reporters hand tightly.

The pains were many and very deep.

"When I was locked up I gave up feeling bad, I thought: 'That is how things are here, while I have a roof over my head and food I am well,' but now I realize that they kept me like an animal, working for them and throwing me in a room when I was no longer of use to them," she spoke in a mixture of Spanish with an Indigenous accent, while she continued to cry.

She never asked anything against her captors. Justice, as it is often said, comes from God and not from man.

Nevertheless, the FBI was already following the lead of three other presumed victims of the network.

Two years of investigations and the testimonies of various people led to the arrest of Carlos del Carmen and Paula Luna Alvarez, presumed directors of an organization of human trafficking and enslavement that according to FBI informants, works in conspiracy with Lucila Martinez Juarez (Paula's sister) and her husband Manuel Perez Juarez, the couple under which Carolina was held captive.

Manuel and Lucila were not arrested but are being sought by federal agents, though it is assumed that both fled to Puebla, Mexico, where they are originally from and from where it appears they also recruited young farmers.

According to the reports consulted by this newspaper, at least 30 people were enslaved in restaurants, lunch counters, and peddler food posts that operate between San Jose and Modesto, a mere five hours from Los Angeles.

"From seven in the morning they would make us sell tamales on the street, whether it were cold or raining; they would not let us rest until we were done," spoke the young indigenous woman.

Testimonies from various presumed victims affirmed that the network of dealers would resort to the services of an evangelist couple from Tepeaca, Mexico, who in between sermons about God and prosperity would petition the Indigenous towns to recruit people.

In other occasions, the FBI archives indicate, Manuel himself, would go to the small settlements in Puebla and would form groups of up to four people who he would bring to California. But the trafficking ring was brought down last Thursday the 12th, when 40 federal agents arrested Carlos and Paula while they slept in their luxurious mansion in San Jose, valued at almost two million dollars.

The agents surrounded the house. The cry of the couple's four children was mixed with the fear of the four enslaved victims.

"They had them sleeping in the living room. Locked up. We believe that there could be more potential victims in other houses; we are knocking on doors, getting to the bottom of it," said FBI agent Alex Kobzanetsh, in charge of the investigation.

Taking shelter, the faces of Carlos and Paula denoted rage. There were no tears, nor signs of surprise; their eyes simply portrayed a profound anger.

The Same Trick

The small chapel, where Carolina was recruited, smells of flowers, filth, and fresh paint.

At least three times a year, the evangelist couple would show up at the church proclaiming the dreams of money and the promises of liberty north of the border.

"Here is where I met them," said Carolina.

In the interior of the chapel, another woman, Amparo , a 47 year old single mother also indicated to have been invited to "win green bills" in California.

"For me, sister Mercy [the wife of the evangelist] wanted to pass me over the border," she said.

"What did they say to you?" La Opinión asked.

"She was a little sister of Christ and her husband was the one who offered me everything. They said to me: 'Come sister. I will pay everything for you, the coyote, and the passage.' The young sister recounted that since she had already been 'relieved' there and already had a lot of money, she wanted to help me. They told me that they were going to pay me eight thousand a month."

"Pesos or dollars?"

"Well, I don't know. I think that in dollars. No?"

"Did they tell you how they were going to get you over the border?"

"Yes. They told me that by the border, that there was no danger, that they know people among the gringos who are the ones who do their stops."

"And they told you where you were going and if thereafter you would be charged anything?"

"Well I believe that to California or New Jersey, if I liked. Sister Mercy does it... well because we are sisters in Christ."

"Are you going to accept?"

"I do not know yet. God will give me the path."

In silence, with her eyes fixed to the ground, Carolina heard every detail of the conversation. Three years ago, she was recruited by "'Mercy' and her husband, in an offering of work which in the end resulted in deceit."

"Many times I would like to shout out what happened to me. I would like to tell them not to go, not to believe anything because they are going to be exploited, they are going to abuse them, but I can't. It embarrasses me and I pray to God that some day he may give me strength to speak," she says in a desperate tone.

"And you, did they abuse you sexually?"

