Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
In the summer of 2005, Mohammad Atahee (then age 33) married a 13 year-old girl in Afghanistan and then brought her back to the US and coerced her into being a slave at homes in Federal Way and Auburn. Atahee is also accused in court documents of beating and sexually assaulting the girl at his Federal Way home. Atahee (now 37) and the Yousuf family (Nasima Yousuf, 70; Mohammad Yousuf, 84; Nahid Yousufi, 29; and Maruf Yousufi, 42) forced the teen to cook, clean and do laundry. For about 18 months beginning in August 2006, Atahee required the girl to "perform all the household chores in his home and restricted activities outside of the home" at 2511 S. 286th Place, Federal Way, WA. During the same period the Yousufis required her to perform all the household chores and care for their children at 28004 33rd Ave. S., Auburn, WA.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Abdenasser Ennassime, also known as Sammy, and his wife Tonya Ennassime brought their niece, Lamyaá, from Morocco to come stay with them when she was 12-years old (in September 2001). They arranged that Lamyaá would help care for the couple’s son and help with the housework, in exchange for lodging and the opportunity for good education. Instead, Lamyaá made breakfast and dinner, did the laundry, cleaned the house, and worked weekends and summers at the family espresso stand without pay. The espresso stand is called Lake City Perk. In March 2004, Sammy read Lamyaá’s diary, in which she complained about being mistreated. He then hit her, and withdrew her from school. After the incident, she was forced to work longer hours at the espresso stand, 12-14 hours at a time, and he took all her tips, which totaled about $5,000. He threatened to report her for being in the country illegally. Lamyaá was never given a house key, and her uncle took her documents and identification.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A Portland couple who offered to care for a developmentally delayed pair stand accused of defrauding them of more than $50,000 in pension and Social Security payments and physically abusing them for years. Police say Charles and Tammy Whitworth were virtual indentured servants and endured nearly three years of financial, psychological and physical abuse including strangulation, assaults, and dog bites. The Whitworths are back home in Missouri thanks in part to an alert Plaid Pantry clerk and collaboration of city and county investigators. Plaid Pantry clerk John Parmer, 21, noticed a distraught woman with long gray hair using a pay phone in July. "She had been crying," Parmer recalled. "I was keeping my eye on her." The next morning she was back, crying again on the phone. She walked into the store and through her tears asked him to call 9-1-1. He did. Responding officers called the bureau's elder abuse investigators. A two-month investigation led to the arrests this week of Daniel Lee Anderson, 50, and Taryn Marie Anderson, 51, on an 84-count criminal indictment. Even the experienced investigators had trouble grasping what went on in the southeast Portland ranch-style house where the Whitworths lived with the Andersons. They said Tammy Whitworth, 50, was hysterical but that they were able to talk to the distraught couple alone. Investigators describe them as vulnerable, low-functioning adults. Charles Whitworth worked for 33 years for Chrysler in St. Louis, Mo., but doesn't read or write. Police said his wife, Tammy, was socially isolated. Police say the couples met in Missouri in 2006. The Whitworths were living in a house on their own when the Andersons offered to care for them. The couples left town about six months later. "They just up and moved in the middle of the night," recalled Tammy's mother, Barbara Ross, in a phone interview from Missouri. "They went from owning their own house, a car and a truck, down to nothing." Relatives knew they were in Oregon but didn't know where and hired an investigator to find them, but without success. "At some point (the Whitworths) were told their families didn't want anything to do with them, said Detective Celeste Fender. "They basically said, `We're all you've got.' " Charles Whitworth, 62, was to walk the dogs, pull weeds and clean the house. Tammy was supposed to clean the kitchen. Basically, they were their maids, Fender said. Fender and Officer Katie Potter worked with county adult protective services investigator Sheila Robinson. Not only are the Andersons accused of funneling Charles Whitworth's assets into their own bank accounts, but police and prosecutors say the Andersons would slap the Whitworths in the head, knock them into walls or sic their three daschunds on the couple. Daniel Anderson is accused of trying to strangle the couple. The Andersons would force Charles to bite his wife, Fender said. Ross said she received a collect call on July 30 from her daughter, Tammy. She was crying into the phone. Ross said she encouraged her to contact police. "Thank goodness she called her mom. She was brave enough to take that step," Fender said. Police say the Andersons had Charles Whitworth believing his mother died but investigators found his mother alive and phoned her so he could speak to her. He cried at the sound