Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => Facility Question and Answers => Topic started by: Che Gookin on February 25, 2008, 05:35:27 AM
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Moderated thread... no flaming please.
What is the worst example of human trafficking you've seen? I'm not talking about the baby bargaining that goes on in the USA, but old school stealing a human being for the expressed purposes of using the person for labor or sexual servitude.
I think the worst example I've seen was in Korea where some of the Fillipino bar girls were lured over with the promises of jobs and forced into prostitution.
Another really up and in your face encounter was in Thailand in the city of Pattaya. I had been forewarned about what a sleaze hole it was and was only going to stay as long as it took to change buses to go onto Rayong to take in some sunlight at the beach. When I was crossing the road some small boys were grabbing my leg and saying, "Yum Yum". I was like.. wtf.... Someone told me later the Yum Yum they were after wasn't cotton candy.
Cambodia was pretty bad also as the NGO workers usually had 3 or 4 underage girlfriends hanging about each night. Most of these girls were sold off to brothels by their parents.
First hand experiences please and no dirty stories you heard from your mate in the locker room at the gym about his sex tour through Phucket Island back in the 90's.
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Oh yeah btw.. disclaimer here.. These are observed experiences.. not experiences that you actively played a role in perpetuating the ugly cycle of human trafficking.
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Found this interesting link: http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Macau-2.htm (http://http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Macau-2.htm) you can find reports for other countries here: http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/ (http://http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/)
I'm currently in Macau here is the country report:
[ Country-by-Country Reports ]
MACAU (TIER 2 Watch List) [Extracted from U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2007]
Macau is a destination territory for the trafficking of women and girls from the Chinese mainland, Mongolia, Russia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Central Asia for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Foreign and mainland Chinese women and girls, many of whom are independent operators, are sometimes deceived into migrating voluntarily to the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) for employment opportunities and then induced into sexual servitude through debt bondage, coercion, or force. Mongolian authorities and NGOs cite Macau as the primary destination for Mongolian girls and women trafficked for sexual exploitation. These women are often confined in massage parlors and illegal brothels operating under the control or protection of Macau-based organized crime syndicates.
Macau does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Macau is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for a second consecutive year because the determination that it has made significant efforts to eliminate trafficking is based on its commitment of future action over the coming year, namely the review of current anti-trafficking laws with the intent to address existing gaps and more vigorous anti-trafficking law enforcement action. Macau authorities have not yet recognized the full extent of the significant trafficking problem in the MSAR, although they took steps to review existing laws in order to identify gaps dealing with trafficking and to criminalize and adequately punish all forms of trafficking, while offering legal protections for victims of trafficking. Macau authorities continue to view migrant girls and women involved in the commercial sex trade as "willing participants," despite regular reports from other governments and NGOs indicating that a significant share of these females are in the sex trade under conditions of debt bondage, coercion, or force.
Prosecution
Macau authorities demonstrated marginal efforts to identify and punish crimes of trafficking in the MSAR over the reporting period. Macau does not prohibit all forms of trafficking, though trafficking of persons from Macau to outside destinations is criminalized by Article 7 of its Law on Organized Crime, which is rarely used as there have been no identified cases of outbound trafficking from Macau. Article 153 of Macau's Criminal Code criminalizes the sale or purchase of a person with the intent of placing that person in a state of slavery, for which punishment is sufficiently stringent - 10 to 20 years' imprisonment - but which also has rarely been used. Kidnapping and rape statutes could be used to punish sex trafficking crimes, and they prescribe sufficiently stringent punishments of 3 to 12 years' imprisonment, though these too are rarely used for trafficking crimes. There were no reported investigations of trafficking crimes, or prosecutions or convictions of trafficking offenders during the reporting period. During the year, Macau authorities reported 10 cases involving 17 women, who complained of being brought to the MSAR under false pretenses and forced into prostitution, although no one was prosecuted. A separate case of trafficking was reported by a newspaper in Macau - the prostitution of a 15-year-old mainland Chinese girl in a brothel - but it is not known if the exploiter in the case was ever punished. Regarding labor trafficking, in March 2007, one mainland woman was arrested for allegedly deceiving three friends out of approximately $9,000 for import-labor jobs in Macau. The case was transferred to the Public Prosecutor's Office for further investigation. During the year, outside NGOs and foreign governments reported on specific cases of women trafficked to Macau from Russia, Mongolia, and the Philippines.