Carolina lowers her view. She responds with a silent no. After, she lifts her face and she remains staring blankly into space. "I did hear that they took one woman to get an abortion... That must be uglier, isn't?" she asks without making eye contact.

In comparison to Amparo who decided to stay in her town, in September of 2004 Carolina and three other young ladies from neighboring towns traveled to Mexico City, accompanied by the evangelical couple and given to a pollero [someone who coupes up chickens, reference to the cooping up of the victims], whom they referred to as "El Guapo" or "Handsome."

The Human Charge

"They pay me to leave them in Tijuana or Arizona. Those people frequently take women to the other side and well I don't believe it's for any good. One warns their people and then it's their doing if they want to go or not," commented "El Guapo" in the interview.

According to this captor the bus line from the cape that connects isolated communities of Oaxaca with the state capital or with big urban cities like Veracruz or Mexico City is the means for human trafficking. By paying a 500 peso commission per person (a little under 50 dollars) they transport the human cargo, in hidden seats or in suitcases or in secret compartments.

"One time one of them died on us of dehydration because she could not endure the trip in a suitcase, but they oblige you to take the people to the capital and if you refuse them, your hide is on the chopping block. Even the authorities are afraid of them," expressed a transport conductor.

In Oaxaca, big networks and even small trafficking groups have planted fear and corruption and have made the state a lawless citizenry where even the authorities have been turned into a fundamental part of these organized gangs.

"You learn your lessons quickly. Either you work with them or you die," confessed an agent of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) of Oaxaca.

Following her arrival in Mexico City, Carolina was shipped off on a direct flight to Tijuana. Upon her arrival at the border, there were no long hauls through the desert, or complicated strategies to enter her into the United States. Seated at the passenger seat of a truck, this Indigenous Mexican woman set foot for the first time on American soil.

"I always believed that in the United States there was no corruption, but after seeing how they passed me and the other girls through and after hearing my bosses talk about how one of the Border Patrol Agents worked for them, that image quickly faded. The church deceived me, the law... Now, I do not trust anyone," expressed Carolina, while walking head down throughout the streets of her town. At her pace, it is difficult to guess whether the mud or the excrement bury her feet.

(*) The names of the victims were changed in order to protect their personal integrity.

* * *

Claudia Núñez, La Opinión, June 17, 2008

Modesto — For 916 days Carolina* was enslaved selling tamales in Paradise, a well-traveled avenue in the city of Modesto where this Indigenous woman spent up to 17 cold and exhausting hours a day, while her alleged captors enjoyed the other Eden; that of the acquisition of millionaire homes, travel and luxury cars, fruits of the trafficking of people and the laundering of large quantities of money, according to the files opened by the Offices of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).

Along with Carolina, at least another 30 undocumented people were also presumably forced to work without pay and under death threats, according to the victims' testimony.

"You do the math, there were at least 30 people and all worked 17 hours. Simply by the fact that no taxes or salaries were paid, the use of slaves lined the pockets of these people with the earnings of upwards of $1,710,000 a year," pointed out Marissa Ugarte, Director of the Bilateral Insurance Broker in San Diego who supports human trafficking victims.

On cold days, Carolina shared that she and 11 other workers dropped off at San Jose and Modesto intersections, were accustomed to selling up to 500 tamales per person on the street for a dollar a piece.

Based on calculations by La Opinión, the thousands of dollars that were saved on salaries indicate that the slaves of Paradise and of other avenues generated sales earnings of more than five thousand dollars a day in the cold winter months.

The rest of the assumed victims, indicated Carolina, would cook and serve in the network of family restaurants. "El Jalapeño" in Modesto, "El Naranjo" and "El Mesquite" in San Jose, all properties of the supposed network of merchants including Carlos del Carmen and Paula Luna Alvarez and the Modesto couple Manuel Pérez Serón and Lucila Martinez.

On the morning of Thursday, June 12th, Del Carmen and Alvarez were arrested in a surprise operation when 40 federal agents surrounded a luxurious mansion located in the city of San Jose. Whereas Manuel and Lucila are under investigation, but it appears that they have left the country.

"If you were not in the restaurant you had to sell on the street and at times the boss would take to hitting the young men and he would take out his gun to threaten them if they intended to flee. They would tell me that if I escaped they would kill my elderly parents," Carolina spoke.