of his mom's voice. The Andersons told police they didn't know where the Whitworths' money went. When Fender asked why he had taken in a couple with no resources, she said he replied, "Well, Christians are known to do that." Similar cases often go unreported because victims are kept in isolation, Robinson said. Though Dr. Bennett Blum, an Arizona-based forensic and geriatric psychiatrist who specializes in what he calls undue influence cases, said they are tragically frequent. He said this case has all the hallmarks: vulnerable adult abuse, isolation, dependency, emotional manipulation and deception. Daniel Anderson faces 31 counts of criminal mistreatment, 22 counts of theft, three counts of strangulation, seven counts of assault, seven counts of harassment and four counts of coercion. His wife faces 26 counts of criminal mistreatment, 22 counts of theft, three counts of assault, two counts of criminal mischief, and two counts of harassment and coercion. Both pleaded not guilty on Monday. The Andersons lawyer, Bill Brennan, said the Whitworths money appeared to be pooled with the Andersons' accounts to help pay expenses. The county helped place the Whitworths in foster care and worked with Missouri officials to reroute their checks directly to them. This month the Whitworths flew back to Missouri. They're living with Tammy's mom but plan to get their own place. "The Andersons need to be in prison," Ross said. "They're evil, evil." Daniel Anderson is a local trucker who declared bankruptcy in 1998 and was convicted of passing bad checks in Missouri in 2006. Their trial date is Nov. 12.(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Gloria Eugenia Leon-Aldana was a part of an alien smuggling operation recruiting aliens from Mexico, smuggling aliens into the United States to San Diego, and forcing labor through a series of threats including calls to Border Patrol. Her co-defendants Andres-Santos and Alonso-Terrero also threatened with physical harm to the victims and their families. Her husband, Mario Antonio Antunez Sotelo is wanted on forced-labor charges in addition to bringing in and harboring aliens for financial gain. He was arrested in December with his wife, and two others. The others are in custody, but Antunez, who was released after his arrest, is now believed to be on the run, possibly hiding in Tijuana or in the Acapulco area. Among other things, Antunez and his wife are accused of holding at least 10 immigrants in two San Diego homes. Federal agents searching one of those properties found a small bedroom crammed with six beds, and living quarters for others carved into a crawl space beneath the home with mattresses on a dirt floor. Aliens held in those homes were repeatedly threatened and the couple took their identity documents to keep them from fleeing. They were also forced to pay rent, which kept them under debt bondage. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which learned of the case through the local Mexican consulate, is working with the Mexican government in the search. Immigration and Customs spokeswoman Lauren Mack said some victims were held as long as eight months.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Mariska Trisanti and her husband Herri Nasution recruited two women from Indonesia to come to Los Angeles to work in their home. Trisanti brought the victims to the US in 1997, on a tourist visa under the agreement that they would work for two years as nannies and housekeepers in her home. After arrival, Trisanti took their passports and other documents. The victims were forced to work seven days a week, for 17 hours or more each day. They were threatened with physical abuse and told they would be sent to jail if they did not work. The victims were not paid for their work.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
An elder woman in the community where the victim lived. The trafficker offered to let the teenage victim live in her home while the victim was having family problems. The victim accepted and moved in. For over two years the victim was locked in the home and was not allowed to leave. The trafficker was abusive and threatening and forced the young woman to care for the trafficker's children. The trafficker also forced the young woman to sell Khat. The trafficker stole the victim's identity and used it to collect government benefits for herself. After the young woman had escaped the trafficker continued to harass and threaten the victim.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
A Somali family not related to the young girl. Instead they came to her village and approached her parents and asked if they could take the girl, their daughter, to America with them. The young girl's parents agreed. The family brought her to the U.S using a different name and reporting that the girl was their daughter. When the girl arrived to this country, the new family wanted her to do all the housework, baby-sit their other children and completely serve them. The family was also abusive to the young girl. When the young girl refused to cooperate, the family contacted the child protection authorities and reported that they could not keep the child. The young girl was taken by the child protection authorities and was raised in the foster system.