Protection
Macau did not make significant progress in protecting victims of trafficking over the reporting period. Macau authorities neither offered victims dedicated services nor implemented systematic efforts to identify and refer for assistance victims among vulnerable populations, such as the 1,800 women arrested for prostitution violations in 2006, of which 1,600 were from the mainland and the remaining 200 were foreigners. The Macau authorities do not encourage victims to participate in investigations or prosecutions. While women from the mainland who are subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude in the commercial sex trade occasionally escape with the help of Macau police or service agencies, most foreign women, such as those from Mongolia, Russia, Thailand and the Philippines, find it extremely difficult to escape given the lack of services in their respective languages and the lack of their governments' diplomatic representation in Macau. Moreover, the control of organized crime organizations over Macau's lucrative sex trade prevents MSAR efforts to provide victims with witness protection should they wish to participate in a prosecution of the trafficking offender. Victims are not offered legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they face hardship or retribution. Victims detained for immigration violations were usually deported.
Prevention
Macau authorities did not make any discernable efforts to raise public awareness of the dangers of trafficking or to encourage the public to report suspected trafficking crimes. MSAR officials continued to maintain the position that Macau does not have a significant trafficking problem and that the vast majority of females in prostitution in Macau are adult women who are willing participants in the sex trade.
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http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/USA-2.htm (http://http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/USA-2.htm) Here is the country report for the US of A. Apparently 50,000 people are trafficked through or into the US for exploitation every year.
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It's a lot larger than people think. In south Central Asia, say Kazakhstan for example, the average school teacher makes $200/month (or it was a few years ago). You can get by on $80/month fairly easily if you have relatives. People from the US, Spain, Belgium, Canada etc. are presently paying $30,000 to adopt a child. Although the baby houses don’t get all the money, some goes to the agencies and in-country fees etc. but regardless that is what kids are worth over there. Now take a young pregnant girl or a girl with a young child (or many kids) to feed making $80 a month or less and combine that with an industry which places a value on each of her children at $30,000 you are going to have problems (The young girl could never get $30,000, but the point is the value of the child). This amounts to 30 years pay…. Take your own annual salary and multiply it by 30 and then you will see the enormous potential problem child trafficking becomes and how difficult it becomes to stop… I am not inferring you or I would consider this but we know human nature enough to know the root cause of the problem is the bounty placed on these children’s heads.
Its not they the people in Asia don't care for their children...imagine if the average salary in the US was $50,000/ year and people were offering 30 years salary for each of your children ($50,000 X 30) = $1.5 Million.
Many of the kids in Kazakhstan end up in Turkey to service their tourist industry; apparently getting the kids across the border is not a big issue. The kids from Russia, Ukraine,Romania and Moldova end up elsewhere. It’s a sad story and I have been involved financially to help create a safety net in a few of these countries so that the kids don’t end up on the streets. There is no foster care system like we have in the US and if a child is over the age of 5 then they typically end up on the streets or in asylums living side by side with adults that have mental health issues unsupervised. The dark side of some of these countries is unimaginable to many. It goes beyond the documentaries you see on TV.
...
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See now that wasn't so bad was it?
I told you in PM about what I saw in China. In Guangzhou I saw numerous white couples with Chinese babies. Someone told me later that China is one of the world's largest sources for adopted babies. I wonder how often these babies are given up voluntarily by their parents. Given the amount of money involved I tend to doubt that it is all that voluntary. A baby easily goes for over 45,000 dollars and I bet that even the best of circumstances the mother will ever see a nickle of that money.
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China and Russia I think are the largest adoption pools. The mothers gets zero money. They turn the child over to the baby house in return for a guarantee the baby will be fed and treated well and end up with a good western family. It is becoming more and more important that these countries set up a program to track these children that are being adopted and require 6 and 12 month reports from the parents on how the child is doing along with photographs and visits from local agencies, which many do now. But like you probably know, TSW, if you know someone in country you don’t need an agencies and the boarders are not that secure.
