Gabe Joselow

From the State Department's Student Exchange Website

In the summer, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware is a city run on quarters and foreign labor. Oksana at the pizza shop, Viktor running bumper cars and Irina working skee-ball.  They came from Ukraine, Bulgaria and Russia.  Nobody seemed to mind, except a few cranks who took the time to write angry letters to the local newspaper demanding more jobs for Americans.  But now, a new story from the Associate Press has shed light on some of the shocking abuses these students suffer when they get to the United States.

Its sad and maddening. I met students in Thailand who wanted to participate in the program. One girl told me about a friend who had a job in Six Flags in New Jersey, and while she didn’t know what that meant, really, it made me cringe. Obviously, there isn’t anything wrong with an honest day’s work, but its important to remember that these kids are paying for their experience.  Some middle man recruiter takes their money promising them a rewarding glimpse of life in America, before stuffing them into a crowded apartment and putting a spatula in their hand.  It’s slave labor.  And when things get so bad that the girls have to turn to stripping, as was the case with a student mentioned in the AP story, well, now we’re getting into the territory of sex trafficking.