Human traffickers sentenced to over 12 years

Two people who were found guilty in the human trafficking trial last week have been sentenced by High Court Judge, Justice Paul Madigan.

Inoke Raikadroka has been sentenced to 16 years imprisonment while Mohammed Sagaitu has been sentenced to 12 years in prison.

While sentencing the two, Justice Madigan highlighted that the victims were used by Inoke Raikadroka who arranged all clients for the girls and kept all the money.

He bought food, clothes, alcohol and shoes and paid for the apartment from the money collected from sex work.

The presiding judge added that the victims were aged 15 and 17 years, came from broken families and at the time of the offence, they were not matured enough to know what is good for them.

Justice Madigan highlighted that Sagaitu was accompanying the girls in a taxi before meeting the clients for sex.

The Judge said that there has never been a case of slavery in Fiji so a long term imprisonment sentence will be imposed on them.

Raikadroka was found guilty of all the seven counts of domestic trafficking in children and slavery while Sagaitu has been found guilty of two counts of trafficking in children.

Raikadroka will be able to apply for parole after 14 years while Sagaitu will have to spend ten years before he will be eligible to apply for parole.