A camp for troubled teens in Wyoming accused of using forced child labor settled a four year long class action lawsuit for 2.3 million. NBC reports the suit was brought against the camp by the now adult survivors who claim that as teens they were forced to do extreme manual labor that should have been done by adults and were subjected to humiliating punishments if they refused.
Forced labor “part of the program”
Hauling heavy metal irrigation pipes, carrying 50lb. bales of hay, building barbed wire fences, castrating animals and dragging the carcasses of dead ones into a pile. Sadly, those are some of the tasks girls at Trinity Teen Solutions were forced to do. In addition, they were driven around the county to clean churches and recreation centers. Work that is considered hazardous child labor as it often led to injuries that were neglected or left untreated.
In the lawsuit, the survivors described injuries to their hands, legs, and feet, including cuts, frostbite, and in one case, torn ligaments requiring surgery, with little to no attention to treatment. However, there was a rigorous code of silence about what was going on enforced by camp staff.
One of the survivors, Aubrie Bak-Jensen, who was injured when working and her horse threw her off onto a barbed wire fence said:
“They had them clean my wounds, wrap me and brought me back to the ranch, and then put me right back to work. And I was told I was absolutely not allowed to speak a word of what had happened to me, even though it was very obvious that I was severely injured.”
Margaret Wurth, who researches child labor for Human Rights Watch said:
“You think about kids, their bodies are still developing, their brains are still developing. If they’re doing these repetitive motions day-in and day-out … something like that can have lifelong repercussions and injuries.”
In a classic earmark of forced labor, isolation kept it all hidden. All the teens’ communications were closely monitored with no way to contact law enforcement. For example phone calls with parents were monitored and letters home were censored. So much so that some girls said they even had letters ripped up when they contained negative things. And with the camp being 30 miles from the closest gas station, there was nowhere to run.
A nightmare of hard labor and humiliating punishments
The settlement is open to those at the camp who performed “agricultural labor” from 2010 until it closed. And while some of the survivors see the settlement as a win, others have a different view. The settlement is not an admission of guilt. Correspondingly those who join and receive a check will have to sign a non-disparagement agreement. Echoing their time at the camp, survivors who accept the settlement will not be able to say negative things about Trinity Teen Solutions or its owners online. Thus survivor Anna Gozun says she won’t take part in the settlement saying it “does not reflect true accountability or justice,”
Further, Gozun said:
“It’s disheartening beyond words. Many of us came forward at great personal cost, reliving trauma in hopes of stopping the cycle of abuse. This settlement feels more like a forced ending than a fair resolution.”
When Trinity Teen Solutions finally did close in 2022, its license was still intact. Tellingly, a separate lawsuit against Triangle Cross Ranch, owned by the same family, settled out of court last year. Both settlements happens in the context of increasing scrutiny from youth rights advocates and lawmakers of the array of troubled youth programs.
Forced into modern slavery for being “troubled”
All things considered the recent magnifying glass being applied to boarding schools, ranches, treatment centers and boot camps for troubled youth is long overdue.
A survivor of the companion camp Triangle Cross Ranch, Andrew Scavuzzo said:
“It was child labor, basically, you were just a slave for the owners because we were ‘troubled,’”
Sadly, it isn’t just programs for troubled teens where you can find exploitative, dangerous forced child labor in the US.
Right now, across the nation hard won child labor protections are being rolled back. Consequently, that means teens everywhere are being increasingly exposed to dangerous jobs in slaughterhouses, construction sites and factories. They are being allowed to work outrageously long hours, negatively impacting their schoolwork. The increase in child labor violations and injuries speak for themselves.
As this case and the increase in violations indicate, now is not the time to lower the bar. Join Freedom United in saying NO to child labor law rollbacks. Stand up for children in the US forced to do work and keep hours only adults should do. Sign our petition and help us stop companies from profiting from the labor and at the expense of children.
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