Domestic Servitude2008
Kenya KE
Kaneza Joseline (not her real name) recounts how her ordeal started. She was serving lunch in a busy Kigali restaurant where she was employed, when some regular customers, a Kenyan man and woman, approached her about taking a better job in Kenya. In her broken Swahili she indulged in a conversation that would redirect her path over the next few weeks. They promised her $100 USD per month to work fewer hours as a chef in an undisclosed restaurant that they purportedly ran in Kenya. After encouragement from her friends, Kaneza arrived in Nairobi to be welcomed by an unknown woman who had been given all of her information. She was immediately taken to a residential home, given work to wash their dogs, prepare children to go to school, cook for them, wash their cloths and other chores. All of which was the complete opposite of the job description originally reported to her by the couple in the Kigali restaurant. The owners started inquiring about her family and hurling insults towards her ethnic identity. Kaneza called her friends in Kigali regularly, hoping that as soon as she had been paid the $100 USD she would find her way home soon. After several weeks Kaneza was informed that she would be sent up country to an undisclosed location where her “work would begin”. In her efforts to resist, she was beaten, tied up with rope, and repeatedly spat upon. What had began, as a promising new career opportunity had become enslavement. Kaneza feared for her life.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
In November 1996, Theresa Mubang used a fake passport to bring Evelyn Chumbow (then 11 years old) from Cameroon to the U.S. Mubang told the victim’s family the girl would have a better life and educational opportunities in the U.S. Mubang did not allow the victim to communicate with her family, and forced her to work as a cook and maid in her home. Chumbow was also forced to care for Mubang’s children as well as a neighbor’s child, and slept on the floor. The victim was not allowed to attend school, or to leave the home except for designated tasks. She was mentally, verbally, and physically abused. After investigation, ICE officials found that Mubang also brought another young girl from Cameroon to the U.S. prior to Chumbow. Her name was Cecilia Nkolo. Mubang sent her back to Cameroon after the victim repeatedly called the police and Maryland Child Welfare Services reporting her situation.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Sugar Land woman Rozina Ali trafficked a 32-year old Indonesian woman to work in her home. The victim began to work for Ali in Malaysia through an Indonesian employment agency in 2002. After two weeks, Ali brought the woman to the U.S. After saying she wanted to return to Malaysia, Ali took the victim's passport and visa. The victim was forced to work 18 hours a day or longer, cleaning, cooking, and doing yard work in Ali's home and for her relatives. When the victim's work was not satisfactory, she was beaten. She was paid a total of $420.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Couple from Nigeria purchased the victim when she was 16 years old from her family in Nigeria promising a better life and education. She was forced to be a domestic slave and work outside the home to repay her debt bondage. There were incidents of violence against her and threats of violence against her siblings if she contacted authorities.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Michael Luther Schumacher, 34, Kelly Layne Lau, 30, and Caren Ramirez, 43, all were arrested during the first two days of December, 2008 for suspicion of conspiracy, torture, kidnapping, child abuse, and false imprisonment. They held a teenage boy (name not yet disclosed due to the fact that he is a minor) shackled and chained in their garage, and forced him to do domestic labor, for up to 18 months (exact length of time to be determined). Schumacher and Lau are married and have 4 children of their own under the age of 10 (1 year, 3, 7, 9). There was no legal relationship between the married couple and the enslaved boy, Ramirez won custody for the boy in Sacramento Count prior to his imprisonment, but lost custody after she was arrested on charges of felony abuse in 2005. Neighbors of Schumacher and Lau said they say Ramirez at the couple's Tracy home regularly, and some neighbors said they were told that Ramirez was the boy's mother. The boy ran away from a Sacramento group home 15-18 months prior to his emancipation from the Tracy couple. Neighbors saw him doing yard work and other domestic chores. The boy apparently was chained in the garage of the Tracy house when he was not working or otherwise being closely watched.