Modern slavery .. After ten years of exploitation I forgot the faces of my children and I cried

A trial on modern slavery opened in Nanterre, France, a year after Burundi's 39-year-old Metod Sindgaya was ousted from a ward where he worked for a Burundian family, serving 10 years without seeing his family.

The Burundian employer, a former UNESCO diplomat and minister in Burundi, appeared with his wife, who says she is a princess, before the Nanterre court on 9 September on charges of "subjecting their servant to forced labor and service" and placing him in "working conditions," L'Onville Observateur said. Or a residence incompatible with human dignity. "

The writer, Emily Broz, who spoke with Sindgaya, said the proceedings began after Sindgaya was liberated by the police, who came in three trucks and broke the door of the lavish wing of his Burundian employers, Mr and Mrs Mbuzagara, and were arrested and held in custody.

The police found Sindgaya in the basement busy in the early morning hours of ironing clothes. He explained that he had been serving at Mpuzagara, 78, and his wife, 74, 10 years ago without leave.

The skinny man said he felt "enormous joy that burst inside" that day, pointing out that his bondage journey began when the Mpunzagara family proposed in 2008 to take care of their disabled son for three months for 300,000 Burundian francs, equivalent to 150 euros.

The journey of doom

Sindgaya agreed, and arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport after Gabriel Mpuzagara gave him a passport, a visa and air tickets, hence the nightmare began.

Sindgaya explained how he spent 19 hours a day at work, preparing breakfast and then lunch and dinner, as well as cleaning the disabled son, which is bigger and stronger than him, washing the car and garden care and taking out garbage, cleaning and maintenance.

"I wake up at six in the morning and I don't rest until one in the morning," says Sindgaya. "They're telling me when I'm tired," You have to work. What is this - according to the writer - insults that are directed at him from time to time, for example, they say to him, "Why do you say hello to the guests?

He also says that the French-Burundian couple were Protestant Tutsis, that they prevented him from going to the Catholic Church, and said that they were calling him "the devil" because he was praying in the basement using Radio Notre Dame.

The writer said Sindgaya, a Hutu, was sleeping in the basement on a mattress attached to a gasoline-fired kettle that emits gases and vapors, noting that the photographs taken by the police during the presentation of the search, showed the room where he sleeps crowded as an unhealthy working room and without heating, He also ate the leftovers, making his weight fall to only 40 kg.

"They stole my life for 10 years," Sindgaya told his lawyer a few days before the trial, adding, "I cried a lot. When I called my family, I didn't tell them because I was an observer. My two children, who I left in their third and first year, asked me why not." You come? You don't like us. "

The couple refute
In court, the couple challenged the accusations against them and claimed that Sindhgaya was living with them as a man just like them.He protested that he was going out with the father for sports, and presented vouchers that he received a modest salary anyway, but the lawyer described them as not in their heart's mercy.

"It was not humane to throw him out on the street ... I was a victim of my desire to protect Sindgaya," the defendant says in defense of himself. "Not to go was his mistake ... He was free like the air, he was an adult and knew how to behave." .

The author said that the Sindgaya family had already received regular payments, albeit very cheap and not considered a salary, noting that the total they received was about 2,825 euros in 10 years, in addition to a piece of land for the construction of a house worth three million Burundian francs (1,400). euro).

Unknowns send them care
The writer said that Sindgaya owes his release from the nightmare he experienced during these ten years to wake up some unknown people, especially those Burkina living in front of the wing of Mpozagara, and noticed the presence of a man who seems cautious and frightened.

Knowing the hell that Burundi lived with her sister after serving four years in the wings of the couple, who were sentenced for exploiting the sisters prior to Sindgaya's arrival in France, she called a retired Frenchman and told him what she saw.In turn, the man went to the police station in January 2018 to report what he knew. .

Faced with police inaction, the pensioner took the initiative with the help of a private detective colleague, who had been trying to reach Sindgaya for days.The Burkinabe told them that he went out three times a week in the evening to throw garbage, and every Sunday morning to open the gate for the couple driving to the Protestant church.

Indeed, we were finally able to talk to Sindgaya for more than an hour, and told them his daily life, which, as the pensioner says, "very bad."

The two men suggested that Sindgaya take him out of the wing, but he did not take the opportunity, because he still hopes that the couple will pay him the promised amount, and he fears for himself and his family, as well as that his employer confiscated his passport upon arrival in France and told him that he was lost, He continued to threaten to report him to the police.

"How can you rebuild ten years of wandering?" He asked amid an explosion of joy. "I forgot the faces of my grown-up children, and I cried."