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Wednesday 6 May 2015

Mexican girl held hostage and tortured as a slave in dry cleaners for two years tells of her harrowing experience



A woman who was kept as a slave and tortured by the owners of a Mexican dry cleaners has told of her two years of 'hell' in a harrowing interview with MailOnline from her hospital bed.

Zunduri,22, told of how she was held hostage, tortured and forced to work for 17 hours a day tied to a tight 3-metre metal chain around her neck to stop her escaping.

It got to a point where she was left with no food for five days and she had to eat polythene wrapping from the clothes she was forced to iron.

Dehydrated, she also revealed how she got so thirsty that she scalded her mouth while trying to drink the steam from an iron.
 
Ordeal: Zunduri pictured having survived the 'hell' of being kept as a slave in a dry cleaners for two years. Around her mouth the scars still show from when she attempted to drink the steam from an iron
Scarred for life: Zunduri's back is covered in scabs, sores and marks from where she was repeatedly beaten and burned by her captors, who chained her to a desk by her neck to stop her escaping
 
Hell: Sores on Zunduri's left ear. She may never recover from the physical and emotional scars she suffered


Sometimes she had to sleep standing up and leaning against a wall because the chain she was attached to was too short for her to lie down.

Zunduri said: 'If I made a mistake with my ironing, which I often did due to the exhaustion of having to sleep standing up, they would torture me. I went three days without drinking water.'

Zunduri said she started working at the dry cleaners in Mexico City five years ago.

It was a live-in job and she was given a room and received a low wage.

But three years after starting, the dry cleaners owner Leticia Molina Ochoa accused her of burning clothes.

She told Zunduri she would go to the police and accuse her of stealing if she didn't stay and repay her 'debt'. That was when the horror started...

Ochoa – who faces 50 years’ jail for cruelty – tied her to the chain, which was too short for her to reach the toilet six metres away – and made to work 17 hours a day in the roasting hot back room. She then hid Zunduri behind a mountain of clothes and turned the radio up in the shop, so customers couldn't hear her screams.

Zunduri recalled..‘My family were worried and came to the shop many times because that was the last place I had been seen. But that woman played mind games with them and told them I hated them and never wanted to see them again.

‘She told them that I was now a prostitute and that they should be ashamed and glad I had disappeared, rather than searching for me.'

Zunduri finally escaped on April 25, when a one of Ochoa's daughters didn’t replace her chains properly after she'd been allowed a trip to the toilet.

'I don't want the world to know my name, just call me Zunduri, it's Japanese. A friend of mine is named like that. It means beautiful girl.'

She told MailOnline: 'I honestly don’t know’ [how I survived]. I have only God to thank.'

Ochoa has been charged with kidnapping and faces up to 50 years in prison for holding Zunduri against her will and torturing her.

Also Ochoa's sister Fani Molina Ochoa, her boyfriend Jose de Jesus Sanchez Vega and her two grown up daughters, Ivette Hernandez Molina and Jannet Hernandez Molina all face charges.
 
      
Horrendous: Zurundi has been left with painful wounds on top of her head. Doctors who have examined her over the past week have said she has the body of an 80-year-old
Abuse: Zunduri told police her abusers, led by owner of the dry cleaners dug their nails into her skin, threw iron tools at her and burned her with an iron
Mutilated: Part of Zunduri's ear is missing. She said: 'If I made a mistake with my ironing, which I often did due to the exhaustion of having to sleep standing up, they would torture me'
 
 
      
Safe now: Zunduri has been recovering in hospital after her ordeal ended when she escaped on April 25
Held hostage: Zunduri's tormentors hid her behind a mountain of clothes and turned the radio up in the shop so customers could not hear her screams
Marks of pain: Zunduri has said previously: 'I was tortured. There is no part on my body without scars'
 
On the mend: A dentist attempts to repair Zunduri's two teeth left broken at their roots by the abuse she suffered
Reunited: Zunduri celebrates after she was finally reunited with her family last weekend. Pictured on her left is Rosi Orozco, who has been supporting her since her release
 
Leticia Molina Ochoa
Fany Molina Ochoa
Ivette Hernandez Molina
 Leticia Molina Ochoa, her sister Fany Molina Ochoa and daughter Ivette Hernandez Molina (pictured above) are all facing prison if found guilty of holding Zunduri against her will and torturing her
Jannet Hernandez Molina
Jannet Hernandez Molina  and Jose de Jesus Sanchez Vega (pictured above) are also facing jail for being involved.



#dailymail

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