Woman forced to work as slave awarded £25,000
Compensation to be paid by widow who enslaved her, along with £15,000 costs
A widow who forced another woman to work as a slave for three years has been ordered to pay her victim £25,000.
Mwanahamisi Mruke, 47, who was trafficked into Britain from Tanzania, was initially given £10 a month by Saeeda Khan, but after a year payments ceased.
Mruke worked 18-hour days and was not allowed to go out alone from the home in Harrow, northwest London. She went through the "awful experience" in order to put her daughter through college, Southwark crown court heard.
On top of the compensation, Khan was given a nine-month suspended jail term and told to pay £15,000 costs.
Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said Khan had told "a pack of lies" during her trial by saying her victim was treated as part of the family.
Sentencing her, he said: "Your own behaviour was callous and greedy. You could easily have afforded to pay her a reasonable sum by way of wages. You chose to give her virtually nothing."
Had Mruke been paid at the minimum wage for all the hours she worked for Khan during her employment of three years and four months, she would have received £107,062.72, the court heard.
Rivlin told Khan the reasons she was not facing an immediate custodial sentence were her age, the fact she had two adult disabled children and her poor health.
Mruke was brought to the UK after getting a job at a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which Khan owned following the death of her husband.
She was offered a job as a domestic servant at Khan's home and told she would work six hours a day in exchange for a payment of 120,000 Tanzanian shillings a month, about £50, paid to Mruke's daughter in Tanzania. A £10 allowance would be given to her each month.
When she initially arrived in London in October 2006 the arrangement was honoured, but payments stopped after the first year.
While Mruke prepared meals for the Khan family, she was allowed only two slices of bread a day. Khan would summon her to carry out errands by ringing a bell she kept in her bedroom.
Mruke's working day started at 6am but she would not be allowed to go to bed until midnight as she cleaned, gardened, cooked meals and accompanied Khan's disabled son on walks, often in the middle of the night.
She was deprived of her passport and banned from contacting her family, meaning she was away from home for the deaths of both of her parents and also missed her daughter's wedding.
Rivlin told Khan: "You treated her appallingly. She was required to sleep on a mattress on the kitchen floor. You gave her a pittance by way of wages and indeed for a long time she received no money from you in this country at all.
"You made her work long hours so that she was always at your beck and call, whatever day of the week and whatever time of day she was required, either to look after you or your children."
(source:guardian.co.uk)
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