A couple who allegedly made a vulnerable Nigerian woman ‘perform forced labour’ in their home in east Belfast, United Kingdom, will be sentenced for the slavery offence on June 27, 2022, a court has heard.
The Nigerian couple, Osarobo ‘John’ Izekor,36, and his 29-year-old wife, Precious Izekor, will also have to pay their victim £10,000 in compensation, Belfast Telegraph reported.
The husband and wife, with an address at Ashmount Gardens in Lisburn, admitted that on dates between September 1, 2016 and September 30, 2017 they ‘required another person to perform forced or compulsory labour’.
While the victim was forced to carry out domestic duties, a majority of the criminality by the Izekors was unpaid childcare.
The case, which was heard at Belfast Crown Court, is one of the first prosecutions under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act (NI) 2015.
The couple admitted keeping the Nigerian woman as a domestic slave in their then Castlereagh Place home in Belfast for a ten-month period.
Crown barrister Charles MacCreanor said the woman who could not read or write – arrived in Northern Ireland in 2011 and worked as a nanny for a five-year period.
When her employer returned to Nigeria in Autumn 2016, she moved into Castlereagh Place and was told money would be sent back to her family for any work she undertook.
During the ten-month period of offending, the woman had her own room and was given food and clothes – but was not paid any money.
In addition, the Izekors had possession of her passport and other documents, which she didn’t have access to.
