By Alex Halperin // September 21, 2016
Earlier this month, the East Bay-based Center for Investigative Reporting published a harrowing investigation on sex trafficking and abuse in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle, the country’s premier marijuana growing region.
Every fall, migrant workers, known as “trimmigrants,” flock to Humboldt and neighboring counties for the promise of good wages and a good time trimming the excess foliage from the harvested flower. The work is monotonous, and days are long, but weed, alcohol, and other drugs pass the time.
As reporter Shoshana Walter describes it, the working conditions seem designed to maximize sexual exploitation. Much trimming occurs in remote wilderness, far from major roads and out of cellphone range. At some sites, women earn more for trimming topless. Trimmigrants are strangers in a secretive, outlaw community where they are at the mercy of their employers. Meanwhile, law enforcement is understaffed and often more interested in uncovering illegal grows than prosecuting locals accused of violence.
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