Prosecutors: Minn. nanny was enslaved

A Chinese woman has been charged with beating and starving a woman she brought from Shanghai to work as her nanny in Minnesota, and holding her in a state of "slavery or indentured servitude", according to prosecutors, is in jail awaiting a court appearance set for next month.

Lili Huang, 35 of Woodbury, was charged on July 15 with five human labor trafficking felony counts for assaulting her nanny. She was given two bail options: $1 million without conditions, or $350,000 with conditions that include ankle monitoring. She is scheduled to appear in court on Aug 18.

Huang was charged with labor trafficking, seizing passport with intent to violate labor trafficking, false imprisonment, assault with a dangerous weapon, and assault causing substantial bodily harm, according to the Washington County Attorney's Office.

The 58-year-old nanny was working in "indentured servitude" conditions, according to prosecutors. Her identity has not been disclosed by officials.

She was found last Thursday night on a street after she escaped the house where she had been working since March. She had two black eyes, a broken sternum and multiple broken ribs, and fled the house in search of an airport so she could return home, she told police.

She said that she had been hired as a nanny in Shanghai to work for Huang's family, and moved with the family when they relocated to Woodbury. She had been promised $890 a month, but was forced to work 18-hour days taking care of two children, cooking and cleaning, the attorney's office said.

She was assaulted by Huang, often in front of the children, according to a statement from the attorney's office.

When she told her employer she wanted to return to China, Huang took her passport and told her she was "not going anywhere."

On July 4, Huang grabbed the nanny's hair and bashed her head into a table and by the following week, she was "so disabled by the beatings that she could not get up off her hands and knees for four hours." Huang also withheld food from the nanny, who has lost more than 30 pounds.

The complaint said that police from four cities and US Department of Homeland Security agents searched Huang's home .

Prosecuting attorney Pete Orput said that human labor trafficking "is a crime that no one can believe exists in their community.

"However, it is here, it is being committed by some of our citizens, and it amounts to nothing less than slavery in the 21st century."

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com