KANSAS CITY, Kan. — For nearly two decades, local government officials in Kansas City, Kansas — operating under the pretense of reviving a neighborhood they considered blighted and dangerous — aided a quasi-religious group whose leaders now face federal charges of trafficking children.

Six people connected to an organization formerly known as the United Nation of Islam are set to go on trial Monday in federal court on allegations the group forced children as young as 8 to work without pay. The indictment says the group, which a federal judge labeled a “cult,” also beat children, denied them health care, and forced them to eat strict diets.

“You have to recognize this was an organization. This is a system, a business, right? A business has to actually engage with political members to do what they have to do,” a woman who was trafficked by the group told Kansas Reflector. “So, if that’s the case, how did they do this for years?”

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City and a public school board ignored warning signs as they helped the United Nation of Islam flourish.

In 1996, a group from UNOI led by the late Royall Jenkins, a leader who claimed to be Allah, told the city commission the group was moving to Kansas City to create its headquarters. Group leaders had decided to make Kansas City their “heaven.” Source