Source: SOUTHEAST PRODUCE WEEKLY, 7/2/19


In 1999, a victim advocate working for the Collier County Sheriff’s Office was called to a residence in Immokalee, FL to assist in interviewing a girl from Guatemala who had been taken into protective custody following a domestic dispute. A member of a remote indigenous community, she explained how she had been taken by a man, José Tecum, across the United States to end up as a defacto slave in Tecum’s home, forced to have sex with him, and forced to give Tecum the paychecks she earned as a farm laborer in order to pay off the debt bondage he imposed on her.

For more of this story, click here.