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Mabelle de la Rosa Dann, also known as Mabelle Crabbe, held 30-year old Zoraida Pena-Canal in captivity for nearly 19 months in apartment #64 of the Cypress Creek Apartments in Walnut Creek, California. Pena-Canal once worked in Peru with Dann's sister, who lives there. Dann, who works as a real estate agent in Walnut Creek, promised Pena-Canal a job caring for her three children as a nanny in the USA that would pay $600/mo and a private residence. Instead, Pena-Canal worked around the clock cleaning Dann's apartment, doing laundry, cooking meals and tending to Dann's three boys. Pena-Canal initially slept on the living room sofa in Dann's apartment, then subsequently was banished to sleep on the living room floor. Instead of paying her nanny/house keeper, Dann charged her $15,000 for living expenses, which she kept in her debt. Pena-Canal Dann forced her to smash her radio and TV so that she would not listen to Spanish-speaking radio and get information about the USA that might help her. Dann regularly abused her servant verbally and physically, and took away her identity documents, money and bank cards. She threatened to turn Pena-Canal over to the police if she tried to escape. Dann paid a third-party agent to secure a visitor visa for her victim, though she always intended for Pena-Canal to work in her home.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Malika Garrett (wife) Russell Garrett (husband) D. William Garrett (father-in-law) Russell is a Forsyth County Deputy Sheriff and William is a Fulton County Magistrate County Judge of Alpharetta, GA. All three reside in Woodstock and all three were responsible for encouraging a female Indian to enter the US and serve as a nanny to Malika and Russell's children. They eventually quit paying her and restricted her from leaving their home. The woman worked up to 16 hours a day. As a means to prevent the woman from leaving and to scare her from leaving, the couple threatened her with jail and deportation and also threatened to spread lies about her character to her family back home in India. After the victim escaped, the couple conspired to spread rumors about the woman through out the community, accused her of theft, reported her illegal status to the authorities and accused her of engaging in terrorist activities.
Domestic Servitude2008
United States US
Beginning in 2000 until August 2008, Lynda Dieu Phan, Duc Cao Nguyen, and Justin Phan conspired for Lynda Dieu Phan to travel to Vietnam to recruit victims to work in her nail salons located in the York, PA, area. The group arranged fraudulent marriages for the victims so they could gain entry into the United States. The victims were told that they could earn off their debt for being brought to America in 3 years. However, once in the country, the victims were forced to work at Lynda Dieu Phan’s nail salons and as domestic servants in her home. The victims reportedly worked long hours, often 7 days a week, for no pay. They were also said to have worked under emotionally demoralizing circumstances. One of the victims became acquainted with a customer through the nail salon, and it was through this customer that one victim was able to escape. The victim fled from Lynda’s home at 1:30am on June 1, 2008. The other victims were not emancipated until August 2008.
Domestic Servitude2007
United States US
Enung and Samirah were the 2 domestic workers. On May 13, 2007, the police were called to a Dunkin’ Donuts in Syosset, N.Y., where one of the domestic workers had turned up. Her face was bruised and she wore only pants and a towel. When the Dunkin’ Donuts employees tried to talk to the 51-year-old woman, identified as Samirah — like many Indonesians, she uses only one name — she made gestures of hitting herself and uttered what sounded to them like the word “master.”
Domestic Servitude2007
United States US
Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and harboring aliens. They were keeping two housekeeper in their house and paying them only $100-150 a month, all of which was sent back to their families. The women were forced to work 18 hours a day and were subjected to horrible abuses as "punishments" for actions like sleeping late or stealing food from the trash because they were underfed.
