The article has been automatically translated into English by Google Translate from Russian and has not been edited.

Successful American woman told how she was a slave in New York

'05.10.2018'

Source: New York Post

Living in a cramped concrete house in the heart of Liberia's vibrant capital, 8-year-old Famatta Massalai has always dreamed of seeing snow. And one day her mother said that the girl would have such a chance. But for this she will have to “play one game”.

Photo: facebook.com/fmassalay

Mom taught the girl how to spell the name, which was actually fictitious, and tell the authorities that she was ten, not eight years old, tells New York Post. She took her daughter to the Monrovia immigration office to get a visa to the United States.

Soon after, on a sultry January day in 1978, Massalai was about to take off for JFK airport, she was promised an amazing adventure - a chance to see New York, sheltered by a magnificent snow-white whirlwind. The girl was wearing a freshly sewn trouser suit, she got off the plane without a coat and carried a small suitcase on her own. Famatta kissed her parents goodbye and waved to them from the ramp.

“See you tomorrow!” - recalls Massalei his words, saying that she was embarrassed by the tears that flowed down his father's face. She never met her parents again.

Soon after arriving in New York, the girl's exciting journey turned into a waking nightmare. Massalai learned that she had been sold in the modern slave market as a “house girl”. For the next six years, she will be imprisoned in domestic slavery - cooking, cleaning and caring for strangers, with beatings, forced sleep in the bath, and rape. Massalai gave birth to her first child, a child of violence, on her 14th birthday.

Now the woman believes that her parents were deceived: they thought that the girl would be taken to the USA for life in another family, where she would be provided with safety and education, which they could never give her.

It turned out that the other family was part of the trafficking network.

“I remember crying for hours and days, just praying:“ God, take me away. When are you going to come for me? ”The woman confesses.

Now, 40 years later, the dark circles under her eyes are almost impossible to discern. Massalai is one of the brightest stars in the education system in New York City, where it has been operating for 23 years. She has served as a Substance Abuse Consultant and High School Teacher in Brooklyn, and has taught history and English at the East Flatbush Academy for College Preparation and Career Research.

Massalay says he wants to share his story in order to raise awareness of modern slavery. According to the Polaris project, a non-profit organization that uses the national hotline for victims of trafficking with the support of the federal government, about 14,2 million people currently live in forced labor traps around the world.

Massalai also wants to share another, no less important message - hope.

“I constantly tell my students: when you learn something, you have to teach others. You have to pass it on - these are the things that drive our world to develop. "

“In this city there is a child, the same as I was. And this child should know: he does not have to do it. We can give information on how to stop it today. "

According to Massalay, her tragic story began when the director of an elementary school in Monrovia, where her mother Selena worked as a teacher, persuaded a woman to send a girl to America, where she allegedly would live with the director’s relatives and be able to get an education in the United States. Massalay is confident that her mother has become an easy target.

A civil war began in Liberia, and for more than a decade the West African nation will be destroyed by unthinkable atrocities. Father Massalay was a policeman, and his mother a teacher. "These are the ones they come to first."

“My mother's hope was that I could not live my life in despair, which was normal for young women in Liberia at the time,” she says. “The point was that I would come to America, get an education, become a good person with a decent life, and return home.”

But when Massalay got off the plane in Queens, disappointment knocked her off her feet as fast as the prickling air burst under her flimsy jacket. There was snow, but instead of fluffy flakes it was dirty ice mountains. Massalay was met by a relative of the director and taken to a regular house in Flatbush. Initially, the woman seemed safe. But the next day, she discovered that a little girl in a foreign country had wetted the bed, and severely beat her for an innocent mistake.

“She told me right then and there that since I was a leaking pot, I would have to sleep in the bathroom,” says Massalai, who was then already living under a new name, Musa Doherty. - It was the first, but far from the last time, when I felt inhuman treatment. I just felt that I was not human. And I so wanted to go home ... "

This bath would be Massalai's bed for the next few years - and was just the beginning of the violence she endured. An 8-year-old girl was forced to cook, clean and care for the woman's three children - 2-year-old twins and a 9-year-old boy. Massalai was not allowed to go to school and if she did something wrong, she was beaten and sometimes not allowed to eat.

She was later sent to homes in Brooklyn and Queens, where the director’s other relatives lived to work for them. Massalay was thrown from house to house with a pair of her modest things hidden in a garbage bag, continuing to mock physically and emotionally.

Her documents were locked in a drawer, and phone calls are barred. When the girl was about 11 years old, one day she was able to talk to her father. She later found out that her father had put a gun to the head of a female seller and demanded that she call his daughter. The father said he was going to return the daughter. But this did not happen.

In a house in Brooklyn, another victim from Liberia asked Massalai to escape with her. But the girl decided that it would be even worse on the streets - crime and violence flourished there.

“I did not know anyone. I had no friends. I didn't even know the phone numbers. I knew that I needed to get on a plane, but I had no money. I was a kid. ”

Massalay was allowed to attend school after 10 years. She was mercilessly bullied because of the accent, traditional African clothing, she was called out and harassed. In 13 years she was raped by a teenager who lived next door. The girl became pregnant and gave birth on the day of her 14 anniversary.

 

When one of her employers discovered that she was pregnant, the girl was beaten and continued to be insulted. Nobody believed her story of rape. Doctors refused to have an abortion in the second trimester. Then the hostess said that the child would be given up for adoption, and Massalay could remain in the house and serve.

And then Massalay understood that the point of no return had come. She decided to become her own protector, since she had no others. On her 14 birthday, she became the mother of a girl named Christina. Mother and daughter left home and went to the city shelter. This step has changed the life of a young slave.
When Massalay told the story of her life, her intonations were measured, as if she were talking about a bad dream told to her friend. Her emotions manifested themselves only when she remembered how she could talk to her mother. Amnesty International organized a phone call through 15 years after Massalay sold. By that time, her father was already dead.

“The first and last conversation I had with my mother was not my best day. I was 23 years old and I was furious. I said very harsh things. Even when she was crying, I continued to accuse her and demand an answer to the question - how could you sleep at night all these years? "

Mother answered only that she constantly prayed for her. Now, years later, Massalay believes that her parents were good people who were deceived. She never spoke to her mother again. The woman died, and her daughter took years to completely forgive her mother and father.

In 2013, Massalay first traveled to Liberia and went to her parents' graves. In memory of them, she began the project of Jacob and Selena, named after the father and mother, aimed at educating Liberian families about human trafficking and providing them with basic needs so that they would not have to give their children into slavery.

Massalai has received dozens of awards, including as an outstanding teacher and mentor. But she says rewards are not what motivates her to keep acting. This is required by their own memories, still open wounds of a broken family and a lost childhood.

Last year, she had an employee from Nigeria, to whom Massalay told a story. She was surprised: “Why do you call this trade? My family has been doing this for many years. My mother sends girls from Nigeria to the USA and receives money, they help us by cooking and cleaning. ”

Massalay replied: “This is trade. See the definition in the dictionary. You have two higher education. You are a woman. You have been teaching for more than eight years. If you do not know this, then who will know? ".

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