SlaveryMap
Child Labor

Central Avenue, East Orange, New Jersey, United States

Akouavi Kpade Afolabi , a Togolese woman residing legally in the United States was found guilty on October 14 on 22 counts of human trafficking and obtaining US visas by fraud. The husband, Lassissi Afolabi, the son, Dereck Hounakey, and a fourth person, Geoffry Kouevi, have also been charged. To be sentenced in January. The jury that heard the case of Akouavi Kpade Afolabi returned the unanimous verdict of guilty quickly. Afolabi admitted trafficking girls aged 10 to 19 from Ghana and Togo between 2002 and 2007. She was a prominent textile merchant in Lomé, where she gained control of the girls. Afolabi promised to help them escape from poverty by learning a new profession in America. Instead, she forced them into slavery and abused them both physically and psychologically. The girls were forced to work 14 hours a day, 6 days a week braiding hair in salons in New Jersey. Afolabi stole all their wages and even confiscated the smallest tips given by clients. The girls were told that they’d be sent back to Africa if they objected to working without pay. Afolabi and her husband Lassissi Afolabi kept the girls under tight control, confiscating their passports and other personal documents and refusing to allow them to call home or friends. The girls were frequently beaten, especially by the husband, who was also charged. They were beaten if they did not return directly to their apartment after work, if they asked for their salary or any money, or if they disobeyed his orders. One had her head beaten against a table. In addition to these nightmares, both the husband and the son, Dereck Hounakey, have admitted to raping some of the girls. Afolabi hung her head and wept in the courtroom as the husband described his sexual encounters with the girls. The trafficker must have feared the girls would naturally refuse when they learned the real circumstances of their engagement, for she forced them to undergo voodoo or fetish rituals. As is frequently done to the trokosi in Ghana, she tried to frighten them into believing that they would go mad if they did not remain loyal and obedient to her. Afolabi prayed daily and sometimes sacrificed chickens at a voodoo or fetish shrine inside her home. Afolabi brought the girls into the U.S. fraudulently. Authorities say Afolabi smuggled the girls to America by helping them pose as spouses or relatives of people who secured visas through a lottery program. One of the enslaved girls failed several times to trick American embassy officials in Togo. She approached real lottery winners and offered to pay their plane fare if they would smuggle one of her workers into the US by having her pose as his stepdaughter. She even went so far as to arrange a fake wedding for one of the girls to ensure her enslavement. Afolabi’s lawyer tried to defend her on the basis that what she did was consistent with West African cultural practices and that she had saved the girls from poverty because they were provided with clothes. The American jury did not accept the argument, clearly seeing it as a classic case of child trafficking and modern-day slavery. The prosecution is asking for a life sentence in prison. http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/news/national/article_a2d7e2dd-169b-5937-9b8f-d5fe3511a06a.html http://blog.nj.com/ledgerarchives/2008/05/officials_call_it_slavery_but.html http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091014/ap_on_re_us/us_hair_braiders_forced_labor_5 http://english.pravda.ru/news/society/07-09-2007/96879-tololese_slaves-0 http://www.southfloridacriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/2009/03/federal_human_trafficker_plead.html#more http://www.nj.com/mobile/articles/paper1.ssf?/base/news-14/1253151910265840.xml&coll=1

Location
United States · Central Avenue, East Orange, New Jersey · 2009 (location generalized to protect survivors)
Response & intervention
Prosecution of all the traffickers. In September 2010 US District Court Jose Linares sentenced Akouavi Afolabi to 27 years in prison, In addition to the prison term, Judge Jose Linares sentenced Akouavi Kpade Afolabi to three years supervised release and ordered her to pay restitution in the amount of $3,949,140.80. The restitution amount includes the wages the victims should have been paid during their servitude, calculated under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which provides for payment of minimum wage and overtime, as well as compensatory damages for the delay in receiving wages. Hounakey, 33, was sentenced to 55 months in prison on June 28, 2010, for conspiring with the others to commit forced labor, traffic with respect to forced labor, and hold visas and identification. Geoffry Kouevi, 31, who was convicted after a jury trial in July 2010 of conspiring with Kpade Afolabi to commit visa fraud, was sentenced to 26 month in prison on Aug. 18, 2010. Lassissi Afolabi, 47, was sentenced to 292 months in prison on July 12, 2010, for conspiring to commit forced labor; traffic with respect to forced labor; hold visas and identification; commit forced labor with aggravated sexual abuse; and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. Lassissi Afolabi was also ordered to repay his victims $3.9 million. Entering into a plea deal with the U.S. Attorney’s office, Lassissi Afolabi pleaded guilty to forced labor, aggravated sexual abuse and traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor. He admitted he tried to have sex with one of the girls during a trip to North Carolina. Under terms of his plea agreement, he faced up to 12 years and six months in jail. But a subsequent review of the sentencing guidelines doubled the minimum term. US District Court Judge Jose Linares was not bound by the plea deal and had wide discretion when imposing sentence. Still, he asked Afolabi if he wanted to retract his guilty plea. "No," Afolabi said through a translator. The trafficker, her husband and son who also participated, and a third party were arrested. The trafficker pled guilty and was found guilty of 22 counts of human trafficking by the jury in Newark, New Jersey. Five years after the girls began arriving, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents received a tip and began extensive surveillance on the houses where the girls were kept. After months of surveillance, the ICE agents raided the houses in 2007. Inside, they found the girls and mattresses on the floor. The traffickers had hidden bags of cash and the girls' passports. Peter Edge, who led the team of agents, said none of the girls' customers ever called officials to help."Hundreds of people came into these salons, they probably witnessed things out of the ordinary," said Edge, special agent in charge of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations in Newark. "I wish one of my customers ... would have gone to police," Nicole said. "I wish they would have helped me." In the 2007 raid, the ICE agents found a notebook the girls used to track the tips they received, but couldn't keep, at the hair salon. Ironically, on the cover of the notebook was a picture of the Statue of Liberty. They speak fluent English and have work permits allowing them to live in the U.S. while they apply for special visas issued to victims of human trafficking. Three have found new jobs, but social workers asked The Star-Ledger not to publish the name of their employers to protect their identities. They are receiving assistance from Catholic Charities in Newark, which has a contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help refugees and trafficking victims. Citing confidentiality rules, Catholic Charities officials declined to comment on the case. Despite this help, the four say they are more lost than ever, living in apartments and struggling with day-to-day life in a new country. Catholic charities
Sources

Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). Use “Report a problem” below to add a source or flag an issue.

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