British woman convicted of slavery

FORMER hospital director who forced an African woman to work 18 hours a day has become the first person in Britain to be convicted of “modern-day slavery”.

Saeeda Khan, 68, was forced to pay 49-year-old Mwanamisi Mruke, who was trafficked from Tanzania in 2006, STG25,000 ($40,873.05).

She was spared a prison sentence, but the judge said that this was due due to her own ill health and the fact she has two adult disabled children.

“You could easily have afforded to pay her a reasonable sum by way of wages,” Judge Geoffrey Rivlin said, during sentencing at London’s Southwark Crown Court.

“You chose to give her virtually nothing.

“Your own behaviour was callous and greedy,” the judge added.

Mruke was initially paid 10 pounds per week, but this allowance was stopped within a year.

Khan, who was found guilty of trafficking a person into the UK for exploitation, forbade Mruke from leaving the house in Harrow, north west London, and fed her two slices of bread a day.

The court had heard how Mruke was brought to Britain after working at a hospital in Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania, which Khan owned.

“I felt like a fool, I was treated like a slave,” Mruke said.

“I was hoping I would receive a salary and improve my life. But my hopes were dashed, my strength was reduced and I became unwell.”

Earlier, prosecutor Caroline Haughey told Southwark Crown Court: “From the moment of her arrival in England Mwanamisi was made to sleep, work and live in conditions that fall, by any understanding, into that of slavery.”

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