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A BANKRUPT businessman has been found guilty of forcing a woman to work as a perfume store clerk without pay or days off and then firing her for ‘nagging too much.’
He was jailed for a year, fined BD2,000 and ordered to cover the expenses of returning the victim to her home country by the High Criminal Court.
The 37-year-old Pakistani was initially tried in absentia but later located by the authorities and brought before judges.
He earlier admitted to not paying his Pakistani employee because the store near Bab Al Bahrain had gone bankrupt and he could not afford her wages, but denied human trafficking charges.
According to court documents, the woman came to Bahrain on a tourist visa to visit her brother but decided to stay to look for a job.
After not receiving wages for months and then losing her post for persistently asking for her salary, she reported the defendant to the labour authorities.
She told prosecutors that her former boss had also refused to return her passport even after she was fired.
Despite a defence witness vouching for his character and giving a first-hand account of the Pakistani woman’s hiring, the defendant was found guilty of forcing the 28-year-old to work without compensation.
The witness, a manager at the defendant’s company who helped the woman get the perfume store job, had also testified before judges, describing the defendant as a ‘friend.’
He said that he received a call from the woman’s brother, so he arranged a job interview with her and the defendant.
“A few months after she got the job, the woman reached out to me and said her wages weren’t being paid. I talked to the defendant, who informed me that he couldn’t pay the salaries because the store had to be shut down.”
The businessman’s lawyer unsuccessfully argued that his client should be acquitted of the trafficking charge, arguing that the dispute was a labour one and did not need to be resolved in a criminal court.
“When she did not receive her wages, the victim lodged a labour complaint against the defendant, but he ended up being prosecuted in the criminal court,” the lawyer said in the case’s final hearing.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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