Lambeth slavery case

Common card · No. 362934

On 21 November 2013, Metropolitan Police from South London's Human Trafficking Unit arrested two suspects at a residential address in Lambeth. A 73-year-old ethnic Indian Singaporean man, Aravindan Balakrishnan, and a 67-year-old Tanzanian woman, his wife, Chanda Pattni, had been investigated for slavery and domestic servitude. The case centred around the Workers' Institute of Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought commune which was led by Balakrishnan. In the early 1980s after a police raid, Balakrishnan decided to move the group's activities underground. Balakrishnan's control over his followers intensified and the commune became a prison to his followers. On 25 October 2013, three women were rescued from the commune: a 69-year-old Malaysian woman (later revealed to be Aishah Wahab), a 57-year-old Northern Irish woman (Josephine Herivel) and a 30-year-old London woman (Katy Morgan-Davies). Morgan-Davies was born into the sect and had not experienced the outside world until her release.

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