'She wouldn't scream.' Salon owner, guilty of trafficking, stabbed worker with nail tools

https://news.yahoo.com/she-wouldn-t-scream-salon-110000460.html

In the dry, legalistic parlance of the federal courts, Thuy Tien Luong’s conviction on Friday was for the crime of “forced labor.”

Yet, a stream of court documents in the prosecution of the 37-year-old owner of a Davidson nail salon adds new and harrowing details of her two-year campaign of terror against a longtime friend and employee.

Luong, according to federal prosecutors, used her fists, her feet and a broom to repeatedly kick and beat her Vietnamese victim, identified in court documents by the initials K.D. She also stabbed and slashed K.D. with the nail tools of her salon.

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Worldwide, the United Nations says more than 40 million workers are believed to be the victims of forced labor, a major component of human trafficking. At least 70 percent of the victims are women or girls.

That the crimes linked to Luong occurred at a nail salon is not surprising. The Department of Homeland Security lists the health and beauty industry as an habitual offender in the country’s forced-labor black market.

That it happened in the toney small town of Davidson continues to grab headlines. Davidson police Chief Penny Dunn said in a statement after the trial that Luong’s case proves that “domestic trafficking can and does happen anywhere.”