Four Pakistani expatriates have been sentenced to five years behind bars after taking advantage of three compatriots with financial troubles by trafficking them into the kingdom and forcing them into the vice trade.
The High Criminal Court yesterday also fined them BD2,000 each and ruled to deport them after they have served their prison time.
The defendants included two women, a 35-year-old and 42-year-old, and two men, described as a 46-year-old from Naim and a 31-year-old from East Riffa.
They brought their victims into the country under the guise of legitimate job opportunities, only to trap them in an apartment and physically assault them when they resisted.
Additionally, they also took the victims’ passports and confiscated their money.
The court heard how a 40-year-old unemployed married woman got in contact with the 35-year-old female defendant, who promised her a job in Bahrain as a maid. She was met at Bahrain International Airport by the woman and the 31-year-old man and driven to an apartment complex in Manama. They took away her passport.
She had to share the flat with two other women and, initially, was given maid duties and ordered to clean the accommodation and cook.
Days later, the two female defendants told her that she would also have to engage in the vice trade, which she initially refused.
They began screaming at her and threatened to ‘kill her, chop her up and dump her body in the sea’ if she resisted.
The 42-year-old woman physically assaulted her, took her phone away and locked her in the apartment.
She begged them not to force her into the vice trade as she was happily married but her pleas fell on deaf ears and they started bringing her ‘customers’.
When one ‘unhappy’ punter complained that he had been denied the ‘service’ that he had paid for, the 46-year-old bully assaulted her and warned her that ‘he would kill her’ if she did not comply.
Eventually, the court heard, she stopped resisting as she feared for her life.
She managed to escape their evil clutches when she found her phone hidden away and alerted her husband in Pakistan.
He quickly contacted a lorry driver friend in Bahrain who informed the authorities.
Police launched an immediate investigation, which led to the identification and arrest of the four defendants.
They also heard the stories of the other two girls, one of whom was a 27-year-old, facing a similar situation.
She also desperately needed money, so asked a friend in Bahrain to find her a job, and the 35-year-old defendant got in contact with her, and offered her a job as a dancer.
Once in Bahrain, she faced the same ordeal and begged the defendants to give her any other job, but they used the same tactics to scare her.
She was forced into the vice trade against her will until the police arrived.
And, a 32-year-old Pakistani woman, also with financial troubles, stated that she had been also offered a job as a dancer, and when she arrived, worked at a nightclub. Days later, she was informed that the club had gone into bankruptcy, and she was also forced into the vice trade against her will too.
With the guilty verdict reached, the defendants will also have to cover the victim’s repatriation expenses.
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