If you have a biological son or daughter who needs a new kidney or heart transplant $30,000 to 45,000 doesn’t seem like a lot of money….. beats being put on a 3 -5 year waiting list right?
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Most of Asia comes to mind when you bring that up, but what have you specifically seen yourself? I've thrown out a few personal examples. I discussed another one in the "ban" box as you call it with Froderick.
As far as the adoption deal with China goes I have my suspicions that these are done on the up and up. Given that so much money is trading hands to make it happens the potential for corruption is way to obvious for me. On top of this it is Asia we are talking about. Asia practically wrote the book on corruption. Back when we were running around Europe trying to use both hands to find our Arses the Chinese had an established government system a good 2000 years or more before we even did. With that they had corruption on epidemic levels.
With the loose borders, money, and remote villages with poor communications I see the real obvious likelyhood that babies are being stolen right out of their cribs.
In fact I saw an article about that exact same thing happening down in south america.
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Associated Press
Prosecutors: Afghan girl enslaved in Seattle area (http://http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081017/ap_on_re_us/enslaved_girl;_ylt=Aok32Rdfw29xw3goOK9zUxHLLJ94)
By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Fri Oct 17, 2008
SEATTLE – Five Seattle-area immigrants from Afghanistan enslaved a teenage girl they brought to the U.S., with some forcing her to do chores and one — her 37-year-old husband — beating and sexually assaulting her, according to a federal indictment unsealed this week.
The girl is from an impoverished single-parent home in Afghanistan, and she was informally adopted by another family there that forced her to marry at age 13 in 2005, Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office, said Thursday. The girl's husband is Mohammad Atahee, a friend of the adoptive family; U.S. officials don't recognize the marriage.
Atahee and three of the family's members were already living in the south Seattle suburbs when the girl's adoptive mother, Nasima Yousuf, 70, brought her to the United States in 2006, as part of what prosecutors say was a plot to enslave her. Yousuf's husband, Mohammad, 84, had filed an immigration petition to bring the girl to the U.S., claiming his wife was her biological mother.
Once in the country, the indictment said, the girl, identified only as JV1, was forced to live with Atahee, who beat her and sexually assaulted her. She was forced to spend at least three days a week at the Auburn home of Maruf Yousufi, 42, and his wife, Nahid, 29 — caring for their children, doing laundry, cooking and cleaning. Maruf Yousufi is Mohammad Yousuf's son.
The girl escaped after some good Samaritans helped her report Atahee to the police in January 2008 for sexual assault, prosecutors said. Since then, she's been at a safe house, but they won't say where.
She also called police in August 2006 to report her case, but Nahid Yousufi threatened her and persuaded her to recant the allegations, the indictment said.
All five defendants are charged in U.S. District Court with one count of conspiracy to engage in forced labor, and the Yousufs also face a visa fraud charge for allegedly lying on immigration applications.
Atahee and Mohammad Yousuf pleaded not guilty, while the others did not enter pleas during their initial court appearances Wednesday. Atahee and the Yousufis were detained pending further hearings, while the Yousufs were released pending trial, set for Dec. 23.
Several of their lawyers did not return calls Thursday or said they could not comment. Ralph Hurvitz, who represents Mohammad Yousuf, said he didn't know anything about the case beyond what the indictment said, and that his client doesn't speak English.
All the defendants have legal status in the U.S., Langlie said. The girl, however, does not, because of the Yousufs' alleged lies on immigration applications. She could stay in the country by obtaining a visa for victims of human trafficking.
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This from Scott Henson's great Texas Justice blog, Grits for Breakfast (http://http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/):
—•?|•?•0•?•|?•— —•?|•?•0•?•|?•— —•?|•?•0•?•|?•—
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2008
Human trafficking is fallout from failed immigration policies (http://http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2008/11/human-trafficking-is-fallout-from.html)
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and State Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) held a press conference this week (see the video (http://http://www.senate.state.tx.us/avarchive/ramav.php?ram=00003746)) to unveil a new AG office report on the subject of "human trafficking" (link here (http://http://www.oag.state.tx.us/AG_Publications/pdfs/human_trafficking.pdf) - pdf).
