Pakistani family jailed in US for keeping daughter-in-law as a slave for 12 years
US federal authorities, has described the case as “modern-day slavery”, adding that the victim had married into the family.
A Pakistani family has been jailed in the US for keeping their daughter-in-law as a slave for 12 years!
As reported, a federal court in the US state of Virginia has sentenced three members of a Pakistani-American family for torturing their daughter-in-law and compelling her to serve family members as a servant for 12 years.
The US Justice Department in a statement issued on Jan 24, said that Zahida Aman, 80, was sentenced to 12 years; Mohammed Rehan Chaudhri, 48, to 10 years; and Mohammad Nauman Chaudhri, 55, to five years in a federal prison in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Furthermore, the court in Richmond, Virginia, where the defendants and the victim lived, ordered Aman and Rehan Chaudhri to pay the victim around $250,000 in restitution for back wages and other financial losses the victim incurred because of the defendant’s criminal conduct.
According to court documents, in 2002, the victim married Aman’s son and the brother of defendants Nauman and Rehan Chaudhri. And she lived in their home thereafter.
Over the period of 12 years, the three defendants forced her to perform domestic services.
To coerce that labour, the defendants verbally assaulted and physically abused the victim. The defendants slapped, kicked, and pushed the victim, even beat her with a wooden board, and, on one occasion, hog-tied her hands and feet and dragged her down the stairs in front of her children, court documents revealed.
It emerges that the victim had temporary immigration status in the United States, and Aman took away her immigration documents. Thereafter, the victim was threatened by the defendants with deportation, if she didn’t obey their demands.
Furthermore, the defendants also threatened to separate the victim from her children.
After holding a seven-day trial in May 2022, the jury convicted all defendants of conspiracy to commit forced labour, convicted two of the defendants of forced labour, and convicted Aman of document servitude.
Jessica D. Aber, US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and Stanley M. Meador, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Richmond Field Office, made the announcement after sentencing by US District Judge John A. Gibney.