To mislead the authorities, the victim commented that the dealers would infiltrate documented workers within the ranks of the enslaved including opening bank accounts with the undocumented names using false social security numbers and the documents that were confiscated at the moment that they were recruited.

Another trap was the sporadic sending of $90 a month to the immigrants' families so as to not raise any suspicions.

Although they go about unnoticed by society, each slave is converted into a reason for measure and for wealth for the dealer who sees in a human being a simple machine for making money, according to the experts.

In accordance with Department of Labor calculations, when Carolina was recruited by the network in September of 2004, the minimum salary in California was at $6.75 an hour, therefore the enslavement of this Indigenous woman represented earnings of $145.13 dollars a day between her salary and her free time.

That modus operandi of exploitation converted the leaders of that gang into people very well off who enjoyed every type of luxury at the expense of others.

The Del Carmen and Alvarez house where they were arrested, is valued at $1.7 million, meanwhile another residence under Paula's name has a market price of $2.5 million. A third property, a superior commercial space at a half a million dollars, was also the property of Alvarez, according to Department of Land Registry's Office records.

"Lucila was Paula's sister and between the two, they had various houses where they would put us all up. In one of these houses they fixed up a garage and that is where we would stay with four or five per small room. They would wake us up at four in the morning to start work and at that time the humiliations would also begin. The female boss would yell at us and tell us that even by working the rest of our lives we would not be able to repay her for all that she had spent on us. We would make tamales and punch and we would go out on the streets to sell them. They never paid me anything. If I needed clothing or shoes, they would buy them for me," narrated Carolina who remembers those 916 days quite well, like the nights she cried silently over the thin and dirty mattress on which she was forced to sleep stacked alongside other immigrants.

It is paradoxical that while the world focuses on sexual enslavement, the majority of slavery is in the labor area and not in prostitution, affirmed Kevin Bales, president of the Free the Slaves Organization, the oldest and most extensive abolitionist agency in the United States.

"Slavery is in agriculture, in domestic workers, in restaurants, but unfortunately mediums of communication and the public in general love sex, sex sells, and that is something that we also have to combat," he said.

Statistics from the California Employee Development Department (CEDD) indicates that every year the state allows between $60 and $140 million for diverse types of fraud in the payroll.

Exhausting work days

In October of 2007, Karla,* Carolina's sister, came to La Opinión asking for help for the assumed disappearance of her sister. A month later the young indigenous woman was located in Tijuana, where her captors had abandoned her.

Shy and profoundly pained, this young indigenous woman returned to her town with the help of her family.

In a humble home, where potable water and drainage are a luxury, Carolina welcomed La Opinión. There she narrated how she was recruited by a couple who claimed to be evangelists and in between sermons with adorations to God they convinced Indigenous Oaxacan women to go to California in search of a better life.

"Almost all of us were women. They offered to pay everything for us if we went," she spoke.

Nevertheless, the network presumably also recruited farming men in the city of Puebla, from where the assumed heads of the network originated.

With the help of Carolina, a pair of phone numbers, one for Puebla and the other for Los Angeles County, La Opinión located Marcos* and Esteban,* two young country men whom it appears were also enslaved by the same network who recruited Carolina, and like her, also dumped them in Tijuana after months of supposed physical and mental abuse by their captors, a system commonly used by Central American and Nigerian bands who after making off with the immigrants' documents they get rid of their human essence in order to enslave them and afterwards to let them free, according to the authorities consulted by La Opinión.

In contrast to the young Indigenous woman, who entered the country through vehicles by the border line, Marcos and Esteban were introduced by way of contraband through the desert region in California and Arizona directed, according to their testimonies, by Manuel Perez himself, who currently is under federal investigation, but he is suspected to have fled to Mexico.

While they crossed the desert, the dreams of the two men were to work hard in order to build a home for their parents, narrated Esteban, who was interviewed in a café in Los Angeles.

At almost 20 years of age, the smile of this immigrant disappears quickly as he begins to speak about the seven months that he lived kidnapped.

