They took her passport and treated her ‘like property.’ Will a new California law help workers like her? 

I know what it feels like to be treated like property.

I was brought to the United States from Sri Lanka when I was 19 with promises of a good job and a better life. Instead, I ended up trapped in a house in Los Angeles, forced to work around the clock — cooking, cleaning, caring for children, washing cars, gardening. I worked even when I was sick.

I wasn’t allowed to leave. I was told I couldn’t — because I had already been bought. 

Recently Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 1362, which takes important steps to regulate recruiters of foreign laborers and provides protections for agricultural workers and others like me. 

The bill makes these recruiters register with the state, which can revoke their registration if they break the law or violate workers’ rights. 

These protections are long overdue, proof that California is listening to the voices of workers and survivors of labor trafficking, that our stories are finally being heard.

Yet AB 1362, while a step in the right direction, isn’t enough. It covers many foreign workers but not all. 

I came to the U.S. on a domestic worker visa, but many others arrive under one of the 13 other categories of temporary visas. We all need these protections, because traffickers thrive in the shadows and they don’t care about visa types. 

They look for loopholes. Every gap in the law gives them room to operate. And they know where the laws fall short.

We need protection not just at the point of abuse — usually on the job — but also from the very beginning, starting with recruitment in our home countries.

Telling my story isn’t easy. Even now, more than 25 years later, it hurts. But I share it because people need to understand how trafficking happens, how it often begins with a lie.

Recruiters go to poor villages in countries where people are desperate for work. They offer the perfect dream: a good wage, free services, an easy process, just eight hours of work a day, your own room, your own bed. 

To someone with no job and no options, it sounds like a miracle. That’s what I believed.

But once you’re on the plane to America, everything changes. They take your passport. They isolate you. You’re told you owe them — for the plane ticket, for the job, for every imaginary cost. 

Then the wages stop. One month. Six months. A year. Or in my case — four years.

I was made to work nonstop. I wasn’t paid. I was alone. I didn’t speak English, and I had no way out.

The person I was working for threatened my family. When my father died, I was told I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t even send money. I was a prisoner.

This didn’t happen in a far-off country. It happened here, in California. And it’s still happening today.

I’m deeply grateful to the lawmakers, advocates, and everyone who fought for AB 1362. Progress matters, but the fight continues.

I hope the study that AB 1362 requires the state Department of Industrial Relations to do will finally clarify how California can ensure all workers are provided these critical protections.

It breaks my heart that we’re still fighting for the most basic protections. Survivors like me are still speaking out, still reliving our pain, because change is far too slow — and for someone out there right now, it’s a matter of life or death.

AB 1362 gives us hope. Now let’s build on that — and make sure no one is left behind.