Women Rebuild Lives After Horrors of Human Trafficking
Women rebuild lives after horrors of human trafficking
By Melissa McNally
Catholic News Service
Newark, N.J.
Through the work Catholic Charities' refugee resettlement and human trafficking programs in the Newark archdiocese, a former trafficking victim was reunited with her 9-year-old son July 26 at Newark Liberty International Airport after more than four years of forced separation.
Inspired by this reunion, officials at Catholic Charities are hoping they will be able to report more happy endings soon.
Lucy Magambi came to America in 2003 from Kenya to work for a family in Bergen County, N. J., as a housekeeper and nanny. She left her young son, Brian, behind with the hopes of making a new life for them in the United States.
"They were going to pay me $200 a month. I thought I was going to be rich," she recalled.
However, Magambi was pressed to work ceaselessly, forced into seclusion and physically assaulted. Two years ago, Catholic Charities arranged for her rescue.
Magambi was trapped in the web of human trafficking, a shadowy crime defined as obtaining commercial labor from a person using force, fear or coercion. Those coerced into working against their will typically are immigrants from Latin America, Africa and South Asia who fear being deported. Victims suffer through a lonely, dark, brutal world, intimidated by cruel traffickers, and virtually cut off from society.
The Newark archdiocese's Catholic Charities unit works to uncover these cases, providing victims with food, shelter, access to health care, job placement and legal services. The organization also helps human trafficking victims obtain a T visa, which allows them to stay in the United States while officials pursue the case against their trafficker. The visa was created by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
After earning her T visa, Magambi anxiously awaited her son's arrival. Now married with an 8-month-old daughter, her family is reunited and looking forward to a new life in New Jersey.
"It is rare that the horror story of human trafficking has a happy ending," said Debbie Marulanda, director of the refugee resettlement program.
The refugee resettlement program is handling 58 cases. The group's human trafficking program has 36 cases. Most of the trafficking victims are women from a prostitution raid that took place in Union City in May 2006.
Today, these women have found jobs and Catholic Charities is helping them restart their lives. The traffickers pled guilty and will soon be sentenced for their crimes.
"I admire these women. They went through such a difficult situation
and they are working hard to repair their lives from nothing to
something," Marulanda said.