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Modern Day Slave

Eleven year-old Given Kapecha thought he was coming to America from Zambia to earn money for his struggling family. Instead, he became a child slave.

Matthew Fleischer

Slavery is once again alive in United States. Despite the passage of passive language strict anti-trafficking laws in the year 2000, an estimated 17,000 people are trafficked into human bondage each year in America. Although there are no official records, New York is believed to be among the most common destinations for the new American slave trade. Last year the second largest trafficking ring in the history of the nation was caught operating out of Long Island.

Not all those trafficked through New York end up staying however. New York was just one of countless other cities Given Kapecha saw in the course of his two year ordeal.

From Poverty to Slavery

Given Kachepa thought he was coming to America from Africa to earn money for his struggling family. Instead he became a slave.

Kachepa was born the second youngest of six children in the small town of Kalingalinga in Zambia. His mother died when he was seven, and he was orphaned at the age of nine. Poverty stricken and with no direction, he turned to his church for guidance. It was there he met Keith Grimes, a white Baptist minister from Texas who had worked with the church for a number of years along with his organization TTT: Partners in Education.

Grimes was in the midst of recruiting boys for an a capella singing group to tour the United States. It was the third such group that Grimes had formed from Kalingalinga and Kachepa was intrigued by the prospect of joining. Those who were accepted were promised a trip to America where they would live expense free for two years, attend school, travel the country with the group and earn money for their families and to build schools back in Kalingalinga.

“To me, it sounded like heaven,” said Kachepa. “It was a chance to visit America and to help my brothers and sisters.”

Yet there were warning signs. The previous two groups Grimes organized had both returned back to Kalingalinga in disgrace. Grimes told the entire village that the boys had misbehaved and ruined the tour. “To waste such an opportunity was too much to forgive,” said Kachepa. “Many of their families abandoned them.”

Despite the boys’ insistence that they were abused and not paid for their efforts, most in the village did not believe them. Though the returned boys tried to convince him not to trust Grimes, Kachepa’s enthusiasm outweighed his concern. “I saw it with the other boys but I just didn’t want to believe it.”

After practicing for two years Kachepa beat out 65 other boys for a coveted spot on the choir.

Constant Mindgames

In May of 1998, 11 years old and speaking almost no English, Kachepa boarded a plane with 11 other boys bound for Texas. It did not take him long to figure out that something was wrong. “All of Grimes’ promises looked good on paper,” Kachepa said, “but that’s not the way it all worked.”

Once in America, the boys were immediately sent on a grueling touring schedule, performing four to six concerts a day, often with no food or rest in between shows. “We’d sometimes drive for 16 hours only to be told, ‘sorry guys, we’re running late. You’re not going to eat today.’ But if you are a singer you need that food for energy.”

On one particularly grueling day after his seventh hour-long concert, Kachepa found himself too physically and emotionally drained to continue singing and took a seat near the stage. Grimes saw his resting, picked him up by the collar and said “You get up and sing boy or you’re going home.”

Worse still the boys were never paid, money was never sent to Kalingalinga and despite TTT’s motto, “Education is the first step toward tomorrow’s opportunity,” they were never sent to school. The boys were given one set of clothes and any gifts they received from admiring concert-goers were immediately confiscated by Grimes. All profits went straight to the TTT ministries and to Grimes himself. Any complaints from the boys were met with the swift threat of a return to Kalingalinga under same banner of shame the other groups were submitted to.

“It was constant mindgames,” said Kachepa.

Legal Activity

To save money on the road TTT used local churches to recruit host families to house the boys while they were on tour. Sandy Shepherd was one such host. Her local church in Colleyville, Texas had dealt with TTT for a number of years and she had met Grimes personally enough times to be convinced he was a man of his word.

After the boys’ third or fourth stay, however, Shepherd began to realize that something was wrong. The boys always wore the same clothes, and some of them appeared sick. “Though the boys were scared of being sent home, by that point there was enough trust that they began to tell me what was going on,” she said.

Shepherd found out that despite Grimes’ claims the boys were not in school, they were not being paid and they were not being given adequate health care. One boy, she found out, had been diagnosed with active TB while touring in Louisiana. If his host family at the time had not brought him to the hospital he might have never received treatment.

She confronted Grimes about the state of the boys, but was told to mind her own business. She then called other host families around the country to see if they shared her understanding of the situation. What she found out disturbed her profoundly.

“Various host families called the police to tell them to check on the boys,” said Shepherd “but since none of them had any visible marks or bruises, there was nothing they could do.”

Indeed, the most confounding thing about Kachepa’s ordeal was that at the time, none of it technically violated United States law. The only infraction officials could enforce was that the boys were not paid for their concerts. TTT circumvented this law by allotting the boys a $600 monthly salary, of which they withheld all but $40 for room, board and expenses. Despite working the boys upwards of 40 hours a week and failing to put them in school, there was no immediate recourse against TTT.

Salvation

After more than a year of touring, Frank Grimes died of a brain tumor. Kachepa and the boys hoped that with the death of their brutal taskmaster things would improve. Instead, Grimes’ daughter Barbara Grimes Martens and her husband Gary Martens took control of TTT and the tour resumed just as before.

Then one day, on a rare off day at the TTT home base in Sherman, Texas, the boys got into a dispute with Barbara Martens. True to her father’s threats, she called the INS came and they took two of the boys away in handcuffs. Several days later the INS came back to take two more boys away, including Kachepa’s cousin. The remaining boys were despondent. Their worst nightmare had come true. It seemed like they would be trapped by TTT forever.

Unknown to Kachepa and the others was that the INS didn’t deport their friends. On the ride to INS headquarters the boys told their story to the INS agent. He was shocked by what he heard and decided to take up their case. Six months later, he returned and liberated Kachepa and the remaining boys, ending their two year ordeal. Kachepa was only 13 years old.

Alone and unsponsored in America, the boys were still at risk of deportation back to Zambia.However, when Shepherd heard the predicament the boys were in she personally took all of them into her home until families could be found for each one. Kachepa ended up staying the longest with her and eventually she and her husband agreed to adopt him. “The way it evolved I began to feel like I had three natural daughters and God blessed me with a son,” she said.

Slavery in America

While Kachepa’s story may have a happy ending, he is among the few to escape the shackles of modern slavery. Though the state department suspects upwards of 100,000 people may be enslaved in America, only 775 cases have been confirmed since records began being kept in 2000 with the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

“It's the fastest growing crime problem in the States," says Melanie Siben, founder of Media 4 Humanity, a New York based non-profit trying to increase awareness of human trafficking, “and most Americans are unaware it exists.”

Unfortunately, neither are most victims aware how they can help themselves. Though the Trafficking act created an entirely new visa, called the T-visa, to help victims of trafficking live normal lives in America, only a fraction of the 5,000 made available annually are ever used. Kachepa is one of several hundred to have ever received one. He is trying to change that.

Now a freshman at Steven F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, Kachepa is using his ordeal to help spread the word about trafficking. His efforts have been getting attention. He was the recipient of a 2005 Yoshiyama Award for outstanding community service. More importantly however, he is helping to spark a national debate about the problem of trafficking.

“What happened was really difficult for me to talk about, but I have to tell my story to try and help others.”