"We came to a McDonald's in San Diego and there they picked us up to take us to a house in Los Angeles and after two of us went to Modesto and two to San Jose. Since we arrived, they locked us up and they told us that they would not let us leave until we paid what they invested in us. The women were kept in another room. At times we would hear them cry," spoke Esteban, now a witness for the FBI against his captors.

By phone from Puebla, Marcos explained that Manuel would frequently recruit young people from the small neighboring villages, he would round up groups of three or four and he would bring them to California.

"One time one of the ones Manuel had taken came, and I would ask him 'so tell me how did it go there for you,' but he never said anything, only, 'well, all was well.' One day Manuel invited me to go with him, he said that he had work and that I should invite a friend, that he was going to pay for everything, and that it was all going to go very well, that we were going to have lots of dough [money]," Marcos told La Opinión by telephone from Puebla.

Esteban as well as Marcos sold tacos and lunches on the mobile food stands that were located in front of the restaurant, a lunch counter that would open its doors at 7:00 in the morning and would close at midnight.

"I counted up to $1,500 in sales for one day, and for us, if went well for us, they would spend $180 a month. For me, let them rot in jail," commented Esteban in between a mixture of pain and outrage.

"Do you believe that there are more slaves working in Paradise? La Opinión asked the victims in mid December... no one doubted it.

The Taste of Capture

With the information from the presumed victims, one December night, this newspaper's reporter visited "El Jalapeño," property of Manuel Perez and where supposedly, Carolina, Esteban, and Marcos worked enslaved.

Inside the place, located on 517 Paradise Avenue in Modesto, Manuel stood permanently in front of the cash register. He was dark, with hard features, which he intended to hide with a smile. That day he was dressed impeccably: beige leather jacket and black shirt. His clothing was in contrast to the humble dress of the two silent Indigenous cooks, who appeared not to be older than 20 years of age.

According to Esteban, three pairs of pants, four shirts, and two sweaters were all they had a right to.

Just to one side of "El Jalapeño" a street cart dispensed tacos and cakes to go. With temperatures dipping below 55 degrees, two other young men moved skillfully preparing the incessant orders.

While waiting in line for a second round of tacos, a young African American man spoke about how less than three times a week he would eat at the small tables placed in front of the carts.

"The food is good, but what is really good is that it is cheap and that it is open at whatever hour," said the customer.

Tacos for $.90 cents, quesadillas for $1.50 and cakes for less than $3.00, attracted dozens of customers all the way to Paradise Street like magnets.

"El Jalapeño" shut its doors at nine at night. Serious, with a firm step, Manuel approached another young man by the name of Carlos, also well dressed like him and expressed a few instructions to partition later.

Soon after midnight, a green Chevrolet truck picked up the employees and began a route of 15 minutes to the residence marked by the number 2517 Margaret Street. The same house in which Marcos and Esteban were supposedly held locked up against their will, according to FBI archives.

The neighborhood was tranquil, luxurious, with houses averaging $700,000 in value.

All appeared normal... No one could have guessed that slaves were doing the serving on Paradise Street.

(*) The names of the victims were changed to protect their personal integrity.

* * *

Claudia Núñez, La Opinión, June 18, 2008

San Jose — "That is them." After almost four hours of interrogation by Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents, in four of the six photos that were put forth, Esteban* saw the faces of Carlos del Carmen, Paula Luna Alvarez, Manuel Perez Serón and his wife Lucila Martinez, the couples who supposedly enslaved him to work in a chain of restaurants for months.

"I know that those people are bringing more kids and it is not just that, for fear these things continue to happen," declared Esteban to La Opinión on the morning of January 14 of this year, just before being interviewed with the agent Alex Kobzanetsh, director of the Squadron Against the Trafficking of People of the FBI.

From the looks of it, Esteban was right. Five months after his meeting with the FBI, 40 federal officials rushed into the luxury mansion of del Carmen and Paula Alvarez, the supposed heads of the human trafficking ring.

The case, now in the hands of the U.S. Marshall indicates that there were another four possible victims under the yoke of the Alvarez's, as mentioned in the recent remittance of money to Tepeaca, Mexico, that supposedly was destined for the trafficking of more people.

