lohud.com
By Tresa Baldas, Detroit Free Press
5:24 AM, Jan. 22, 2012

DETROIT (AP) — A University of Michigan janitor. A Ukrainian nightclub owner. A Detroit man nicknamed "Gruesome."

The three men, authorities say, are all tied to a growing crime: human trafficking.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, human trafficking has become the second fastest growing criminal industry — just behind drug trafficking — with children accounting for roughly half of all victims. Of the 2,515 cases under investigation in the U.S. in 2010, more than 1,000 involved children.

And those are only the ones we know of. Too often, authorities say, victims stay silent out of fear, so no one knows they exist.

That's why President Obama declared January National Human Trafficking Awareness month.

The National Human Trafficking Resource Center estimates it's a $32 billion industry, with half coming from industrialized countries.

Over the last decade, numerous human trafficking cases have been prosecuted in Michigan. The court dockets detail the horror stories: Children being sold for sex at truck stops, servants held in captivity and forced to clean for free, and women forced into the sex industry, forfeiting their earnings.

Several human trafficking cases are now making their way through state and U.S. District Court.

Jean Claude Toviave, a former University of Michigan janitor and part-time tennis instructor, is federally charged with trying to pass off four African immigrants as his own children, giving them fake names and birth dates to sneak them over in 2006. Documents accuse him of abusing them for years in his Ypsilanti home, which he got through Habitat for Humanity, and forcing them to do housework.

His so-called children told authorities they were deprived of food and beaten with broom handles, a plunger, electrical cords and an ice scraper when they didn't finish chores or homework. They detailed the years of abuse in journals, which police confiscated, and said Toviave threatened them if they tried to leave.

The "children" weren't a big secret. Prosecutors say he enrolled the three youngest — 21, 20 and 15 — in a public middle school.

The students reported the abuse to counselors, triggering an investigation.

Toviave, 42, was arrested in May and is behind bars on human trafficking and forced labor charges.

In state court, six defendants are facing human trafficking charges in two separate cases brought by Michigan's new human trafficking unit, formed in 2011 by state Attorney General Bill Schuette.

One case involves Detroit resident Seddrick Mitchell, aka "Gruesome," 32, who goes on trial in March. He is charged with enslaving two teenage girls in a home on the city's east side, forcing them to work as prostitutes and keeping all their money. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

In the other case, five metro Detroiters were charged in December with running a human trafficking operation through a prostitution ring called "Detroit Pink." Authorities say it involved at least one minor and forced drug running across the country.

In federal court, Ukrainian nightclub owner Veniamin Gonikman, who was once on the FBI's Most Wanted List, will be sentenced in March for his role in a smuggling operation that forced eastern European women to work with no pay in Detroit strip clubs. He faces 45 to 51 months in prison.

"Here we are in 2012 —1/8 and there are women and children and men held against their will here in America. I think that's a sobering thought," said Special Agent Brian Moskowitz of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations, which handles international human trafficking cases.

Especially troubling, he added, is the victims' fear that they can't escape.

A housekeeper's story

Nade is one of the victims, but she overcame her fears and escaped in 2009.

She agreed to share her story to help other victims, but still worries for her safety and that of her family. Some details are being withheld to protect her identity, and her real name isn't being used.

The 31-year-old housekeeper from Africa was held captive in Detroit by a Middle Eastern family she says made her work for free, verbally abused her, refused to get her medical help and once threatened to kill her mother.

Nade said she was 26 when a friend told her about a cleaning job in the Middle East. Poor and desperate for work, she applied through an agency and got the job with monthly wages of $150. Against the wishes of her parents and husband, she accepted the position.

"I don't have any job in my country. My family — we don't have any salary to stay in my country," Nade said. "I have to help them."

In late 2007, Nade packed her suitcase — with clothes, some food and a photograph of her parents and husband — and headed for a country in the Middle East.

For 22 months, she lived in a constant state of fear and isolation in a building with many families. She slept in a bathroom and was never allowed to leave the home.

She said her life consisted of cleaning walls, carpets, cooking, washing dishes and caring for children. She rarely slept or ate.

One source of comfort came from talking to other African servants who conversed from the balconies or hung their heads out windows for brief chats. She was allowed to call her parents once a month.

She said she was verbally abused. The woman of the house told her she wasn't smart and didn't have a mind of her own.

Medical help refused

One day, the family told her they were going to Florida for a month-long vacation.

But they ended up in Detroit, which Nade eventually learned was for good. She said they stopped paying her before they left the Middle East, and her workload doubled here when she became the housekeeper for a second family, relatives of her current bosses.

Her captors warned her to never leave the house, she said, telling her Americans were mean and would hurt her.

Within weeks of arriving in the U.S., Nade became very ill. She couldn't sleep. She could barely walk. Her captors refused to get her medical help.

"It was too much," she said. "They don't want to take me to hospital. My body was shaking, and I didn't have any power."

Escaping, she realized, was her only option.

One day in July 2009, while the family was out, Nade found her passport, grabbed a cellphone, and went for the door.

"I prayed to God that I would have the strength to finish this," Nade said.

After escaping the house, she ran for 20 minutes until she arrived at a major retail store. There, she called some people whom she had learned could help her.

A car pulled up, she got inside and called her mother.

"I told her everything was OK," she said. "I'm with nice people now."

Prosecutions rare

Nade ended up in the care of the University of Michigan Law School's Human Trafficking Clinic, the only clinic of its kind in the U.S. devoted solely to helping human trafficking victims.

The 2-year-old clinic, which currently has 30 open cases, got a tip about Nade from a national human trafficking hotline. The clinic staff helped her find a safe place to live in the area and continues to counsel her. Her captors have fled the country.

"Sadly, prosecutions nationwide of domestic servitude cases are rare," said Bridgette Carr, director of the Human Trafficking Clinic. "I am not sure why at the end of the day these traffickers were not arrested before they left the United States."

ICE, which handles international trafficking cases, was unaware of Nade's case.

Nade is now a part-time house cleaner and hopes to one day go to college and become a nurse. She is learning English and enjoys watching Lifetime movies.

The clinic is in the process of bringing her husband, who is a teacher in Africa, to the U.S. to live with her. Returning home is not a safe option for Nade, Carr said.

"You're one of the bravest, strongest people I know," Carr recently told Nade.

The soft-spoken woman responded: "I am very lucky. God made me strong."

Authorities say most human trafficking victims are afraid to speak out and stay in hiding.

"The victims usually have nowhere to turn to, so it's a largely underreported crime," said U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade, who believes awareness is the key to tackling the crime.

So does Amy Allen, a victim witness specialist who works with ICE agents investigating human trafficking.

"I don't think that people realize that slavery is alive and well in the U.S.," Allen said. "And that's what this is. You can nuance it in different terms, but it's slavery."


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