The Seychelles’ Supreme Court on Wednesday sentenced a Bangladeshi national to three years in prison after he defrauded four people of money and forced them into labour and maltreatment.
In the first case of trafficking in persons recorded in the island nation since a law on the issue was passed in 2014, Faisal Alam was also ordered to pay approximately $7,400 to each of his four victims.
Alam has one month to pay the compensation; failure to do so will result in an additional two years added to his three-year sentence.
The case was first reported to the police by the department of labour in 2016 and the prosecution came after years of complaints by migrant workers on poor working conditions, non-payment of salaries, and retention of passports.
Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands in the western Indian Ocean, has many migrant workers from mainly Asian countries such as India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Philippines….
Source: Seychelles News Agency
