Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Shyima Hall, 19, who was 10 when she was trafficked to a gated community as a domestic worker for a wealthy Egyptian couple. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family’s crystal. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the United States is an extension of an illegal but common practice among upper class Muslims. But the problem is so well hidden that authorities—including the U.N., Interpol and the State Department—have no idea how many child maids now work in the West.