Spotlight on trafficking of women and children
Last year, the 20-year-old woman from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan was found dead in a shallow grave; her husband was charged with first-degree murder.
Helen Clemente, a Filipina brought illegally to the United States by a retired Seattle police officer to work as his servant, talked about her struggles against deportation.
Their cases highlighted a growing worldwide problem: the trafficking of women and children — an issue that's had several high-profile examples in the Seattle area in the last few years.
Yesterday, at the state's first conference on the issue, held at the University of Washington, participants from many organizations talked about the scope of the problem, and ways to combat it.
"Trafficking of women and children is an issue that has been ignored for far too long," said state Rep. Velma Veloria, D-Seattle, a co-sponsor of the conference.
About 50,000 women are trafficked into the United States yearly, said Sutapa Basu, director of the UW Women's Center. The United Nations reported the illegal trade in women and children is approximately the third-largest underground economy in the world, generating profits of at least $7 billion annually, Basu said. Only illegal drugs and guns bring in more.
Conference participants talked about tools in their fight, including the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, passed last year, that provides assistance to foreign victims of trafficking brought to the United States, and creates a new "forced labor" felony.
Veloria plans to sponsor legislation next session that would make trafficking of women and children a crime under the state's victims-compensation statute. That means victims of trafficking would be eligible to receive compensation; state agencies would be directed to provide a system of social services; and the Office of Victims Advocacy Program would create an advisory committee on trafficking.
Clemente and King's cases, along with that of Susana Remerata Blackwell, highlight the need for such legislation, conference organizers said. Blackwell was a Filipina mail-order bride, shot to death in 1995 by her husband, Timothy Blackwell, who also killed two of her friends.
At the conference, Clemente talked about her current life: as wife to Pudieno Clemente, mother of two and a cashier at Safeway.
Eldon and Sally Doty had brought Clemente to the U.S. in 1990 by arranging a sham marriage between Clemente and Eldon Doty that enabled Clemente to immigrate here. The Dotys had divorced to allow Eldon to marry Clemente, but Eldon and Sally continued to live as man and wife. When Clemente ran away after nearly three years of servitude, the Dotys worked with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to deport her in exchange for de facto immunity.
The Dotys moved to Santa Rosa, Calif., in 1998, where, as of last year, Eldon Doty continued to work as a children's book illustrator. Neither the INS nor the U.S. Attorney's Office planned to prosecute the couple.
Clemente is still fighting deportation.
Then Anastasia King's mother spoke.
The mail-order bride industry is a huge problem — not just in one country, but a global one, Solovieva said through a translator. "If our family had known about this problem to this extent, we would never have agreed for our only daughter to come over here," she said.
The couple teaches music to children in their native Kyrgyzstan, and "what happened with our only daughter was probably due to our naive, childlike perception of the world," she said.
Their daughter was intelligent and talented, and her future husband, Indle King Jr., seemed supportive of her educational goals, Solovieva said. "This was her opportunity to go into the broader world."
Anastasia King's parents, who came to the United States at the Snohomish County prosecutors' request, are now seeking a visa that would allow them to work and remain here.
They want to be able to visit their daughter's grave and to be buried with her when they die.
"It's extremely difficult to leave our child buried here alone," she said. "No one will come to visit her grave."