Human Trafficking: United States Vs. Theresa Mubang

Culled from USDOJ Anti-Trafficking Bulletin, 2(2), August 2005, p. 2.

In November 2004, a federal jury in Greenbelt, Maryland,convicted Theresa Mubang of holding Evelyn Chumbow, a young woman originally from Cameroon, West Africa, in involuntary servitude and of harboring her for commercial gain. The evidence revealed that Mubang had convinced Chum-bow’s relatives to send the eleven-year old Chumbow from Cameroon to the United States with Mubang. Mubang assured Chumbow’s family that she would care for Chumbow as her own daughter, sending her to American schools and giving her the opportunities of an American life.

Instead, once they arrived in the United States, Mubang forced Chumbow to cook, clean, and care for Mubang’s two young children twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Mubang forced Chumbow to perform these duties by cutting Chumbow off from family and friends and by mentally and physically abusing the young Chumbow, beating with her fists, high-heeled shoes, cable cords, and metal broom handles. Almost two years after arriving in the United States, Chumbow escaped Mubang’s home when Mubang was out of town.

In an exhaustive investigation that eventually led them to Cameroon, federal ICE investigators learned that Chumbow was not the only victim of Mubang’s scheme to secure free labor. Before Chumbow arrived in the United States, Mubang lured ten-year old Cecilia Nkolo to the United States under the same guise. Once neighbors informed local authorities that the precocious Nkolo was staying home from school to care for a young child, Mubang shipped Nkolo back to Cameroon,later replacing her with the more reserved Chumbow. After Chumbow ran away, Mubang smuggled in another young woman from Cameroon to take over the work, until she, too, ran away.

Following Mubang’s conviction, the district judge -over the government’s objection -- released Mubang to home detention pending sentencing. Shortly before sentencing, however, Mubang escaped and fled the United States, leaving her two children in the care of her mentally handicapped brother. Mubang was then sentenced in absentia to seventeen and half years of prison and ordered to pay the now 18-year-old Chumbow $100,000 in restitution. Soon after Mubang’s escape, federal investigators learned that she had returned to her hometown of Bamenda, Cameroon. In a joint effort between the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Department of State investigators, Cameroonian members of Interpol,and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents, Mubang was arrested in Bamenda in the early morning hours of May 26, 2005. She was expelled from Cameroon and flown back to the United States on May 28, 2005 to begin serving her lengthy prison term.

Additionally, prior to the involuntary servitude trial, Mubang had spent time in prison for committing the largest Medicare fraud scam in the state of Virginia. By fleeing the United States, Mubang violated the terms of her supervised release for that prior crime. When she was returned to the United States, Mubang was sentenced in the Eastern District of Virginia to an additional six months imprisonment, thereby receiving a total prison sentence of eighteen years.

Click here to read about the case of Joseph and Evelyn Djoumessi in Farmington Hills, Michigan

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Comments

[Thomas Jing]

What are you referring to as "African culture" here? People should not hide behind this label to foster some of the most selfish and irresponsible practice. In a strictly traditional African context, relatives admitted to a household are treated exactly like children of the house. My father was a blacksmith, and that is as close as it gets when talking about traditional Africa, and I grew up in the midst of relatives, my cousins. My father sent all of them to school and those who admired his profession were trained and equipped by him. He did all these things cheerfully and most of those he assisted came back to express gratitude. This attitude has nothing to do with parvenus who smuggle in poor relatives and treat them like dirt. To call that "African culture" is an insult, an expression of ignorance about what is means to be African. Of course Mobutu and Biya are all Africans! But what manner of an African? After all is a flea not an animal! Africa is about sharing, giving, nobility and honesty. I do no see these qualities in the so-called "African leaders." I saw them in my father who did not even go to school. I saw them in our neighbors who were not even Christians.
Thomas Jing