Imagine being accused of child trafficking because your children have lighter skin than you do. That’s what happened on a United Airlines flight.
Disclaimer: just like I don’t trust Breitbart News, I don’t generally trust the Huffington Post. However, the source of this story is a firsthand account from the mother.
She explains why her husband has dark skin and her children have light skin:
My husband is Mexican. I am of Irish descent. Our daughter, three years old, looks like both of us: she has dark hair and almond eyes with white skin. They had traveled to Mexico to spend time with his mother, her grandmother, who they see but once a year. This was precious time, time for my daughter to connect with her father’s side of the family…
Then recounts what happened:
The “incident”: another passenger on the plane, who was obviously inebriated, accused my husband of child trafficking. She claimed that my fair-skinned daughter didn’t look like her Mexican father, and stoked suspicion that he had kidnapped her. This passenger had no basis for this claim, nor any evidence to back it up.
Stop. I think claiming the other passenger was drunk let’s her off too easily. It also conflicts with later remarks about the passenger–
The passenger who shared her “concern” with the flight attendants had been sitting next to my husband. According to him, she had been friendly throughout the flight, but my husband noticed her strange obsession with our daughter, sometimes throwing her body over his to try to engage my daughter.
It seems to me this passenger was either racist or crazy.
So what happened? Port Authority and CBP officials met the flight, escorted them off, interrogated them, and only let them go when the father’s story was corroborated with the mother’s.
Flight Attendants are Encouraged to Report “Suspicions” of Kidnapping
By law (see this .pdf), all flight attendants receive mandatory “Human Trafficking Recognition and Response” training.
This training is part of the FAA Extension, Safety, and Security Act of 2016 and mandates–
Each air carrier provide F/As with initial and annual training regarding recognizing and responding to potential human trafficking victims.
If a FA receives a “tip” from a passenger, s/he is strongly encouraged to report it to authorities.
This Story Makes No Sense
Based on the Flyertalk reaction, it seems many advocate for the “safe” approach and say a FA should have reported it out of an abundance of caution. After all, The FA can’t play detective and should leave it to law enforcement to sort out.
That’s exactly right, though I draw an opposite conclusion. Playing detective means playing into unfounded innuendo without using common sense. Let’s review — passenger passports are checked departing Mexico and passengers face rigorous passport control upon entering the United States. Thus, I see no valid reason for a FA to flag a family traveling together due to a difference in melanin levels.
Doesn’t it scare you that a fellow passenger could, for whatever vindictive reason, look at me holding my son, “tip off” FAs that I may be trafficking him, and I would be met by authorities and harshly interrogated?
CONCLUSION
This story rubs me the wrong way on so many levels. It is pathetic that a man traveling with his daughters is viewed as inherently suspect. Whether on a gender or racial basis, I wish people would keep their prejudices to themselves.
I agree with your conclusion, but for a different reason. FAs are given training in “recognizing … potential human trafficking victims”, presumably including young children. There are numerous signs and conditions to look out for, none of which by itself is usually conclusive, but the presence of multiple signs in aggregate are worthy of further investigation by law enforcement or child protective services.
IMO, your criterion of relying on a passport check is wholly insufficient. My children and their mother have different last names, no familial relationship is indicated on their passports, and they were barely glanced at by the “rigorous passport control upon entering the United States” when they were young kids. Trained FAs absolutely SHOULD “play detective” when an accusation is made. However, (based solely on what you’ve presented) the lack of other physical or behavioral indicators should have led to dismissing the accusation rather than escalating.
Sounds to me like the FA lacked the courage (or perhaps the institutional latitude) to make a responsible decision.
To me, this is a simple liability issue. United, or any airline where their employee makes or supports an accusation, opens themselves to TONS of liability once they cause a problem to delay or inconvenience a passenger. This is the same reason why Walmart doesn’t want people stopping shoplifters, and why other businesses would rather let small incidents pass rather than falsely arrest someone. If something is WILDLY obvious, its fine to point it out (if someone was abusing someone on the plane, for example), but just because people don’t look alike doesn’t mean they are not related, and in this case, we see the harm caused.
There is a significant cultural problem in the United States that everybody dreams of being a hero, despite the fact that almost everybody is better off in every case if everybody simply minds their own business. Although the media likes to whip up hysteria, the incidences of criminality in “human trafficking” are vanishingly rare, and the likelihood that these speculative suppositions about other people’s evil actions will almost always be false.
Human trafficking is by definition criminal. As for “vanishingly rare” … Can you say “Elizabeth Thomas”?
People like you are why the bystander effect gets written about, I fear.
I agree with your conclusion. for both the racial reason and the sheer sexist reason, it is outrageous that a father could be put through this for no other reason than he is a Mexican man and his daughter is a white girl. This is exactly the sort of self righteous behaviour that makes self righteous Americans Americans look so bad in foreign countries.
As for the flyertalk reaction, well, there are a lot of apologists on ft who believe the airline can do no wrong.
There always will be nosy people out their and we don’t know what drives that – racism, low self esteem, low or no control over their personal professional life needing compensation. Idk.
But I do know someone who’s significant other took their child of whom both had custody overseas not to return
As a dual citizen I needed written permission (affirmed in person) by my sons co custodial parent (my partner) to apply for his non-us passport
This is a serious problem.
I don’t care what the motivation. I care about the well being of the child and that he or she has unfettered access to both parents if both have said rights
I once questioned a relative good motivation to my aunt bc he was a horrible person. She said “you don’t know what’s in his heart”
United was right in response to this
Same thing happened to me and my partner last nite on Southwest. Police were not nice even after being shown 2 forms of id on all three of us and all having the same address. one person made the compliant, No southwest employee suspected anything wrong.