Shyima Hall is Child Maid Trafficking
Shyima hall was brought to America as the child maid of a wealthy Egyptian family. The practice of bringing African children to America and Europe as child slaves is more common than any of us want to think. Read about it below and see photos of Shyima.
Shyima Hall
Shyima Hall is one of the more fortunate of the children from poor villages in Egypt who are traded to work for wealthy couples. In the same way that livestock is traded, so are the children of Africa. African children are still sold into slavery, usually by their parents to wealthy African couples who take the children to be their servants. Girls as young as 3 years old are sold off into a life of slavery.
Tens of thousands of children in Africa, some as young as 3, are recruited every year to work as domestic servants. They are on call 24 hours a day and are often beaten if they make a mistake. Children are in demand because they earn less than adults and are less likely to complain. In just one city — Casablanca — a 2001 survey by the Moroccan government found more than 15,000 girls under 15 working as maids.
The U.S. State Department found that over the past year, children have been trafficked to work as servants in at least 33 of Africa’s 53 countries. Children from at least 10 African countries were sent as maids to the U.S. and Europe. But the problem is so well hidden that authorities — including the U.N., Interpol and the State Department — have no idea how many child maids now work in the West.
Shyima was 10-years-old when her parents sent her to live with a wealthy couple for the $45 per month that she was paid to do all their housework, laundry, cleaning and child care. She was made to sleep in a windowless room in the garage, not allowed to wash her clothes with the family’s clothes and called the Arabic words for ’slave’ and ’stupid’. She didn’t attend school and was kept out of sight. She worked day in and day out.
The impoverished parents usually trade the children in exchange for their wages as well as in hopes that the child will have a better life. By Egypitan standards, the girls live a better life, even if they are living in a dark garage and even if they are beaten. Its considered normal and better than the lives they left in their home villiages. Therefore, these cases are rarely, if ever, prosecuted. Especially if the family takes the child to Western countries. It is generally accepted that the wealthy family is a benefactor of the child and by taking them to Western countries, they are providing the child with opportunities she would never otherwise have. When the wealthy African families are prosecuted in Western countries, the biological families have been known to testify on behalf of the families. They view these arrangements as the best thing for their child.
For Shyima, that seems to have been the case. She’s one of the few lucky ones. After the family took Shyima to California someone called social services anonymously to report they had seen a child working in the house all hours of the night and day. In April of 2002, the case was investigated and Shyima was eventually taken out of the home. After a series of foster homes she was adopted by Chuck and Jenny Hall of Beaumont, California and she has gradually become a ‘normal’ American teenager. Now, at 19, she has a MySpace page, chores she has to do, goes to Disneyland, gets an attitude, finished high school and has a boyfriend.
Meanwhile, the Ibrahims, the Egyptian family that enslaved her were tried and ended up pleading guilty. They had to pay her $76,000 which was what she would have earned in minimum wages over the years she was with them. I personally think they should have had to pay much more than that. They both served prison sentences for child trafficking and were deported back to Egypt.
They are back in their home country where having a child slave is not prosecuted. Do any of us think they won’t continue the lifestyle they have been accustomed to and that their culture doesn’t frown upon as ours does? I doubt it.
Shyima Hall – Photos
December 29th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
The nerve! Just look at history and see how White people enslaved and tortured people and to this day many do not feel anything was wrong with it. Go read some history on what really took place as the whites brought Africans to America. Now they want to throw people in prison for having maids?;when the type of slavery they forced on innocent Africans was the most inhumane ever!
This American mindframe is backwards. Suddenly white people are judging what is right and wrong when it comes to slavery…culture?
mmmm, Ok buddy.
First of all, what these people in the story were doing is cultural. Even though it was illegal by our laws here, it was not intended on being malicious and evil.
Whereas, the slavery and brutality the whites oppressed Africans with was intended to be harsh, brutal, murderous, and evil in every way. No comparison.
They give prison time to the family’s that hired the girl as a maid (which is a normal cultural way of life in their country). Yet what punishments whites get for REAL atrocities? Nothing!
That family had to pay her 75,000 for 2 years of maid work? What type of reparations have Africans received for 400 years of slavery?
So, Im sorry if I can’t respect the prosecutors in this case. I’m happy the girl is able to live a life alligned with the culture of America, since she is living IN America. That part I’m happy about. But the white people who are supposedly sooooo against such injustices! Get out of here! Trying to imprison people…and if you asked those prosecutors would they put their grandfathers and grandmothers in prison who had Black maids all during the 50’s and 60’s…treating them as 2nd class citizens….(just look at our older movies. It was a normal thing.) Do they even look at that as an injustice? They would say, oh no…my grandparents were being gracious to hire them. (same thing the Egyptians said, about their own hiring of maids right?)
December 29th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
This story is just one of many that should help us see through multiculturalism. We need to embrace culturism instead.
Multiculturalism says we should “celebrate diversity.” They have a very shallow understanding of diversity. In other cultures there are no women’s rights, people enslave children and kill gays. If multiculturalists deny these are good, they are culturists. This is good, they are no longer blind worshippers at the alter of diversity.
Multiculturalism has denied that we have a core culture. We do. We believe in rights and the dignity of the individual. When you encourage immigration from strange lands you get strange customs. If you do not have the gumption to teach and back up your customs, they do not diminish.
Worse than this, some cultures not only violate our culture, they hate it. We are importing the horrors that it took us eons to evolve out of. This includes Jihadis who remember the 1300 year plus battle between Islam and the West.
Sorry to rant, but this article really points out that some people do not take western values to be the norm. We have a culture and we must protect it. Like all other nations, the West must be culturist.
http://www.culturism.us
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:39 am
[...] read this story first at Hot Air, and when researching this, I also found that Beth at Blue Star Chronicles has posted this. But I also found that ABC News covered her story in 2007, as did Foreign Policy [...]
January 9th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Thatzlife,
Sorry but you rant and rave about slavery and rights. Yes the white did have slaves brought from Africa. But who sold them the slaves? Other Africans did.
It was the “whites” who outlawed slavery in the USA and people from many backgrounds who went to war and died for the rights and laws we enjoy today. We have laws to protect people, regardless of race, religion, sex or origin in this country. While it may be legal in other countries to have slaves, this family broke the law by doing it here in the USA. I am glad they got punished and deported. How do you thing you would be treated in Egypt if you broke their laws?
I am soooooo sick of “gimme gimme gimme because my great ancestor was a slave”. Shyima Hall was a slave and SHE got restitution, lets hope her great great grand children don’t wave a flag and ask for more restitution!
I think it despicable that one human own another. This was a wealthy family who could have easily afforded legal servants. But I can think that way because by the grace of god, or whichever almighty power you want to believe in, I was born as an American Citizen!
God Bless American!