A woman alleging she was trafficked by Atlanta Dream Center Church and Assemblies of God as a ministry student has sued them in Georgia, claiming they profit off the forced labor of vulnerable Pentecostal youth they house in deplorable conditions.
The woman, identified in the lawsuit as K.D., said she escaped the Atlanta church in 2015 severely malnourished after months of working long, unpaid shifts in kitchens and catered events. The woman, now 29, said she was tricked into participating in the church’s Atlanta School of Ministry program, then forced to live and work in filthy and dangerous environments with other students.
She alleges she was almost robbed and twice sexually assaulted by an event patron and church leader while in the program, which she joined in 2014 at age 18. The woman said she and other students were routinely sick from the spoiled food they were forced to prepare and eat.
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“This is the first (lawsuit) of its kind that we are aware of, but we do represent several other individuals, and we’re aware of many more who suffered through the same sort of trafficking and trafficking conditions,” Kim Dougherty, an attorney for K.D., told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “So, this is just the first of many lawsuits that we expect to file in the near future.”…