A female brothel-keeper has been given a ten-year sentence
for keeping five Thai women as sex slaves in the first successful
prosecution under Australia's new anti-slavery law.
A court in Melbourne heard that Wei Tang,
a 44-year-old originally from China, had forced the women to work
six days a week without pay and given them A$50 (£20) in "pocket
money" if they agreed to work seven days.
Prosecutors said that the women were smuggled to the southern
Australian city with the promise that they would be able to work
legally in the sex trade and send money home to their families.
Instead, they were told on arrival that they had to first work
off a debt of A$45,000 (£18,000) to pay for their passage to
Australia, with A$50 paid off for each client seen. They had their
passports and return airline tickets taken from them and were warned
to avoid immigration officials because they would be deported.
Between August 2002 and May 2003, prosecutors said, each woman
was forced to perform between 800 and 900 unpaid sex acts.
Prostitution is legal, although regulated, in most of Australia
but the country passed an anti-slavery law in 1999 to prevent the
exploitation of vulnerable women, especially foreigners.
Sentencing Ms Tang to ten years in jail - of which she will have
to serve at least six years - Judge Michael McInerney said that
while the women were not locked up, they were "effectively
restrained by the insidious nature of their contract". The fact that
they were illegal immigrants without money, passports or English
skills had left them at the brothel-keeper's mercy.
"Given her background and experience of repression, it is
surprising that she chose to commit such serious crimes against
humanity," he added.
Yesterday police in Sydney announced that a couple had been
charged with 32 counts of sex slavery after four women were found
hidden in the basement of a
brothel.