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Ending Slavery

University of California Press

Contents

Photographs follow page 60.Introduction.......................................................................11. The Challenge: Understanding the World of New Slavery...........................52. Building the Plan...............................................................213. Rescuing Slaves Today...........................................................364. Home-Grown Freedom..............................................................615. Governments: Carrying the Biggest Stick.........................................966. Global Problem, Global Reach....................................................1397. Ending the (Product) Chain......................................................1778. Ending Poverty to End Slavery to End Poverty to End Slavery.....................213Conclusion: The Beginning of the End of Slavery....................................229Coda: What YOU Can Do to End Slavery...............................................233Appendix: Measuring the Effectiveness of Antislavery Work..........................237Notes..............................................................................243Index..............................................................................255

Chapter One

Understanding the World of New Slavery

It is just like a fisherman going to fish.... If he don't put out the bait, he can't get a fish. So they tell the parents a lovely story, you know, what [their children] will encounter when they come to the United States. But behold, when they get into the United States the picture is completely different. LOUIS

Louis works for the phone company near Washington, D.C. He also frees slaves. When he got together with family and friends for the Thanksgiving holiday a few years ago, Louis did what everyone does-he got out his video camera. As he recorded the holiday gathering, he noticed something strange: in the large group of family and friends, one teenage girl always tried to hide when he turned on the camera.

And I asked myself, you know, what's wrong with the young lady? At first I asked her, where do you come from? She told me she was visiting from Indiana. That is, she was staying with my cousin there. But something stuck in my mind.

Louis had visited his cousin in Indiana several times and didn't remember ever meeting this young woman. Driving home from the party, he asked his wife what she knew about the girl. His wife had heard that the girl had eloped and was now hiding with their cousin. Yet this seemed a little odd as well, because normally a girl seeking refuge would look first to her own family.

Louis had come to the United States from Cameroon, West Africa, in 1985 and eventually became a U.S. citizen. With a degree in management from an American university, he had a good job and served as an elder in his Presbyterian church. Living in the suburbs in Virginia, Louis and his family were pursuing the middle-class dream of stability and security. By his late forties, Louis had achieved much of his dream. But he found himself deeply unsettled by this strange and troubled girl in the middle of his family's Thanksgiving holiday. Things just weren't adding up, so a few days later he drove over to visit a relative, where the young woman was staying.

And then she began to tell me the story. And I felt so bad about it.... I mean everyone has a human feeling, if you hear a story which is so terrible, you are moved, being human. I began to put down in writing the stories she told me, and probably if you read the whole report that I wrote, you would come to the conclusion that something was really, really wrong.

The more Louis heard, the more sickened he became. There was no elopement in this girl's past. He listened as, confused, isolated, and still in shock, she painfully recounted years of slavery in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Her name was Rose. Back in Cameroon, at the age of fourteen, she had just begun her school's summer vacation when a friend of her aunt stopped by her house. This woman explained that a Cameroonian family in the United States needed someone to help around the house. In exchange, the family would help Rose go to school in America. It sounded like a great opportunity to Rose and to her parents. They talked it over carefully and agreed that she could go right away. Since the summer vacation had just begun, she would have time to settle in before starting school in the United States. Away from her parents, Rose was introduced to the family she would be working for. They bought her air ticket and escorted her through customs and immigration, passing her off as one of their family when they reached the United States. Everything seemed normal until they reached Rose's new home in America. Then the trap closed.

The husband and wife showed Rose the jobs they wanted her to do. Soon the jobs filled her day completely, rapidly taking control of her life. Up at six in the morning, Rose had to work until long past midnight. When she began to question her treatment, the beatings began. "They used to hit me," Rose said. "I couldn't go for three days without them beating me up." The smallest accident would lead to violence. "Sometimes I might spill a drink on the floor by mistake. They would hit me for that," she said. In a strange country, locked up in a strange house far from home, Rose was cut off from help. If she tried to use the phone, she was beaten; if she tried to write a letter, it was taken away from her. "It was just like she was lost in the middle of a forest," said Louis; "she was completely isolated."

Under the complete control of others, subject to physical abuse, paid nothing, working all hours, this fourteen-year-old schoolgirl had become a slave. The promise that she could go to school in America was just the bait used to hook her. In Cameroon her parents received no word from her, only occasional reassuring messages from the family who had enslaved their daughter. The beatings and constant verbal attacks broke Rose's will, and her life dissolved into a blur of pain, exhaustion, work, abuse, and fear. Rose lived in slavery for two and a half years.

Someday we may know the details of what happened in these years, but probably not. Until recently Rose was often nervous and withdrawn, still suffering from the trauma of her enslavement. Demonstrating remarkable resilience, she has moved on to a new life, and it would be understandable if she never wants to revisit that period of unspeakable pain. Her mind has deeply buried her memories. What we do know is that not long after she had turned eighteen, Rose was found trying to talk to a neighbor by the woman who controlled her. Dragging her away, "the woman started yelling at me, started cursing me," Rose explains, "and I couldn't take it anymore. I just had to run away." Later that day she ran to the home of a friend of her "employer." She pleaded for help, but this woman called the family who had enslaved her. When Rose realized the betrayal, she ran again, this time to the parking lot of a nearby K-Mart. Her only hope was a Cameroonian man she had met in her employers' home. He had seemed nice, and she had learned his phone number. Begging change from a stranger to make a phone call, she managed to leave a message for the...