In Texas' context, human trafficking is mostly an unintended consequence of pointlessly restrictive immigration policies that forbid workers from entering the United States legally to work. When wannabe immigrants can't obtain official approval (http://http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2007/05/09/news/051007arlegally.txt) or else pay the ever increasing fees charged by coyotes (immigrant smugglers), not infrequently they'll agree to what's basically a form of indentured servitude or debt peonage to pay off the fee that, once they get to the United States, can morph into what the AG's report referred to as "modern day slavery." According to the report:
Texas is considered a major hub for human trafficking into the U.S. According to recent estimates, one out of every five U.S. trafficking victims travels through Texas along Interstate 10. Nearly 20 percent of human trafficking victims found nationwide have been in Texas. The DOJ Report on Activities to Combat Human Trafficking, Fiscal Years 2001-2005 included El Paso and Houston in its list of “most intense trafficking jurisdictions in the country.”
Sen. Van de Putte said that international agencies now consider human trafficking the second largest global criminal enterprise behind drug smuggling, tied with illegal arms smuggling. Moreover, she said, of the three it's the fastest growing.
Most of the recommendations in the report involve more training for police and others in the justice system and more data gathering and analysis, but they also suggested a couple of expansions of new criminal statutes passed last session, in particular making "commercial sexual exploitation of a person less than 18 years of age as a per se violation of the human trafficking statute," and also to "Define and criminalize child sex tourism.'” (That last one's a headscratcher ... was anybody out there claiming "child sex tourism" is legal?)
In addition to the AG's report, the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee had an interim charge on human trafficking, but they held that hearing outside of Austin and no video or audio was ever made available online. We'll get a sense of their analysis, and whether it differs from General Abbott, when they release their interim report sometime before the legislative session begins.
See MSM coverage here (http://http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/txcn/austin/stories/111708kvuetrafficking-bkm.1c19e4f07.html), here (http://http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6118015.html), here (http://http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6117269.html), and here (http://http://www.star-telegram.com/state_news/story/1044789.html), and a related blog post from the national ACLU (http://http://blog.aclu.org/2008/11/18/guestworkers-are-not-slaves/). Sen. Van de Putte's bill on the subject is SB 89 (http://http://www.legis.state.tx.us/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=81R&Bill=SB89), for those interested the details of her proposals.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast at 4:13 PM
Labels: Attorney General, Immigration, Prostitution, Texas Legislature
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Ursus wrote:
Most of the recommendations in the report involve more training for police and others in the justice system and more data gathering and analysis, but they also suggested a couple of expansions of new criminal statutes passed last session, in particular making "commercial sexual exploitation of a person less than 18 years of age as a per se violation of the human trafficking statute," and also to "Define and criminalize child sex tourism.'” (That last one's a headscratcher ... was anybody out there claiming "child sex tourism" is legal?)
As I understand it, part of the challenge has been to make it illegal in the US regardless of where it takes place, but I thought this law was already on the books as of a couple years ago. In the past, a person could travel to a foreign country for the expressed purpose of having sex with children, but any prosecution for the crime had to take place in the foreign country, where it may or may not be illegal. Offenders could not be prosecuted in the US for criminal sex acts in other countries. So these laws were needed to permit prosecution in US courts.
Sadly, American men are among the world's largest "consumers" of sex with children, both overseas and in the US. Average age at which girls and boys enter prostitution in this country is 13 (see Facts About Prostitution, http://http://www.rapeis.org/activism/prostitution/prostitutionfacts.html). Research documents that 85% of prostitutes reported history of sexual abuse in childhood; 70% reported incest. 73% reported having experienced physical assault in prostitution. 72% were currently or formerly homeless. 92% stated that they wanted to escape prostitution immediately.
You may guess that I do not consider this a victimless crime, or something that prostitutes--girls or boys--engage in willingly.
Auntie Em
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Some of the more notorious men who dabble in child mongering are from Europe. Beats me why they get their jollies off it, but go anywhere in Thailand, Cambodia, or Vietnam (I've spent time in all 3) and you'll hear the same thing.
