When Guardianship Becomes Human Trafficking

Florida Statute Sec. 787.06 – Human Trafficking
1. (c) The [Florida State] Legislature finds that traffickers use various techniques to instill fear in victims and to keep them enslaved. Some traffickers keep their victims under lock and key. However, the most frequently used practices are less obvious techniques that include isolating victims from the public and family members; confiscating … identification documents; using or threatening to use violence toward victims or their families; telling victims that they will be imprisoned … if they contact authorities; and controlling the victims’ funds by holding the money ostensibly for safekeeping.
(d) It is the intent of the Legislature that the perpetrators of human trafficking be penalized for their illegal conduct and that the victims of trafficking be protected and assisted by this state and its agencies.

“The Legislature finds that human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery,” which it is, and it proliferates in the Sunshine State, where elders have amassed in numbers greater than in any other state. Holding scores of thousands of elders in guardianship, the State of Florida reaps at least many millions of dollars from its Wards every year and from desperate families trying to release their parents from state control.

How does guardianship qualify as “human trafficking”?
This article does not allege that every guardianship, whether in Florida or any other state, meets the criteria of human trafficking; however, many, if not most public and professional guardianships match most of the elements of trafficking, specifically:

1. The victims or Wards are kept under lock and key.
2. They are transported away from their homes without their consent and oftentimes without their comprehension of where they are being taken or for what reason and for what period of time.
3. Isolation is a key element of the typical lives of state Wards, including absolute or near-total separation from family and participation in public activities.
4. Identification documents, whether driver licenses, Social Security cards, or passports, are routinely taken from elders too feeble to use vehicles or travel anywhere.
5. Verbal attacks, incarceration, and Baker Act imprisonments are part and parcel of the tactics used against both Wards and their families attempting to visit or comfort them during the traumas of guardianship.
6. Use of punitive measures against Wards and their families is rampant when reports against guardians are made to the authorities.
7. The key element of guardianship abuse is the controlling of funds belonging to the Ward, most often spent on extravagant attorney and guardianship fees, frequently totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in a year or so of forced guardianship.
8. Regardless of the laws in place in every state, Wards are trafficked by professionals who fear no consequences or penalties for their illegal conduct.
9. Although unlisted as an element of trafficking, the widespread use of physical and chemical restraints is common to both guardianships and trafficking. Thus, guardianship becomes trafficking when helpless elders are restrained by pill mills and tethers, such that they are either unable to process sensory input due to excessive pharmaceuticals or unable to move themselves as normal human beings do day-in and day-out.

Full Article and Source:
When Guardianship Becomes Human Trafficking