A Southlake Couple Showed Slavery Is Alive and Well. A Court Showed What We Can Do About It.

It's understandable why so much attention has been paid to combating sex trafficking in Dallas and around the country. The nightmare that has enslaved thousands of people, mostly women and teenage girls, is a human crisis that has mired them in a life of violence and terror from which they struggle to recover.But there's another form of modern-day slavery that's just as horrific that we shouldn't overlook: Experts tell us that more millions of people are also forced into slave labor around the world.The International Labour Organization reports 16 million are enslaved by force, fraud or coercion into industries such as agriculture, and manufacturing, food service and domestic servitude. In Texas, the attorney general's office estimates more than 230,000 people are victims of labor trafficking at any given time in this state alone.We were reminded of that horror by the heartbreaking case of Djena Diallo of Guinea who was brought to Texas 18 years ago by a Southlake couple and forced to cook, clean and serve as a nanny without pay. Diallo testified that she was isolated from her family members, emotionally and physically abused and not allowed to go to school. She escaped in 2016 with the help of her former neighbors.A federal jury recently convicted Mohamed Toure and Denise Florence Cros-Toure of forced labor and harboring an alien for financial gain. And each is now facing up to 20 years in prison.  Continue reading...