Germans are the worst when it comes to pedo behavior.
Brits are horrible letches for little boys.
Israelis are strung out heroin addicts.
Americans tend to squat in all three.
Not sure where that site gets their figures, but I doubt they are looking hard enough.
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Maybe not quite what you are looking for but here is one for your database: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hea ... 26390.html (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/6126390.html)
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i recommend everyone watch the film "Taken" which was released this year. heartbreaking, compelling, good acting, sends a message... all the good things movies are supposed to have.. i can (almost) compare it to blood diamond in terms of acting quality aside from the younger actors... GO WATCH IT!
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Child maid trafficking spreads from Africa to US
By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press Writer – Sun Dec 28, 2008
IRVINE, Calif. – Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door.
They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn't much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms. To put the dishes away, she climbed on a chair.
But she was not the daughter of the couple next door doing chores. She was their maid.
Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family's crystal. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. She had no breaks during the day and no days off.
The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. is an extension of an illegal but common practice in Africa. Families in remote villages send their daughters to work in cities for extra money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life. Some girls work for free on the understanding that they will at least be better fed in the home of their employer.
The custom has led to the spread of trafficking, as well-to-do Africans accustomed to employing children immigrate to the U.S. Around one-third of the estimated 10,000 forced laborers in the United States are servants trapped behind the curtains of suburban homes, according to a study by the National Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley and Free the Slaves, a nonprofit group. No one can say how many are children, especially since their work can so easily be masked as chores.
Once behind the walls of gated communities like this one, these children never go to school. Unbeknownst to their neighbors, they live as modern-day slaves, just like Shyima, whose story is pieced together through court records, police transcripts and interviews.
"I'd look down and see her at 10, 11 — even 12 — at night," said Shyima's neighbor at the time, Tina Font. "She'd be doing the dishes. We didn't put two and two together."
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Shyima cried when she found out she was going to America in 2000. Her father, a bricklayer, had fallen ill a few years earlier, so her mother found a maid recruiter, signed a contract effectively leasing her daughter to the couple for 10 years and told Shyima to be strong.
For a year, Shyima, 9, worked in the Cairo apartment owned by Amal Motelib and Nasser Ibrahim. Every month, Shyima's mother came to pick up her salary.
Tens of thousands of children in Africa, some as young as 3, are recruited every year to work as domestic servants. They are on call 24 hours a day and are often beaten if they make a mistake. Children are in demand because they earn less than adults and are less likely to complain. In just one city — Casablanca — a 2001 survey by the Moroccan government found more than 15,000 girls under 15 working as maids.
The U.S. State Department found that over the past year, children have been trafficked to work as servants in at least 33 of Africa's 53 countries. Children from at least 10 African countries were sent as maids to the U.S. and Europe. But the problem is so well hidden that authorities — including the U.N., Interpol and the State Department — have no idea how many child maids now work in the West.
"In most homes, these girls are not allowed to use so much as the same spoon as the rest of the family," said Hany Helal, the Cairo-based director of the Egyptian Organization for Child Rights.
By the time the Ibrahims decided to leave, Shyima's family had taken several loans from them for medical bills. The Ibrahims said they could only be repaid by sending Shyima to work for them in the U.S. A friend posed as her father, and the U.S. embassy in Cairo issued her a six-month tourist visa.
She arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on Aug. 3, 2000, according to court documents. The family brought her back to their spacious five-bedroom, two-story home, decorated in the style of a Tuscan villa with a fountain of two angels spouting water through a conch. She was told to sleep in the garage.
It had no windows and was neither heated nor air-conditioned. Soon after she arrived, the garage's only light bulb went out. The Ibrahims didn't replace it. From then on, Shyima lived in the dark.
She was told to call them Madame Amal and Hajj Nasser, terms of respect. They called her "shaghala," or servant. Their five children called her "stupid."
While the family slept, she ironed the school outfits of the Ibrahims' 5-year-old twin sons. She woke them, combed their hair, dressed them and made them breakfast. Then she ironed clothes and fixed breakfast for the three girls, including Heba, who at 10 was the same age as the family's servant.
