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By Sunday Citizen Reporter and Agencies A 68-year-old doctor is to be charged in a UK court tomorrow with ‘trafficking’ a Tanzanian woman and allegedly holding her in solitude. Dr Saeeda Khan will become the first person in the UK to be charged with modern-day slavery, after allegedly smuggling to UK the woman and forcing her to work.
Media reports in the UK revealed yesterday that Dr Khan is to face charges of bringing the 46-year-old lady (name withheld) into her £500,000 (Sh1.2 billion) London home. Dr Khan, who is of Asian origin, is scheduled to appear at London's City of Westminster Magistrate Court charged with trafficking people for exploitation. She had already been bailed to appear at court tomorrow. It was said that the alleged victim was apparently made to work for nothing at the property on Whitmore Road, Harrow. She stands charged with trafficking people for exploitation, contrary to section four of the 2004 Asylum and Immigration Act, which has been designed to deal with people involved in the human trafficking process. The law makes it an offence to arrange, or even facilitate, the arrival of a person in the UK, knowing that the individual is likely to be exploited. It also covers those who recruit, transport, harbour or receive the victim, as well as those involved in taking someone out of the country. According to the Act, an offence can be committed even where the intended exploitation has not actually taken place. Britain outlawed slave trading since the 19th Century. However, the UK remains a major destination for trafficked women. Human rights organisations claimed that up to 1,000 people are made to work as slaves. Dr Khan’s case is however not the first incident to be linked to the dehumanising trafficking of Tanzanian women to work as housemaids in the UK. In February this year, a London-based Tanzanian of Asian origin, was quizzed by police over the enslavement of her 45-year-old maid brought into the UK in 2006. The maid, from Kondoa District, in Dodoma Region, was identified while in hospital where she had been taken for treatment. Doctors at the institution alerted authorities about her serious health condition. Police questioned her employer over what was described as "inhuman and appalling" conditions she was forced to work in.
The maid was then put under the custody of an organisation, which fights for the rights of domestic migrant workers and the Tanzania Women Association (Tawa), pending further investigations. Police investigating the case learnt that the domestic worker was being paid ten pounds (about Sh22, 000) a month, which was given to her at the end of the year. Her personal belongings were kept in a shed while she slept on the kitchen floor. She was made to work every day, without break or leave, and her employer never called her by name, using a bell instead. Her boss also took away her passport, fearing that she might escape. Reports of the maid’s suffering surfaced a month after another Tanzanian couple were arrested and charged with human trafficking and other immigration offences. Mr and Mrs Shariff of Birmingham have a case pending. Another Tanzanian maid, Ms Zubeda Ali, won a case against her former employers at an employment tribunal in the UK. The 32-year-old woman, who hailed from Lindi Region had been working as a maid since March 2007 before she escaped and sued her employers for compensation. The case was awaiting compensation as at early this year. In 2008, another Tanzanian domestic worker in the UK, Ms Elizabeth Kawogo, won a case against her employers who were ordered to pay her the equivalent of Sh140 million in compensation by a London Labour Tribunal. The compensation was for unpaid wages and suffering she endured at the hands of her employers, Mr and Mrs Ramzan Dhanji, who have yet to pay up.
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