Tanzania : Harrow woman convicted of keeping Tanzanian as slave

MsInterpret

Well-Known Member
REGISTERED MEMBER
Apr 21, 2007
8,971
5,594
Harrow woman convicted of keeping Tanzanian as slave
BBC

A former hospital director has been ordered to pay £25,000 to an African woman she kept as a slave in London.

Mwanahamisi Mruke, 47, was flown from Tanzania in 2006 and made to work 18-hour days for Saeeda Khan, 68, at her home in Harrow, north-west London.

Khan was convicted of trafficking a person into the UK for exploitation.

The judge at Southwark Crown Court, who also gave her a suspended nine-month prison term, said she was guilty of "the most appalling greed".

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said Khan had told "a pack of lies" during her trial by saying her victim, whom he described as "naive and illiterate", was treated as part of the family.

Sentencing her he said: "Your own behaviour was callous and greedy.


Saeeda Khan ordered Mwanahamisi Mruke around by ringing a bell
"You could easily have afforded to pay her a reasonable sum by way of wages. You chose to give her virtually nothing."

He told Khan that her age, the fact she has two adult disabled children and was in poor health had prevented him from passing an immediate custodial sentence.

During the trial jurors heard Miss Mruke was denied her passport and liberty and endured the ordeal to support her daughter through college in Africa.

Ms Mruke said she could "never forgive" her captor for her four-year ordeal.

"I felt like a fool, I was treated like a slave," Ms Mruke said.

After bringing her into the country from Tanzania, Khan initially gave her an allowance of £10 a month to work around the clock at her beck and call, the court heard.

READ MORE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12710481
 
The sad and bizzare thing about this is that no one is speaking out about this atrociy that has been going on for some time




Monday, 13 August 2007



Brought into the country under false identities and tricked into leaving their families with the promise of an education and a better future, hundreds of African children are being trafficked into the UK for a life of servitude, according to human rights campaigners.


NGOs and human rights lawyers have sounded the alarm over the "invisible children", illegally smuggled into Britain using false visas and documents.

Dragan Nastic, Unicef UK's policy and parliamentary officer, said: "The first recognised case of child trafficking in the UK was a Nigerian girl more than 10 years ago in 1995. Here we are in 2007 and there have been no prosecutions made in cases of children trafficked into domestic labour from Africa. Not one."

Since 2003, 62 cases of child trafficking have been prosecuted, and there are 59 pending. The police do not break the statistics down in terms of ethnicity, but experts confirm that no prosecution has ever been made relating to African children.

Recent studies suggest that hundreds of children are brought over from African countries, such as Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda, by highly organised traffickers.

Nigeria is believed to be the main source country on the continent, where destitute families are either paid for their children or persuaded to give them away believing that they will receive an education and a better life in the UK.

On arrival, children as young as 10 are kept undercover from British society and forced to work as domestic slaves or prostitutes. Behind closed and often locked doors, they work long days for no money, are kept from school and beaten if the work is not done.

Debbie Ariyo, director of Afruca (Africans Unite Against Child Abuse), said: "It's a scandal nobody has been convicted when we know so many people who have been trafficked and have lost their childhood.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-invisible-army-of-african-slaves-461374.html
 
18 March 2011 Last updated at 13:15 ET
Pastor jailed for trafficking African child 'slaves'

5174134501februarygcade.jpg


Lucy Adeniji was jailed after trafficking children for use as domestic servants (credit: Glenn Copus)

A church pastor has been jailed for 11 and a half years after being found guilty of trafficking children into the UK for use as domestic "slaves" at her home in Barking, east London.

Lucy Adeniji brought two children and a 21-year-old woman to the UK from Africa illegally and used them as servants.

She was convicted of 17 different counts at Isleworth Crown Court.

The mother-of-five is the first person to be jailed for trafficking children into the UK for domestic servitude.

In a case that has been likened to modern-day slavery, Adeniji smuggled the three victims into Britain on false passports, and used them as servants at her home in Ray Gardens, Barking.

An illegal immigrant herself, Adeniji, 44 - originally from Nigeria - had told the victims' parents they would have a better life in the UK, but instead viciously beat them if they failed to please her.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12789690
 
Tales of slavery in modern London
Post categories: News
Kurt Barling | 12:52 UK time, Friday, 18 March 2011

...Some years ago on BBC London I broadcast the story of Tunde Jaji, raised in domestic servitude in north London and then abandoned to his identity paper-less fate when he rebelled against his condition.

I managed to secure proof he had been in London for more than 14 years and he went on to get his status regularised and a good degree from University. He is now settled.

At around the same time I met a group of seven women in similar circumstances who all agreed to speak to me after consulting with their lawyer. For legal reasons I am only now able to tell their story four years on.

One of their biggest frustrations has been getting the authorities to believe their stories of domestic servitude and to act upon their allegations.

So while the perpetrators of these acts of inhumanity go about their business freely, their victims count the cost in psychological as well as welfare terms....

...Part of the problem, it would seem, is reluctance by the authorities to intervene and question families when they are seeking to rely on the testimony of a child over an adult.

In the cases of the women I met in 2007, including Jenny, nearly all approached the police to complain, once they had left the homes where they had acted as domestic servants for years, to be met by a wall of disbelief.

Debbie Ariyo runs a lottery-funded charity, Africans Unite Against Child Abuse (AFRUCA). She believes that many of the perpetrators of this type of crime deceive the authorities by claiming that the children are related in some way or even that their way of raising "privately fostered" children is culturally specific.

Practitioners, she points out, need to listen first to the child, then investigate and conclude before dismissing serious allegations as the figment of a child's over fertile imagination.

This was the kind of grave failing that led to the murder of Victoria Climbie by her great aunt back in 1999. ....


...http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/kurtbarling/2011/03/tales_of_slavery_in_modern_lon.html
 

Donate

Support destee.com, the oldest, most respectful, online black community in the world - PayPal or CashApp

Latest profile posts

HODEE wrote on Etophil's profile.
Welcome to Destee
@Etophil
Destee wrote on SleezyBigSlim's profile.
Hi @SleezyBigSlim ... Welcome Welcome Welcome ... :flowers: ... please make yourself at home ... :swings:
Back
Top