Posted by By NWABUEZE OKONKWO, Onitsha on
A young man has demanded payment of his mother's salaries, many years after the woman was tricked into near slavery in the United States of America According to Mr. Emmanuel Okeke
A young man has demanded payment of his mother's salaries, many years after the woman was tricked into near slavery in the United States of America
According to Mr. Emmanuel Okeke, his mother, Mrs. Marthina Okeke, (67) was lured to the United States some 18 years ago, with promises that she would be given a plum job. He said that the woman was later given a house maid job without pay.
The youngman alleged that a governorship aspirant in Imo State in 2003, approached his mother in 1988 and promised to build a house, care for the children's education and send money for the upkeep of the family only if she would join him in US for a better life.
'My mother, because of poverty, agreed and they left for US, leaving us to our fate. As a boy of 12 years, second of three children, I did not hear from her for 18 years." Okeke said that he was in his house recently when one Bonaventure Ezekwenna, a US-based human rights activist came to see him. The man told Okeke that his mother sent to tell him that she was hail and hearty but has left a foster family.
'To buttress his point that he came in good faith, he gave me his handset and I spoke with my mother and she asked me about the family. I told her that Ngozi (daughter) died a hungry girl and that Okey and I were married with children," he said.
Okeke appealed to the Federal Government to cause the politician to set his mother free as well as pay her for 18 years services.
He revealed that effort to meet the politician proved abortive as he moves about with policemen whenever he is in Nigeria.
Meanwhile, Africans in America Foundation, a human right organisation based in USA, has waded into the matter by hiring the services of two American legal firms to assist in recovering the woman's entitlements for all the years she worked for the family as a maid without pay.
The co-ordinator of the foundation, Mr. Bonaventure Ezekwenna, who disclosed this said one of the legal firms is handling the aspect of her salaries and entitlements, while the other is working for her green card, because, according to him, without the green card, the woman cannot move about freely in the streets of America.
He said the foundation is equally handling many cases of similar nature, adding that their overall target is to stamp out or expose international fraud or human trafficking from the surface of the earth.