Slavery still going on?

On December 17 in Islip New York, a jury convicted a millionaire couple, Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, who is 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, who is 45, of enslaving two Indonesian woman. They brought the two women over to be housekeepers. They were convicted of forced labor, involuntary servitude, and bringing in aliens. The two enslaved women were forced to work 18 hours or more each day and were physically abused. The worked for $100-&150 a month and all the money was sent to their relatives. The odd thing about it is that the wife is also from Indonesia.

One of the women escaped on mother's day and said she was forced to eat chili peppers and when she threw up because she could not take it, she was forced to eat the vomit. She said they were beat with brooms and umbrellas, they were slashed with knives, forced to repeatedly climb stairs, and take freezing cold showers and punishments for things like eating out of the trash due to lack of food.

The couple have four children and operate a worldwide perfume business. If convicted they could face up to 40 years in prison. As the verdict was read, one of their daughters collapsed in the front row. The Sabhnanis' defense attorney said that the two women made up the story. The attorney also said that they practiced witchcraft and that the Sabhanis were always on vacation trips which would leave plenty of time for them to flee. The couple spent nearly three months in jail and are now under house arrest.

Slavery was a huge part of late 1700s and early 1800s. They were used for manual labor and at times beaten. Slavery caused a rift between the North and South which led to the Civil War. It was outlawed by Abraham Lincoln on February 1, 1865 in the 13th Amendment.