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Four charged in plot for Asian sex slaves
By Viva Goldner
October 15, 2004
One billion rupiah was promised to lure young Asian women to Australia where
they were held as sex slaves, a court has heard.
The sum - more than $150,000 - was 143 years' wages for each victim of four
alleged conspirators in a plot to entrap women with the offer of restaurant
work.
Jenny Lai Chin Ong, her son Raymond Aik Tong Tan, Danny Sweeseang Kwok and
Hosea Prayudi Saputra Yoe were yesterday committed to stand trial in the
District Court for conspiring to cause women to enter into sexual servitude.
They are the first in NSW to be charged under new Commonwealth legislation.
Central Local Court heard the victims, uneducated and from poor backgrounds,
were recruited in Indonesia in May 2003 and given false passports to travel to
Australia, where they expected to work in public relations or restaurants.
Yoe, or "Bowo" accompanied his alleged prey to Australia, then escorted them to
a unit where they were held for several days before being taken to an Auburn
apartment where they learnt they had been duped, the court heard.
Here they were allegedly told by Tan they would have to "service 800 customers
in 400 hours" to "pay back the boss", or Kwok, who had covered the girls'
airfares.
Magistrate Les Brennan found yesterday a jury would be likely to convict Ong,
Tan, Kwok and Yoe of taking part in an organised system of recruitment to
slavery.
"The women in this country were effectively under the control of the
co-conspirators. They were in a foreign country, under false passports ... so
that they by force would not be free [to cease] providing sexual services," he
said.
But defence barrister Garry Jauncey said the women knew they would enter
prostitution, with one stating she came to Australia to "earn one billion
rupiah".
He said "restaurant work" was in fact Indonesian code for sex work.
The four accused will face Sydney District Court on October 22.
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