Human traffickers appealing sentence

Two men jailed for trafficking girls and using them for sex work are appealing their sentence and conviction in the Fiji Court of Appeal.

The matter was called before Justice Suresh Chandra this morning.

Inoke Raikadroka and Mohammed Sagaitu were convicted and sentenced by Justice Paul Madigan in 2014.

Raikadroka was convicted for all the 7 counts of domestic trafficking in children and slavery while Sagaitu was convicted for 2 counts of trafficking in children.

Raikadroka was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment while Mohammed Sagaitu was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

One ground in the appeal is that the judge erred in law and in fact when he failed to take into account that the complainants had consented to stay with him which was contrary to the notions of slavery.

Another ground is that the trial judge erred in law and in fact when he failed to take into account that the complainants had intended to pursue sexual services to earn.

In 2012, the girls aged 15 and 17 years were used by Raikadroka who arranged all clients for the girls and kept all the money. He bought food, clothes, alcohol and shoes and paid for an apartment through the money collected from sex work.

Sagaitu would accompany the girls in a taxi before meeting the clients for sex.

The girls had come from dysfunctional families where the parents were separated, the father was an alcoholic, and there was a domineering and erratic grandmother.

Many times there was no food in the house and they were sent to school without lunch or lunch money.

ADVERTISEMENT