According to federal documents, the remittance was done through Giromex, a money transfer service, from a botanist in San Jose to Tepeaca, the place of origin of the couple who posed as evangelists in order to recruit women in the towns of Oaxaca and Puebla.

The alleged couple recruited Carolina,* an indigenous woman who according to her testimony was enslaved by the supposed delinquents of San Jose for three years, and they attempted to do the same with another woman, Amparo,* a 47 year old single mother, whom they offered to bring to California.

The freedom, the luxury and the life style that Del Carmen and Alvarez enjoyed, dissipated soon after 5:30 in the morning on Thursday, June 12Th the mansion of the presumptive trafficking couple, protected by a novel security system was left to the mercy of federal agents.

Del Carmen, a man of almost 200 pounds, with a rue look, originally from San Agustin, Puebla and his wife Paula, dark, of a robust complexion and originally from Santa Ana, Oaxaca, although a naturalized U.S. citizen, came out espoused with the charges of money laundering and operating a network of trafficking undocumented people for the ultimate goal of exploiting them for work.

Manuel Perez Serón and Lucila Martinez, it appears, managed to flee the country.

The chain of restaurants where it appears that the alleged conspirators came to enslave dozens of immigrants, "El Jalapeño" on Paradise Avenue in Modesto, "El Naranjo" and "El Mesquite," both located on Story Avenue in San Jose, was also investigated by authorities.

"We think that there are more victims and other innocents, for the moment we continue investigating," expressed Kobzanetsh, who for two years has been on the trail of these supposed delinquents.

Over the telephone, Esteban,* 21 years old, thin and whose stature is just barely above five feet, found out about the news on Thursday the 12th . His reaction was one of euphoria.

"I don't know whether to cry or to jump with joy... Finally justice was made," he said. Nevertheless, his happiness changed its mood when he learned that Manuel and Lucila had not been apprehended.

Esteban is an important piece of this case and possibly will be called to testify in court against the supposed traffickers.

The participation of witnesses, affirms the FBI, is crucial in cases like this.

"It is very difficult to get to the human traffickers themselves, we have dates, suspicions, but without proof or witnesses, they cannot be processed and it is frustrating to see that the cases are dropped," Kobzanetsh pointed out.

According to the authorities consulted by La Opinión, the network in which Esteban and Carolina fell, and apparently about 30 more immigrants, used the methods of the Nigerian and South American organizations, which humiliate and torture the victims for some time and then they dispose of them at the arrival of "new merchandise," in order to throw off the authorities.

"Dealers begin to copy other groups' methods. Asian networks for example, like the European one, never free their victims, when they are no longer of need, they simply kill them or they disappear them," expressed Timothy Lim, professor at the California State University, Los Angeles, expert in human trafficking.

Other groups, explained the investigator, establish sentimental relationships with women and they convince them to bring them to work in the United States or they kidnap them. Many times they get them pregnant, they oblige them to have abortions or they capture their children as a form of pressure when they intend to flee.

"For all these criminals, moving the merchandise is vital. They transport them from one place to another, so that neither the authorities nor society are able to identify the situation for what it is. Finally, they bring more victims and they do away with the latter ones. Many of these organizations don't bother killing their victims because they know that the fear they instilled in them was so deep that many of them prefer to die before they report their captors," said the expert.

Carolina is a living example of the proceedings of the gang. After being enslaved for three years, transferring her between San Jose and Modesto, where she was forced to work for 17 hours without pay, she was obligated to climb on a bus in the middle of the night and be taken out of the country by her captors.

"I thought that they were going to kill me. They took me out in my pajamas, and they lifted me into the car. All they said to me was: 'We're going to take you for a stroll'. I was really afraid," shared Carolina.

The trip, in which Esteban and Marcos also took along with other victims ended at about eight in the morning in the city of Tijuana, Mexico. There, Del Carmen, according to the victim's versions, left them abandoned, without money or identification documents, and threatened that if they reported them their lives and those of their family members were at risk.

