Thread: NJ-African merchant to stand trial for human traffickin

West African merchant to stand trial in N.J. for human trafficking
by Joe Ryan
Saturday September 12, 2009, 10:10 PM

The West African nation of Togo is a small and mountainous sliver of land where villagers scratch livings from cassava fields and phosphate mines.

It was there, amid mud-thatched houses and dusty marketplaces, that a successful textile merchant named Akouavi Kpade Afolabi allegedly recruited about 20 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 and promised them better lives in New Jersey.

Once the girls arrived, she forced them to work 14-hour days without pay in hair-braiding salons in Newark and East Orange, binding them into submission through beatings and threats of voodoo curses, authorities say. In 2007 Afolabi, her former husband and her son were charged with forced labor and other charges, in a case investigators equated to contemporary slavery.

The bedroom at 169 South Clinton Street where some of the alleged victims lived and where law enforcement raided suspects Lassissi Afolabi and Akouavi Kpade Afolabi

At a trial scheduled to begin this week in U.S. District Court in Newark, Afolabi's lawyer plans to argue that the girls were paid generously and treated well. The case is not about slavery, he says, but rather a misunderstanding of the West African tradition of families sending away children to learn a trade and, ultimately, escape poverty.

"They were poor and couldn't afford to take care of their children," said the lawyer, Olubukola O. Adetula. "It is part of living in a society where there is no foster care."

Prosecutors reject that argument. Not only were the girls forced to work without pay, they were forbidden to date, learn English or appear alone in public, authorities say.

"This is not a case about cultures colliding. That is a complete minimization of the facts. Rather it is about forced labor, control and intimidation," said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for acting U.S. Attorney Ralph J. Marra.

Afolabi's ex-husband, Lassissi Afolabi, and son, Dereck Hounakey, have already pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit forced labor. Both told a federal judge that Afolabi, who has been in custody since her arrest, was the group's ringleader. A third man, Geoffry Kouevi, was convicted last month of visa fraud.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, 1,229 human trafficking cases were reported nationwide during 2007 and 2008. The problem has been especially vexing for New Jersey, where busy highways and ports and large immigrant communities make it easy to ship and conceal victims, authorities said.

More than 110 human trafficking victims have been reported in the state since 2005, said Asha Vaghela, a deputy state attorney general and program director of New Jersey's Statewide Human Trafficking Taskforce. Victims have included women from Russia, Mexico and Honduras who were forced to work as prostitutes, dancers in go-go bars or housekeepers.

The probe begins

The hair-braiding investigation began in 2007, when a 20-year-old woman told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents how she had traveled from her homeland, Ghana, to neighboring Togo five years earlier, hoping to come to the United States with the help of Afolabi.

Afolabi is a Togolese citizen who began traveling regularly to the United States as early as the 1990s, according to her lawyer.

Photographs taken of her in the years before her arrest show a stout woman with a well-trimmed Afro. Afolabi's age is unclear. Prosecutors have two birth dates for her, making her either 41 or 54; Adetula declined to confirm which was correct.

Afolabi grew up poor in a village and does not read, write or speak English, Adetula said. Nonetheless, Afolabi developed a successful business selling clothing and textiles in the markets of Lome, the nation's capital, where she is known simply as "Sister."

Families from surrounding villages sent their children to live with Afolabi, who put them to work at her home or at the market, Kouevi said during an 2008 FBI interview. She also taught the girls to braid hair, he said.

Hair braiding is an ancient West African craft, passed down through generations, said Ousseina Alidou, director of Rutgers University's Center for African Studies. Complex hairstyles can take 15 hours, she said. They can cost upwards of $90 at salons in East Orange and Newark.

The woman from Ghana who approached immigration authorities told the agents her father had arranged for her to go with Afolabi to the United States, thinking she would be going to school there, authorities said.

When she arrived at Afolabi's house in Togo, four other girls were living there. It was at that house, authorities said, that Afolabi began forcing the girls into submission, using beatings and voodoo to scare them into believing she could inflict curses from afar. In some cases, Afolabi killed or mutilated animals in front of the girls, authorities said.

Allegations denied

Adetula denies Afolabi beat the girls or used voodoo.

He said it is common in West Africa for adults to physically discipline other people's children. "If I run my mouth, my neighbor will smack me. Then my parents would come home and smack me, too. We had communal discipline," said Adetula, who grew up in Nigeria. He stressed, however, that Afolabi did not physically punish the girls.

Authorities say Afolabi smuggled the girls by taking advantage of a program that awards visas through a lottery to residents of countries with low rates of immigration to America. Lottery winners are allowed to bring spouses and children for legal residency here, too. Authorities say Afolabi recruited lottery winners and helped the girls pose as their family members.

Once they arrived in New Jersey, Afolabi confiscated the girls' passports, visas and other immigration documents, authorities said. Adetula denies Afolabi committed visa fraud or seized passports.

The attorney acknowledged the girls worked long hours. Braiding hair requires long hours, he noted. "You cannot say to a customer with a half-braided head of hair: 'Okay, we need to call it a day,'" Adetula said.

Months after Afolabi and the others were arrested, two of the girls told The Star-Ledger they had not, in fact, been exploited. They described Afolabi and the others as benevolent parent figures who had rescued them from the squalor of their villages.

Prosecutors rejected their accounts.

If convicted of forced labor, Afolabi faces up to 20 years in prison, said Shana W. Chen, an assistant U.S. attorney handling the case.

Adetula conceded in court papers that "it would appear from the cards shown by the government that it has adequate evidence to convict" Afolabi. But in an interview, he predicted anyone with an open mind will conclude the charges are based on circumstantial evidence and misunderstandings.

Karima Bennoune teaches international law and human rights at Rutgers University Law School. She said people regularly try to justify exploitation by making claims of tradition and culture.

"It certainly would not be a cultural practice to have someone work and not pay them," Bennoune said.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/0 ... o_beg.html

Once the girls arrived, she forced them to work 14-hour days without pay in hair-braiding salons in Newark and East Orange, binding them into submission through beatings and threats of voodoo curses, authorities say.

Dont you just love the rich cultural diversity that is coming to America?

I wonder if these girls will get visas to stay here? I think in some cases they are sent back and other cases they are granted landed status as victims.