15 years jail for defendant in human trafficking trial

The High Criminal Court yesterday issued its final verdict in a human trafficking case involving six defendants by sentencing one of them to 15 years imprisonment, three to 10 years imprisonment and two to five years imprisonment. The court also fined each one of them BD2,000 and obliged them to pay the deportation expenses of two women who were forced into flesh trade by the defendants. Capital Governorate Chief Prosecutor Ahmed Al Ansari explained that the court also ordered to deport five of the defendants after they complete their imprisonment sentence and to blacklist them.

The details of the case show that both victims, who worked as housemaids, were cheated by one of the defendants, a female, after the latter convinced them through social media to escape from their employers’ houses and promised them jobs with better pay. Mr Al Ansari explained that the defendants assisted the victims in escaping and took them to an apartment where they restricted their freedom, took their mobile phones away and forced them into prostitution in return of money the defendants collected from the customers.

The police received a tip-off regarding the situation, raided the apartment, freed the ladies and arrested the defendants. The Chief Prosecutor added that the Public Prosecution was notified about the matter and it launched a probe, heard the victims’ testimonies and interrogated the suspects, before referring them to the concerned court. No further information was available on the nationalities of the people involved.    

A few days ago, the timely-involvement of social workers affiliated to Indian Community Relief Fund Bahrain (ICRF) and Indian Embassy officials helped the police bust a vice racket. Sources said the members of the prostitution racket were arrested after a victim alerted a social worker, who in turn informed the Indian Embassy and the CID Department. According to sources, the victim had arrived in the Kingdom on a visit visa after being invited by a friend of her, who was part of the racket.

“She came to the Kingdom with an aim to take up an appropriate job to support the family back home. To her good luck, she had obtained a SIM card at the airport itself,” sources said. Within a few hours of her arrival, the victim is said to have realised that she had been trapped to be part of a forced prostitution ring. “The victim’s friend was part of the vice ring.

She was asked to give a replacement to be relieved from the network and she successfully trapped her friend for her benefit,” the sources said. The victim was initially taken to a beauty parlour in Manama, where she managed to obtain the contact numbers of a few social workers before alerting them, the sources said. The Interior Ministry has been stepping up its efforts to nab the members of vice network while many suspects have been sentenced or prosecuted.