Modern Day Slavery?

[LSN80]

I know this still occurs around the world, however, the report of such things taking place in the United States are fewer then Im positive occur in comparison.

http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.c...-to-more-than-11-years-for-human-trafficking/

42 year old Bidemi Bello, a native to Nigeria herself, was sentenced to 11 years in prison last week for forcing 2 women also from Nigeria to work in her home, essentially as slaves. On seperate visits to Nigeria, Bello "recruited" 17year-old Laome Oranje to work in her home in 2001, and did the same for 20 year-old Dupe Sherod in 2004. In return for them working for her as nannies and maids, she promised to pay for their college education in full. Instead, according to Laome's court testimony during the trial, Bello did the following instead:

She beat us if the house wasn't clean enough or if we did not respond fast enough to a crying child or if Bello felt they had been disrespectful. She used a large wooden spoon, shoes, electrical cords and even her bare hands. She had a five bedroom home in which she lived alone(other then us). But we were forces to sleep on the couch, and if we had been "bad", the floor. They were not allowed to use the shower or eat the food they cooked. Instead, they were forced to eat that was spoiled or moldy. I threw up on more then one occasion, and she(Bello) made me eat my own vomit.

Bello also brought the women over on false passports, and was in the process of applying for citizenship herself. When word got out that she was being indicted in June 2010, Bello fled the country and didn't re-enter until three months later, where she was arrested at the airport. Along with her two "maids", her best friend and sister also testified against her at her trial. Both noted that they pleaded with Bello to discontinue the torture and allow both women to return to Nigeria, which led to Bello only intensifying the treatment of the women, declaring "I will not live in fear". Upon the intensifying of cruelty and her vow not to stop, her friend and sibling assisted the two women in fleeing Bello's household, and in moving back to Nigeria as well. When Bello was able to locate Laomi back in Nigeria, she kidnapped her and brought her back to Atlanta. Following Bello's sentencing of 11 years in jail(without parole) and deportation back to Nigeria following serving her time, U.S. District Attorney Susan Copperidge, who prosecuted the case, said the following:

"The evidence showed that this was a case of modern-day slavery hidden within an expensive home in an upscale neighborhood. The two women who were abused here thought they were going to be nannies; instead they were treated inhumanely. The laws of the United States protect all victims from such abuse, regardless of where they came from or how they came to be in the United States. We are very pleased with the sentence. I think it fits the facts of the case."

What I personally find myself fearful of is what happens next upon Bello's release and deportation. Despite the please of friends and family, she lived in no fear of jurisprudence, intensifying the abuse of the two young ladies. She smuggled both into the country using her enormous wealth with the promise of a brighter future, when she obviously had no intent of helping them. Further, I have no reason to believe that she brought the women to her home with any other reason then to torture them. She could have easily used her enormous wealth to hire women in the States to be her nannies, yet she chose to illegally import two women into the country instead, where she would have more freedom to abuse someone. From what Ive read, no mention whatsoever was made of this fact, which is sadism at close to its worst. Here, I believe the punishment doesn't fit the crime, as I feel she should have gotten much, much more. I fear for others when she returns to her home nation, and if these actions won't simply occur once again due to her immense wealth.

Does the punishment fit the crime here? If you had control over sentencing, what would you have done?

How would you even begin to recover if you were one of these women whose lives were so callously taken away for 10 and 7 years, respectively?

Do you believe the time in jail will/can change Bello? or will she continue to live "without fear"?

Are you familar with similar stories in your country?

Any other thoughts on this story or the topic in general are welcome.

 

[#hamler]

Does the punishment fit the crime here? If you had control over sentencing, what would you have done?

I actually think it does. 11 years is a long time for anybody. 11 years of shitty meals and not watching Raw every Monday would be enough for me to rethink whatever the fuck I did. I think it's a fair sentence however, I would've gave her a year for every year these two women were held as slaves.

How would you even begin to recover if you were one of these women whose lives were so callously taken away for 10 and 7 years, respectively?
Live life I guess. There's really no way to recover from something like that.

Do you believe the time in jail will/can change Bello? or will she continue to live "without fear"?
I think she will probably always live with the attitude she had. Someone just doesn't wake up one morning and decide to smuggle in some slaves. If she's so wealthy, why couldn't she just pay the girls? I don't understand her mentality at all.

Are you familar with similar stories in your country?
Nope. I was unaware anything like this still happens here.

