An ATLEU client has finally received over £300,000 in compensation from her former traffickers after years of battling them in the British courts.
The client, from South Asia, was repeat trafficked between her country of origin in South Asia, the Gulf and UK for almost a decade. Unaware of her rights, she was forced to sleep on the floor, work 18 hours a day, prevented from leaving the house unaccompanied and paid far below the minimum wage.
ATLEU lawyer Emily-Anna Gibbs represented the client in the original Tribunal claim and in response to repeated attempts by the traffickers to have the judgment set aside. She referred the case to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Paul Yates when the Judgment remained unpaid in August 2011.
'The case was repeatedly delayed by the defendants, who, as soon as enforcement proceedings were commenced, repeatedly attempted to appeal or review the underlying employment tribunal judgment,’ explained Yates.
‘I hope the case – alongside others in which Freshfields is instructed – will have a deterrent effect and highlight the potential complexity of bringing some civil enforcement proceedings, and therefore the need for reform to make effective access to a remedy possible for such victims of human trafficking.’
While the compensation will never make up for the many years our client lost to servitude, ATLEU hope that it will help her to rebuild her life and show other victims, and their traffickers, that justice can be achieved.
