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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
Tahira Juma, a Boston University School of Public Health graduate student, and her husband Saleem Al-Khaboriof, an engineer, faced a federal lawsuit for "engaging in human trafficking and modern day slavery" in 2004. The couple came to Boston in January 2003, from their native country of Oman so that Juma could study at Boston University, according to the suit. Naseem Mohamed Siraj, who had been a member of the couple's household staff in Oman, alleged that the couple threatened to abandon her in Oman with no money to return to her family in India, where she has three children, if she didn't come with them to Boston. In Boston, Siraj was forced to care around-the-clock for four children ages 4-10 and was paid sporadic amounts totaling about $1,250 for 15 months. She had no bed and was fed only the children's leftovers, according to the suit. She was never allowed to leave the home alone and endured "a constant barrage of verbal taunts, abusive language and disobedient behavior from the children," the suit claims. When she vowed to leave, her employers "intimidated Mrs. Siraj by telling her that if she left, she would be arrested and thrown in jail."
Response and intervention
Siraj shared her story with a neighbor, Osnat Levy. Levy realized that the Indian woman was being held as a modern-day slave. At the end of the conversation, Siraj pleaded, "Please help me." That night, Levy could not sleep. The next day, she got on the phone and a friend told her about the American Anti-Slavery Group, a human-rights organization dedicated to ending modern-day slavery. Tommy Calvert, the group's chief of external operations, was skeptical when he learned that Levy was on the phone to report a possible case of slavery in Brookline. But after speaking with Levy, he believed that Siraj's case constituted all of the variables. Calvert's organization convinced the Boston law firm of Holland & Knight to take on Siraj's case pro bono. Siraj went to a battered women's shelter with Levy's help after the couple's 10-year-old allegedly beat her. The boy allegedly had previously hit her with a baseball bat. Several organizations and people came together under the direction of the Trafficking Victims Outreach & Services Network, or TVOS Network -- a nonprofit grass-roots organization of immigration rights advocates, service providers for domestic violence victims, health care professionals, attorneys, and labor organizers who battle human trafficking in New England -- to help Siraj. Siraj returned to Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India in June 2004. She planned to use the settlement funds (undisclosed amount) to buy property in India and start a small sewing business. Siraj received aftercare from: --The shelter run under the auspices of the Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence, which offered housing and counseling to Siraj after she left her employers. --Rick Mann, a lawyer of the firm Holland & Knight, who became involved in the case at the behest of Boston's American Anti-Slavery Group. --Carol Gomez, founder of TVOS Network, and Roshan Bhandary, a South Asian advocate at the Asian Task Force -- who helped Siraj learn about her rights in the United States.