PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA - Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday handed down a 15-year sentence to a woman convicted of taking a Deaf, HIV-positive 13-year-old from the organisation that was housing her and forcing her to have sex with an old man in a Phnom Penh brothel last year.Presiding judge Taing Sunlay said that 44-year-old defendant Em Sophea, a reputed casino gambler also known as Je Srey, was also obligated to pay some $2,000 in compensation to the victim after being convicted of selling, buying or exchanging a person with intent under Article 15 of the anti-human trafficking law.
“Based on the hearing, and after clearly considering this case according to the laws, the court has found that Em Sophea is guilty,” he said, adding that Sophea had the right to appeal.
The conviction came after a decision in February to reinvestigate the case based on the defendant’s claim that she had been at NagaWorld at the time of the events in question.
Sophea was arrested on July 15, 2013, by the Ministry of Interior’s Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department based on a complaint from New Hope for Cambodian Children, an NGO that assists HIV-positive children, Sunlay said. Sophea had taken the girl from the organisation’s premises in Kandal province’s Takhmao town, he continued, and forced her to have sex with an old man in a brothel located in the White Building, a slum in Phnom Penh’s Tonle Bassac commune, on June 16, 2013... Read more: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/woman-gets-15-years-trafficking-deaf-teen
