A couple who has a hotel in the rural municipality of Portage La Prairie was accused of human trafficking after a police investigation, where four Indian employees reported poorly paid, forced to work 15 hours and threatened with deportation.
Jai Inder Sandhu, 62, and Satbir Sandhu, 48, were accused of traffic of people and receiving material benefits of trafficking, sergeant. Cathy Farrell, from the Manitoba RCMP Humanjas Traffic Unit, said at a press conference on Thursday.
Jai Inder Sandhu was also accused of retaining or destroying documents and pronouncing threats.
The police did not identify the hotel by name, but CBC News confirmed that Jai Inder Sandhu owns the Howard Johnson hotel in Portage La Prairie.
CBC has communicated with Howard Johnson’s corporate office to comment.
The investigation began on February 9, when Mounties received a call on a disturbance at the hotel west of Winnipeg, where the four employees lived and worked. Two employees later appeared to inform the police to the police, and another woman and a man were also identified as victims, according to RCMP.
“Our goal from the beginning was to help these victims of labor traffic,” Farrell said.
“Everyone arrived in Canada in good faith believing that they were going to work legally and be protected. Instead, they were threatened and forced to work for very little salary.”
Farrell said that the four were promised fair wages, affordable life and legal work in Manitoba through federal impact assessments of the labor market: documents issued to employers by the federal government that allow them to hire foreign workers if they cannot find a Canadian or permanent resident to occupy a position.
Until recentlyThese evaluations allowed foreign citizens to work legally in Canada and increased their chances of becoming permanent residents by adding points to their permanent residence requests.
In the Portage la Prairie case, while three of the employees finally obtained the evaluation document, which would have legalized their work, the employer did not meet the conditions described. Another employees never obtained one, said RCMP.
The employees reported that they were paid approximately half of the minimum wage per hour of Manitoba, and said they faced threats of deportation and other intimidation tactics. In one case, a person said that his identification documents were retained from them, Farrell said.
The four did “almost everything” at the hotel, from working on the counter and the restaurant to performing cleaning and cleaning. A person was recruited through Friends of Family, while others were involved with mouth to mouth or online ads. Everyone had been working at the hotel for 10 months and one year, Farrell said.
The victims urged to seek help
Janet Campbell, president and executive director of the Awareness Group on Trafficking in Persons The Joy Smith Foundation, encouraged people to contact their organization to learn more about the subject and inform possible traffic cases.
“We certainly understand that seeking help is not always easy. When someone has been isolated, threatened, deceived, there is a lot of fear and uncertainty that accompanies that, and what will happen to them if they speak,” Campbell said at the press conference.
“I think that if people understand the issue of forced labor in a broader way, the community can be an incredibly powerful tool in the effort to identify these things and speak.”
Dianna Bussey, Executive Director of Correctional Services and Justice in the Salvation Army, said the organization is also involved in helping people exploited by traffickers, and added that they have seen an increase in cases of trafficking in persons, and last year in particular it is remarkable for cases of labor traffic.
Farrell de la RCMP said that determining how common are similar situations is difficult, although traffic is a problem that described as “often hidden in sight.”
“There is a lot of apprehension … [about] Allowing the police, “he said.” It is one of the most informed crimes we have. “
Migrant workers, newcomers and vulnerable people are considered the most at risk for labor traffic, a form of human trafficking that involves recruiting, moving and keeping victims to force them to work, he said.
That coercion often implies strength, threats, mental and emotional abuse and manipulation, Farrell said. Industries where they often include construction, agriculture, manufacturing, food processing, truck transport and restaurant business, he said.
Manitoba RCMP says that two people have been accused in an investigation of work traffic that involves a hotel in the rural municipality of Portage La Prairie.
