Domestic Servitude1992
United States US
Talal and Abair Alzanki (30 and 21 at time of incident). Talal Alzanki was a student at Boston University from Kuwait and came to the US with his wife Abair and their child. They employed a domestic servant, Ms. G. from August to December 1992. Ms. G., who was from Sri Lanka, had been working for the Alzanki family in Kuwait where her passport had been taken from her and she was threatened that she would be subject to arrest should she leave the residence. She was informed that she would work for Talal and Abair Alzanki in America. Ms. G. was promised a salary of $250 per month which was reduced to $120 before she departed Kuwait. Upon arrival in Quincy, MA her passport was taken from her again. During the four month working for the Alzankis in Quincy she was repeatedly threatened that she would be deported if she left the house and that American police and citizens would shoot undocumented aliens who ventured out alone. She was not permitted to use the telephone or mail and to speak to anyone but the Alzankis. Ms. G. was made to clean the house with caustic and noxious fumes, deliberately risking her health. The Alzankis refused to get her medical treatment for serious health problems. Ms. G. was also physically assaulted on two occasions. The Alzankis denied adequate food and Ms. G. became severely malnourished. Ms. G. was also threatened on almost a daily basis with deportation, death, or serious harm, should she disobey the Alzanki's orders.
Forced Labor1990
United States US
Mauro Casares Edwin M. Ives, Dolly Ives, Griffith-Ives Co., former ranch employees Parmjit Singh, Rony havive, Alvaro Ruiz, Najuum Issac, Pedro and David Pinzon "The violations Ed has admitted making . . . were commonplace in agriculture during the 1980s," the report says. "His sins were the sins of an entire industry." He recruited Zapotec and Mixtec laborers from the rural mountaintops of southern Mexico, smuggling them into the country and allegedly imprisoning them behind locked gates and high fences at his 50-acre Somis compound and forced the to work for 1$ an hour Prosecutors charge that Ives enslaved hundreds of workers at his compound between 1984 and 1990, first by forbidding them to leave until smuggling fees were paid and then by threatening to turn them in to immigration agents if they fled. More than 100 workers have testified or declared in statements that they lived in slave-like conditions at Ives' Somis ranch. Though slavery charges were dropped in a plea bargain last year, prosecutors have continued to argue that Ives virtually imprisoned laborers recruited from rural Mexican villages during the 1980s, forcing them to work for sub-minimum wages and to buy the necessities of life at inflated prices from a company store. charged with enslaving more than 100 undocumented workers from Mexico and forcing them to work long hours at menial wages. Lured by promises of good pay, the Mexicans were smuggled into the United States, then were kept at a 50-acre ranch until they could pay off a $435 smuggling fee, according to a federal grand jury indictment issued Tuesday they worked from 3:30AM to 8:00 PM
Sex Trafficking1983
United States US
The 24-year-old female allegedly needed some more money to pay her rent, so she and the 18 and 15 year old females drove into Santa Cruz to pick up some girls. They found a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old, and lured them into the car with promises of a party. Instead, they took the two girls to seven different farm labor camps in Davenport, where they were sold for sex for $25 to men living in the camps. The girls were forced to have sex with at least 20 men in five hours. Sometime after midnight, the group returned to Santa Cruz and stopped at a liquor store. One of the girls was able to escape and asked a store clerk to call the police. The car drove off without her. The other girl was released a short time later. Another 15-year-old girl had been lured into the car earlier the same night. She managed to escape, and her father phoned the police.
Sex Trafficking1981
United States US
Yes, due to the murder of Mr. Covarrubias. He was brutally beaten to death with a table leg by Rene (Pedro) Soto, as Felipa Soto and Maria Suarez watched. Suarez eventually called the police after cleaning and hiding the weapon and this instigated the investigation. The general story is quite complicated. Details from numerous Los Angeles Times articles from 1982 (Questions Linger in ‘Voodoo’ Slaying, Voodoo Looms as Murder Trial Issue, Voodoo Power Cited in Murder Case Appeal) do not correspond with information published in the Christian Science Monitor in 2007 (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0322/p13s01-usju.html?page=1) or an AP story written by Amy Taxin on August 12, 2009. This is due, likely, in no small measure to the lack of understanding of trafficking at the time of the investigation in the 80’s. Multiple jurors felt uneasy with the later conviction of Suarez for first-degree murder, and were instructed not to account in their deliberations for the psychological manipulation of Suarez by Covarrubias. Here is the basic narrative. In 1976, Suarez (16 at the time) immigrated legally into the US. Some accounts report she came to the US with her father, others report she came to live with her sister, Rita, who was already a resident of Los Angeles. She knew little to no English and had only completed 6 years of schooling. One day a woman, speaking Spanish, offered Suarez a job cleaning homes and answering phones. This woman persuaded Suarez to leave immediately to visit the house where she would work. The drive was over one hour. Upon arriving, Covarrubia allowed her to call her sister to notify her that she had found work and would come home later. The phone was then locked, she was informed of her purchase for $200 to the man 52 years her senior, shown to a tiny room and raped by him. Covarrubia was known as a witch-doctor (warloc). He practiced voodoo and used this to frighten and intimidate Suarez. He stole a pair of her underwear and after performing some form of spell buried the underwear in the cement in front of the house. This meant she could never leave and would always return to the house. She believed he hexed her father and later, ultimately, caused his death. Once he allowed her, for immigration issues, to return to Mexico but she, at one point, felt pins and needles throughout her body and knew she must return home. Covarrubia would belittle Suarez to his voodoo clients, openly taunting her about his sexual exploitation of her. She reported that he threatened her with guns and a machete if she tried to return home. For a time she worked at an electronics assembly factory, but believed that he watched her through his crystal ball as she worked, taking all her income from the work. In her trial, her defense team tried to bring all this to the jurors, but they were told not to allow psychological coercion or allegations thereof as part of their deliberation. The defense attorney tried to plead that due to the numerous spells on Maria, she could not allow herself to even intend to kill Covarrubia, thus negating to possibility of any first-degree charges. Rene and Felipa Soto were neighbors to Covarrubia. He owned the house the Sotos lived in and reportedly also had them under his control through spells and a voodoo doll. Both reported that he could cause them to argue at will. Like Suarez, they only attended school for 6 years before legally immigrating to the US and feared his witchcraft. They believed they could only emancipate themselves from his control by killing him. The prosecution charged that the three killed Covarrubia for monetary reward. The Soto’s were to profit with free rent, Suarez by the sale of Covarrubia’s home and the emptying of his bank accounts. Covarrubia had, years before, deeded the title of this home over to Suarez as a way to avoid its loss during the divorce from his then wife. He had asked her to deed the house back to himself, but this never occurred. Around the time of Covarrubia’s death and police investigation, Suarez turned the title of the house over to her brother, Epifanio, as well as took up to $54,000 from Covarrubia’s accounts. She claimed this was for her defense. How much the ex-wife or Covarrubia’s two children knew of her servitude is not clear. The children claimed in a civil suit against Suarez that she had manipulated their father and had promised to take care of him for the rest of his life. The jury foreman for her trial for murder stated that he did not believe she killed him for financial gain, but rather to free herself from Covarrubia’s control.