"After they threw us out like dogs, I found out that Manuel [the other supposed member of the band who apparently fled the country] called my house and told my parents that I had robbed them and that I had run away from them. That they did not know where I was, but that it should not occur to me to return to Modesto because they had a warrant out for my arrest for their robbery."

With the help of their families, Marcos and Carolina returned to their towns and Esteban returned to the U.S. on his own, afraid at first, and then after, he began to seek justice.

In contrast to her imprisoned companions, for Carolina the psychological upsets were profound.

And that is because, according to Esteban's versions, the leaders of the group sexually accosted the women, one of them, he said, was Carolina.

I saw when Manuel would fondle her and as soon as he would leave, she [Carolina] began to cry in the kitchen and she would not stop. I asked her why she was crying and she told me that her mom was ill. I knew that that wasn't it, but she never said anything," indicated Esteban, who is now a witness in the trial against the network.

Although work enslavement can be as traumatic as that of sexual enslavement, there is yet a third sad reality, expressed Kevin Bales, Director of Free the Slaves, the largest antislavery agency in the United States. "If you are a woman and you are under slavery, it does not matter what type, whether it be laboral or sexual, that woman, in most cases, will be abused sexually."

Taking refuge in her parent's home, two elderly indigenous people of the Mixe tribe, Carolina spent time with the reporter of that newspaper, and accepted to talk for the first time of the hell that she lived confined in Californian soil. Her voice is barely a whisper when she broaches the sexual abuse topic. She denies it, and she squeezes the reporter's hand tightly, while crying incessantly.

"On one occasion I tried to leave that family and they took me to the house in San Jose, where they kept me locked up and alone for eight days as a form of punishment. A lot of ugly things happen in that house. Many of the young ladies are raped and then forced to have abortions. That happened to others...not me," she narrated.

On her town streets, Carolina introduced another young lady like herself; humble and sad.

"That is Irene* - Carolina said, nodding towards the young lady with her head -- I met her in San Jose. When I first arrived at the house where they kept her, she was lying down on a bed because they had taken her to have an abortion... She came back to town after I did, and she came with a really big belly," she said.

Irene carried a baby in her arms, not older than five months.

While both women lived the same nightmare, they do not speak. They just greet each other with a look. For Carolina, fear and embarrassment have impeded her from telling, even to her own family, the burden she lived.

"I can't even look at photos of what I was like before going to California. It hurts me to see what they have turned me into, I am afraid of everything," Carolina said in between tears during the time in which La Opinión interviewed her in her home in Oaxaca.

Fear and sadness which Carolina and Irene experience are common among the victims of slavery. The effects that the perpetrators inflict on their victims are so deep that many never manage to recuperate.

"When a man or woman falls into this cycle, there are very few hopes that they be everything again. It is a complex system. Every victim reacts differently, there are some who attempt suicide, others fall into deep depression, although there exists a common factor in all of these, they are the last to know that they are enslaved," said Liliana Velasquez, a lawyer who specializes in cases of human trafficking.

While it is her town, Carolina has yet to find all the peace that she is searching for. Her primary fear stems from a man whom they referred to as "El Kike," who resembled Paula Luna's uncle, who according to Carolina is aligned with the organization to silence those who intend to report them.

"He has killed various people here in the town, I don't know if they were people who had gone over there or not, up here everyone is afraid of him. How do they expect me to report them? Why should I go and open my mouth and say that they abused me, so that they can kill me and no one does anything?" Irene asked.

In California, by Esteban's testimony, the United States agency for the assistance of human trafficking victims made contact with Carolina and offered her a pass of legal entrance into the country, as well as legal and psychological assistance in exchange for her to serve as a protected witness against the network that enslaved her.

"I have no more faith in anyone," she responded and she refused to return to the U.S.

Yesterday morning in the San Jose Federal Tribunal the case of the supposed traffickers, Carlos and Paula Alvarez, began.

Esteban did not hesitate to say that he is ready to confront those who were his captors.

The authorities are asking for 28 years in prison for the couple for money laundering, smuggling of undocumented people, and Social Security fraud.

At the close of this publication, Manuel and Lucila are still free.

(*) The names of the victims were changed to protect their personal integrity.

* * *

Click here to read Claudia Núñez's original stories on the La Opinión website.