THIRTEEN people, including two Russians, have been handed lengthy jail terms in connection with a human trafficking ring that involved 36 women with links to Bahrain.
The defendants were sentenced by a court in Shymkent city, Kazakhstan on December 21 by Judge Absattar Shakhidinov, according to a report.
Those sentenced included nine women who were jailed between 15 months and 14 years “after finding them guilty of organising and/or involvement in the trafficking of dozens of Kazakh women to Bahrain from 2016 to 2020, where they were forced to engage in prostitution”, stated a report in the Prague-based Radio Free Europe.
The court also found three other local women guilty in the case but they were placed on parole.
Quoting the court verdict, the report stated that Saodat Azadova, the ring leader, was given the maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
“There were 36 plaintiffs in the high-profile case.
“All of them are women who grew up in orphanages, special boarding schools, or families with lower incomes.”
The trial started in May this year and was held behind closed doors.
Three more suspects in the case remain at large.
The GDN reported in October last year that the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court had rejected appeals of a group operated by Bahraini man along with eight other defendants in a human trafficking case.
They were jailed in connection with luring women from Kazakhstan to Bahrain after promising them better-paying jobs.
Authorities had confiscated BD200,000 believed to be obtained from the illicit trade and drugs.
The defendants were arrested after the Kazakhstan consulate reported to Bahraini authorities that a woman from Kazakhstan had been tortured and forced into the vice trade.
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