Neither Ibrahim nor his wife worked, and they slept late. When they awoke, they yelled for her to make tea.
While they ate breakfast watching TV, she cleaned the palatial house. She vacuumed each bedroom, made the beds, dusted the shelves, wiped the windows, washed the dishes and did the laundry.
Her employers were not satisfied, she said. "Nothing was ever clean enough for her. She would come in and say, 'This is dirty,' or 'You didn't do this right,' or 'You ruined the food,'" said Shyima.
She started wetting her bed. Her sheets stank. So did her oversized T-shirt and the other hand-me-downs she wore.
While doing the family's laundry, she slipped her own clothes into the load. Madame slapped her. "She told me my clothes were dirtier than theirs. That I wasn't allowed to clean mine there," she said.
She washed her clothes in a bucket in the garage. She hung them to dry outside, next to the trash cans.
When the couple went out, she waited until she heard the car pull away and then she sat down. She sat with her back straight because she was afraid her clothes would dirty the upholstery.
It never occurred to her to run away.
"I thought this was normal," she said.
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If you could fly the garage where Shyima slept 7,000 miles to the sandy alleyway where her Egyptian family now lives, it would pass for the best home in the neighborhood.
The garage's walls are made of concrete instead of hand-patted bricks. Its roof doesn't leak. Its door shuts all the way. Shyima's mother and her 10 brothers and sisters live in a two-bedroom house with uneven walls and a flaking ceiling. None of them have ever had a bed to themselves, much less a whole room. At night, bodies cover the sagging couches.
Shown a snapshot of the windowless garage, Shyima's mother in the coastal town of Agami made a clucking sound of approval.
"It's much cleaner than where many people here sleep," said Helal, the child rights advocate. He explains that Shyima's treatment in the Ibrahim home is considered normal — even good — by Egyptian standards.
Even though many child maids are physically abused, child labor is rarely prosecuted because the work isn't considered strenuous. Many employers even see themselves as benefactors.
"There is a sense that children should work to help their family, but also that they are being given an opportunity," said Mark Lagon, the director of the U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
That's especially the case for well-off families who transport their child servants to Western countries.
In 2006, a U.S. district court in Michigan sentenced a Cameroonian man to 17 years in prison for bringing a 14-year-old girl from his country to work as his unpaid maid. That same year, a Moroccan couple was sentenced to home confinement for forcing their 12-year-old Moroccan niece to work grueling hours caring for their baby.
In Germantown, Md., a Nigerian couple used their daughter's passport to bring in a 14-year-old Nigerian girl as their maid. She worked for them for five years before escaping in 2001. In Germany, France, the Netherlands and England, African immigrants have been arrested for forcing children from their home countries to work as their servants.
In several of these cases, the employers argued that they took the children with the parents' permission. The Cameroonian girl's mother flew to Detroit to testify in court against her daughter, saying the girl was ungrateful for the good life her employers had provided her.
Shyima's mother, Salwa Mahmoud, said her father believed she would have better opportunities in America.
"I didn't want her to travel but our family's condition dictated that she had to go," explained Mahmoud, a squat, round-faced woman with calloused hands and feet. She is missing two front teeth because she couldn't afford a dentist.
"If she had stayed here in Egypt, she would have been ordinary," said Awatef, Shyima's older sister. "Just like us."
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On April 3, 2002, an anonymous caller phoned the California Department of Social Services to report that a young girl was living inside the garage of 28 Pacific Grove.
A few days later, Nasser Ibrahim opened the door to a detective from the Irvine Police Department. Asked if any children lived there beside his own, he first said no, then yes — "a distant relative." He said he had "not yet" enrolled her in school. She did "chores — just like the other kids," according to the police transcript.
Shyima was upstairs cleaning when Ibrahim came to get her. "He told me that I was not allowed to say anything," said Shyima. "That if I said anything I would never see my parents again."
When police searched the house, they turned up several home videos showing Shyima at work. They seized the contract signed by Shyima's illiterate parents.
