A Chinese woman has been charged with beating and starving a woman she brought from Shanghai to work as her nanny in the United States, and of holding her in a state of "slavery or indentured servitude", according to prosecutors.

The accused woman is now in jail awaiting a court appearance, which is set for next month.

Lili Huang, 35 of Woodbury, Wisconsin, was charged on July 15 with five counts of trafficking in human labor in the alleged assaults on the nanny. She was given two bail options: $1 million without conditions, or $350,000 with conditions that include ankle monitoring. She was scheduled to appear in court on Aug 18 to enter a plea or request a hearing.

Huang was charged with labor trafficking, seizing a passport with intent to break the law, 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.

She was found last Thursday night on a street after she escaped the house where she had been working since March, according to media reports. 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, through translators.

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 the US. She had been promised $890 a month, but was forced to work 18-hour days taking care of two children, cooking and cleaning, according to the attorney's office.

She was physically 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 that 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", prosecutors allege. Huang also withheld food from the nanny, who has lost more than 30 pounds since coming to the US.

The complaint said police from four cities, along with US Department of Homeland Security agents, searched Huang's home and arrested her.

Prosecuting attorney Pete Orput, said 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," Orput said.

Gregory Cendana, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, said Asian immigrants are vulnerable to labor trafficking because they have "little access to information" about their rights.

In the complaint filed with police, the nanny said Huang's family was "very wealthy and had multiple homes in China"..

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily 07/20/2016 page5)