Feds charge 3 south suburban family members with child labor trafficking

An African national and two of her daughters are accused of taking two undocumented West African girls to the United States under false pretenses and forcing them to work in the south suburbs under threat of serious harm.

The three women, all residents of the south suburbs, were indicted last month and arraigned in U.S. District Court this week. All three pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to harbor aliens, harboring aliens for private financial gain and forced labor.

The trafficking scheme dates back to 2014, when Nawomi Awoga, 71, a citizen of Benin and resident of Hazel Crest, brought two girls, ages 12 and 14, from Benin to the U.S. on falsified six-month tourist visas, prosecutors alleged.

The girls, who had left their families to live with Awoga in Benin three months before coming to the U.S., were coached by her to lie to U.S. Customs officials about their family relationships and names in order to obtain visas, according to prosecutors.

The children traveled to the U.S. with Awoga and two unnamed co-conspirators posing as their parents on Sept. 24, 2014, and spent their first couple months in the country living with Awoga’s daughter, Marina Oke, in Country Club Hills, according to the indictment.

In November of that year, the younger girl moved in with another of Awoga’s daughters, Assiba Lea Fandohan, in Hazel Crest, prosecutors said.

Both girls remained in the country past the expiration of their visas on March 23, 2015, and were forced to work for the three women or face serious harm or the threat of serious harm, according to the indictment.

Oke, 34, forced the older girl to work

from September 2014 to August 2017 by telling her that if she did not perform labor and services she or another person would suffer serious harm, prosecutors said.

Awoga and Fandohan, 31, are accused of making similar threats to induce the younger child to work between October 2014 and Sept. 6, 2016, according to prosecutors.

It’s not clear from the indictment where the children were working, but one of the places Oke is alleged to have harbored the older child is at an unnamed business in Homewood.

According to Illinois Secretary of State records, Oke, who also goes by Marina Fandohan, owns a hair salon in Homewood called Dede’s African Hair Braiding.

A woman who answered the salon’s phone Wednesday hung up on a reporter when asked about Oke’s arrest.

The indictment does not specify how federal officials became aware of the women’s alleged trafficking scheme, but does say that once Awoga and her daughters realized the feds were on to them in August 2017, they began shuttling the older girl between the homes of third parties for the next 14 months.

The current whereabouts of the alleged trafficking victims was not immediately clear. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.