Asked by police if anyone other than his immediate family lived in the house, Eid, one of the twins, said: "Hummm ... Yeah ... Her name is Shyima," according to the transcript. "She uh ... She works — she works for us at the house, like, she cleans up the dishes and stuff like that."
Twelve-year-old Heba got flustered: "Yeah. She's uh — my — uh — How do I say this? Uh ... My dad's ... Oh, wait, like ... She's like my cousin, but — She's my dad's daughter's friend. Oops! The other way. Okay, I'm confused."
Heba eventually admitted that Shyima had lived with the family for three years in Egypt and in California.
The police put Shyima in a squad car. They noted her hands were red and caked with dead, hard-looking skin.
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For months Shyima lied to investigators, saying what the Ibrahims had told her to say.
She went without sleep for days at a stretch. She was put on four different types of medication. She moved from foster home to foster home. Her mood swings alarmed her guardians. In school for the first time, she struggled to learn to read.
Investigators arranged for her to speak to her parents. She told them she felt like a "nobody" working for the Ibrahims and wanted to come home. Her father yelled at her.
"They kept telling me that they're good people," Shyima recounted in a recent interview. "That it's my fault. That because of what I did my mom was going to have a heart attack."
Three years ago, she broke off contact with her family. Since then she has refused to speak Arabic. She can no longer communicate in her mother tongue.
During the 2006 trial, the Ibrahims described Shyima as part of their family. They included proof of a trip she took with the family to Disneyland. Shyima's lawyer pointed out that the 10-year-old wasn't allowed on the rides — she was there to carry the bags.
The couple's lawyers collected photographs of the home where Shyima grew up, including close-ups of the feces-stained squat toilet and of Shyima's sisters washing clothes in a bucket.
In her final plea, Madame Amal told the judge it would be unfair to separate her from her children. Enraged, Shyima, then 17, told the court she hadn't seen her family in years.
"Where was their loving when it came to me? Wasn't I a human being too? I felt like I was nothing when I was with them," she sobbed.
The couple pleaded guilty to all charges, including forced labor and slavery. They were ordered to pay $76,000, the amount Shyima would have earned at the minimum wage. The sentence: Three years in federal prison for Ibrahim, 22 months for his wife, and then deportation for both. Their lawyers declined to comment for this story.
"I don't think that there is any other term you could use than modern-day slavery," said Bob Schoch, the special agent in charge for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Los Angeles, in describing Shyima's situation.
Shyima was adopted last year by Chuck and Jenny Hall of Beaumont, Calif. The family lives near Disneyland, where they have taken her a half-dozen times. She graduated from high school this summer after retaking her exit exam and hopes to become a police officer.
Shyima, now 19, has a list of assigned chores. She wears purple eyeshadow, has a boyfriend and frequently updates her profile on MySpace. Her hands are neatly manicured.
But in her closet, she keeps a box of pictures of her parents and her brothers and sisters. "I don't look at them because it makes me cry," she said. "How could they? They're my parents."
When her father died last year, her family had no way of reaching her.
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EPILOGUE: On a recent afternoon in Cairo, Madame Amal walked into the lobby of her apartment complex wearing designer sunglasses and a chic scarf.
After nearly two years in a U.S. prison cell, she's living once more in the spacious apartment where Shyima first worked as her maid. The apartment is adorned in the style of a Louis XIV palace, with ornately carved settees, gold-leaf vases and life-sized portraits of her and her husband.
She did not agree to be interviewed for this story.
Before the door closed behind her, a little girl slipped in carrying grocery bags. She wore a shabby T-shirt. Her small feet slapped the floor in loose flip-flops. Her eyes were trained on the ground.
She looked to be around 9 years old.
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EDITOR'S NOTE — This story is based on interviews in Los Angeles, Irvine and Beaumont, Calif., and in Cairo and Agami, Egypt, in September and October. In addition to interviews with Shyima, her mother and nine of her brothers and sisters, the AP also interviewed her neighbors in Irvine, law enforcement officials and the lawyer who prosecuted her case. Quotes and scenes were observed by the reporter or described by Shyima and confirmed in police transcripts and court records.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081228/ap_ ... _next_door (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081228/ap_on_re_af/the_slave_next_door)