Sex Trafficking2001
United States US
In 2002, the United States District Court in the District of New Jersey indicted traffickers with: - 1 count Conspiracy - 5 counts of Forced Labor - 5 counts of Trafficking with Respect to Forced Labor - 1 count of Conspiracy to Commit Extortion The following law enforcement agencies were involved in the investigation and prosecution of this incident: - Special Agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agency in Charge Leslie Wiser, Jr. - Investigators with the State Division of Criminal Justice, under the direction of New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey - Special Agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Kyle Hutchins - U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, under the direction of U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia - Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie F. Schwartz, of the Criminal Division’s Strike Force Unit in Newark - Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Jampol, of the Violent Crimes Unit in Newark
Domestic Servitude2009
United States US
A Togolese woman accused of forcing girls from Africa to work in New Jersey hair braiding salons for no pay has been convicted of human trafficking and visa fraud. Prosecutors argued that Akouavi Kpade Afolabi, called "Sister" by the women she oversaw, helped bring at least 20 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 from the West African nations of Togo and Ghana on fraudulent visas to New Jersey starting in 2002. They said she manipulated the impoverished young women, who aspired to live better lives in America, and kept them in slavery-like conditions while stealing all their pay — even tips as meager as fifty cents. Afolabi's lawyer, Bukie Adetula, countered that his client was considered a benevolent mother figure and revered community leader — both in her native Togo and New Jersey. He said she was known for lending people money and aiding young women to escape their poverty-stricken homeland to learn a marketable skill in America. He spoke outside the Newark federal courtroom following a unanimous guilty verdict on all 22 counts, which was returned just hours after the jury began deliberations. During the month long trial, prosecutors outlined a scheme they say Afolabi and her ex-husband and son — who have pleaded guilty — used to keep the young women tightly controlled. They said the women were beaten, psychologically abused and, in some cases, sexually abused, while being kept from phoning home, contacting friends or family, or accessing their passports and other documents. Adetula said what the U.S. government called slave-like supervision was merely a West African custom of protecting young girls by making sure they were tightly supervised, especially in a foreign country where they didn't know the customs or the language. Afolabi, who alternated throughout the trial between western wear and traditional African dress, sat shackled at the ankles with her head bowed much of the time, listening through headphones to a simultaneous interpreter in Ewe, her native tongue. She wept often throughout the proceedings, especially during descriptions of her former husband's alleged sexual relations with several of the women, some of them underage. Has there been any intervention? How & by whom? The trafficker was arrested in 2007, brought to trial and found guilty in 2009, being kept in jail in the meantime. She is to be sentenced in January 2010 and faces up to 20 years’ imprisonment. More information: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,566464,00.html
Bonded Labor2007
United States US
Lassissi Afolabi, 45, Akouavi Kpade 40, and Dereck Hounakey, 31, are Tongolese Nationals who are being charged with trafficking approximately girls and women from Togo to work in their hair salon in New Jersey. The girls posed as relatives of visa lottery winners in Togo. The traffickers made their victims work six to seven day a week, up to 14 hours a day, braiding hair. The girls were beaten repeatedly and if they complained, the traffickers threatened to send them back to Togo. The traffickers lured the young women with the promise of well paying jobs in America.