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Women: Focus on alleged victims
Daily Planet Staff
OAKLAND – Inside a federal courtroom Tuesday, the case of the United States vs. Berkeley landlord Lakireddy Bali Reddy and his son Vijay Lakireddy was in its pre-trial stages.
But outside the courts a dozen mostly South Asian women held placards denouncing the exploitation of foreign workers and of women. They asked those going into the courts to focus their attention less on the men on trial, then on their alleged victims.
The women, members of the newly formed Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, came together in response to the Reddy case but are expanding their message to “all the workers caught in the web of involuntary servitude,” said Shaily Matani, a coordinator for ASATA.
Helping the victims is not an easy task.
“They do not have power. There is nothing to protect them,” Matani said.
Members of ASATA who are close to the Reddy case say that the two alleged Reddy victims, named in court documents, have received assurances from the Immigration and Naturalization Service that they will not be deported once the trial is over.
The Daily Planet was unable to confirm this with the INS, which referred the call to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A spokesperson for that office declined to comment.
Members of ASATA say they are concerned about other alleged victims that could be named in the future.
“The INS said they are not interested in prosecuting victims, but (they said) ‘the law is the law,’” Matani said.
Another of ASATA’s goals is to make it clear that the Reddy case is not about sex.
“Sex implies, requires consent,” Matani said.
When one person demands sex of another, is responsible for that person’s employment and holds that person’s passport, “that is sexual assault,” she said.
Matani added that the group wants to underscore that even though they focus on the problem of exploitation in the South Asian immigrant community, the problem of rape and sexual exploitation is not any greater in that community than it is in the general population in the United States.
ASATA can be reached at ASATA_organization@hotmail.com.
