Three members of a Pakistani family in Virginia, USA, were given prison terms for 12 years of physical and mental abuse as well as for pushing a Pakistani bride to work.
The Eastern District of Virginia has imposed prison terms of 144 months on Zahida Aman, 80; 120 months on Mohammed Rehan Chaudhry, 48; and 60 months on Mohammad Nauman Chaudhry, 55.
In addition, Zahida and Rehan have been ordered to pay the victim $250,000 in restitution for lost earnings and other financial losses.
After a 7-day trial in May of last year, the three offenders were found guilty, according to the US Justice Department. Zahida was found guilty of document servitude—keeping someone else’s identification—and the jury found them guilty of conspiring to engage in forced labor.
According to Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the defendants blatantly took advantage of the victim’s frailties and cruelly forced her to work by abusing her physically and psychologically.
In 2002, the victim wed Zahida’s son, but the perpetrators kept her at their Virginia home to care for the extended family even after her husband migrated. According to the US Justice Department, the victim was physically and verbally abused while being forced to work as a domestic servant for the family. She was also denied access to her family in Pakistan, her immigration documents and cash were taken, and eventually, the accused family threatened to deport her and take her children away from her.