 

[Dagger Dias]

The punishment does not fit the crime. She was treating them horribly and should be left in jail a lot longer than the sentence she received. These are human beings! We live in a country where everyone has a right to be treated equal and that is far from what happened here. I have no idea on where I would even begin to recover if I was one of those women. Speaking with family and friends is a good place to start, but that is something that someone might never mentally/emotionally recover from. I don't think that time in jail will change Bello because generally that type of person will remain like that for life. I just hope this never happens again. I did not know that things like this were happenign in our country, it adds to my disappointment in how our species acts sometimes.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Does the punishment fit the crime here? If you had control over sentencing, what would you have done?

Sure. I mean, what is the definition of "enough time?" Would 30 years.....or 6 months..... be more fitting? When a person has had their own way their entire lives, I would think 11 years of non-privilege would give them something to think about. The victims are always going to think the sentence given is too short, while a bunch of anarchists will think any prison time is too much.

How would you even begin to recover if you were one of these women whose lives were so callously taken away for 10 and 7 years, respectively?

Whether in the U.S. or Nigeria, the women will go about the business of living the rest of their lives, hopefully with the degree of freedom everyone deserves. In the U.S., we can't imagine what it is to not be free.....and we surely don't appreciate the freedoms we take for granted. In Nigeria, people probably don't enjoy the privileges we do.....they expect less and they get less. This might answer the question as to why Bello's two "nannies" didn't just use the front door to escape the horrible conditions under which they lived. As Americans, we would say: "Why not just run away? Yes, you don't know what awaits you in the outside world, but it has to be better than how you're living now."

My feeling is that this is the thought of a free person, one who can't imagine living any other way than free. For these two Nigerian women, the scope of their lives to that point didn't allow for "free" thinking like that; therefore, they stayed until someone helped them. It's sad......and very difficult for a free person to understand.

Do you believe the time in jail will/can change Bello? or will she continue to live "without fear"?

I doubt she'll have a change of heart; more likely, she'll simmer with resentment against the legal system that "unjustifiably" imprisoned her. But it doesn't matter if she changes, what matters is that the punishment causes her to understand she can't do stuff like this anymore once she's released. If that happens, others will be safe from her tyranny. But it will be the fear of further punishment that brings this about, not because she "changed."

Are you familar with similar stories in your country?

Somewhere, there is always someone ready to inflict their will on someone else; it's part and parcel of the human condition. The degrees of intimidation and methods of torture vary wildly. but when we read of someone who craves power.......we ask: "what is the nature of power? What do they want power over."

The answer, of course, is power over other people: The power to make someone else live the way he/she wants you to live. As long as there are people who exist that way, there will always be more stories like this one.

 

[LSN80]

Does the punishment fit the crime here? If you had control over sentencing, what would you have done?

I believe that it does. As cruel as she was, this wasn't murder, attempted murder, or truly even torture. It was abuse, false imprisonment and falsifying documents. This isn't the case of the fanatics who read Michael Pearl's book and spanked their kids to death, and only got 11 and 16 years apiece themselves. Eleven years away ffrom the priviledges you've enjoyed your entire life and deportation from the country you live in great luxury from is sufficient. She's going to get to spend plenty of time thinking about what she did, and at the least, should avoid further behavior if only to avoid this happening again.

How would you even begin to recover if you were one of these women whose lives were so callously taken away for 10 and 7 years, respectively?

I don't know that one can truly recover from this. The idea of one's life being taken away for so long in the way that it was would cause quite a bit of Post-Traumatic Stress. My hope, if afforded to them back in Nigeria, they would be able to experience and be given the very best therapy and mental health treatment afforded to them. The unequivical support of friends and family, especially through showing love, would be paramount to their recovery. I hope and pray they do.

Do you believe the time in jail will/can change Bello? or will she continue to live "without fear"?

No, the woman is truly a narcissist, as evidenced by her refusal to listen to friends and family and her refusal to "live in fear". Narcissists are virtually incapable of living in fear, and change as well. The only thing one can hope for from this horrifying experience is that the woman learns to adapt in following the "rules" of what it takes to become a functional human being on this earth. So even if all she learns from this is that she's not unfallable and the same standards that apply to you and I belong to her, causing her to fall in line, that's good enough for me.

Are you familar with similar stories in your country?

Im honestly not. I truly thought, in this country, this was a thing of the past for the most part. Im sure it still takes place, as there are always selfish, rich people who will use and exploit others for their own gain, sometimes to inhumane standards such as this. But to hear a story such as this generally caught me off guard, because it snapped me into reality in a sense that these type of events are live and well. But in my 29 years, this is the first story Ive heard of this occurring in the modern day.