Domestic Servitude2007
United States US
Dunkin' Donuts employees in Syosset notified the police of a middle aged women who was present and wearing only pants and a towel and had a beaten in face. Immigration officials searched the house and found another housekeeper hiding in a closet. The two slaves confessed to being tortured, beaten, and starved. They were also beaten with brooms and umbrellas, cut with knives and forced to climb stairs and to take freezing cold showers for misdeeds like oversleeping or stealing food from the trash since they were not fed well.
Domestic Servitude2006
United States US
Paula Steltenkamp and Greg Coburn brought over a girl from the Philippines and forced her to work for them. The victim states they didn't abide by the contract she signed, which stated she would work for 40 hours a week for $200. The Victim states she wasn't paid the agreed amount, she was physically assaulted, denied access to a phone, isolated, and threatened with deportation.
Domestic Servitude2006
United States US
Soripada Lubis, 54, a naturalized American citizen originally from Indonesia, pleaded guilty to harboring illegal aliens for commercial advantage and private financial gain. Lubis admitted that he harbored between six and 24 aliens and that he was a leader and organizer of his enterprise. Lubis’ wife, Siti Chadidjah Siregar, a citizen of Indonesia, pleaded guilty to aiding her husband to keeping at least 15 women in there basement on weekends. Lubis and Siregar have kept up to 11 undocumented Indonesian women in their crowded basement to live with and work as housekeepers for wealthy families in Potomac, Md. Some of the women slept three to a bed. Lubis imposed various rules on the Indonesian women that restrained their freedom of movement and him and his wife confiscated the womens’ passports and threatened to kill their families and alert immigration officials if they left. Lubis and Siregar charged the women $375 per month for "rent" and transportation, plus fees for "taxes" and to send money to Indonesia. During the last five years, Lubis and Siregar made more than $90,000 from their enterprise. Lubis, or an unnamed relative, would drive the women to households in places like Potomac, where they worked and lived during the week, the statement said. Investigators say some of the women had come to the United States legally, but fell into Lubis’ clutches after they overstayed their visas, or were persuaded by his offers of financial rewards to leave their original employers and violate their visas. Lubis recruited them after meeting them at parks or malls.
Domestic Servitude2006
United States US
On July 20,2006 a jury found that the defendants willfully violated the Fair Labor Standards Act....BUT did not find that the defendants held the victim in forced labor, trafficked her into forced labor, or inflicted emotional distress upon her. The victim was award money on the violation of the fair labor standards act and received a portion of money for her attorney fees.
Domestic Servitude2006
United States US
Traffickers were married (one male and one female), who both were affluent medical doctors in Milwaukee, WI with a multimillion dollar home in Brookfield, WI. They recruited the victim from the Philippines to the U.S. when the victim was 19 years old. Both perpetrators used threats of serious harm and physical restraint against her to obtain her services.
Domestic Servitude2006
United States US
Hana Al. Jader, a 40 year old Saudi Princess, was caught withholding pay from two Indonesian women who worked for her as in-house servants. It is probable that these women worked for royal family in Saudi Arabia before they were brought Winchester in 2003. In 2003, she tried to extend their visas by sending in false employment documentation to the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services. The women had being cooking and cleaning for the royals as well as caring for the severely disabled prince and serving at their frequent parties.
Domestic Servitude2005
Ghana GH
A Togolese father sent his three year old daughter to work in Lome as a domestic servant and street vendor. She came from a broken family with a history of violence. The father left her with a woman in the northern suburbs. The young girl had to begin early to do the morning chores, and go out to sell produce on the street without eating breakfast. She ate only leftovers from the family's meals. The father visited occasionally to receive the four dollars a month the child was paid. As time went on the child was beaten more and more frequently. One day she set her produce down on the street and began to look for the way home. A kindly woman saw her crying on the street corner and connected her with an NGO who helped her. But upon returning home, she was beaten and abused by the family. The NGO was able to intervene and have a caring grandfather declared her legal guardian.