Ernestina Quainoo, a Ghanaian teacher in the United Kingdom, has been banned from the classroom for life after it emerged that she assisted to smuggle a 14-year-old African child into Britain to act as her ‘slave’.

According to a report by dailymail.co.uk, Ernestina’s name has been removed from the teachers register after lying about her child trafficking conviction when she got a job in 2019.

In 2008, Ernestina and her husband smuggled the child into Britain with the promise of education and a job upon arrival. However, the couple tuned the child into a ‘slave’ and forced her to cook and clean the house for 18 months and also babysit their two young sons.

The couple denied the girl education, social life, and adequate clothing, forcing her to dress in hand-me-downs, apart from buying her T-shirts once in a while.

The young girl who was never paid a penny later informed the police and social workers; she was so desperate that she even contemplated taking her own life. Fortunately, her ordeal ended when she fell ill and escaped to seek medical attention.

According to the report, when police arrived at the couple’s home, Samuel Quainoo, who has a previous conviction for false accounting, claimed the child had cast a ‘voodoo’ spell on him and his wife.

Samuel Quainoo was jailed for 18 months, and his wife was given a suspended sentence for assisting unlawful immigration into the UK in 2008.

When applying for her teaching job at Cherry Lane Primary School, West Drayton, in May 2019, she initially denied any convictions, claiming it was an oversight in her haste to complete the application form.

Subsequently, she was hired in July 2019 as a teacher of key stage one pupils, but in December 2022, her past deeds caught up with her as the school authorities were informed of her 2008 court case.

Although she resigned in February 2019, her former employers continued the disciplinary process and referred the matter to the Teaching Regulation Agency, who placed the ban on her in 2024, the report noted.