Two Saskatchewan restaurant operators convicted of human trafficking are awaiting sentencing in what is believed to be the province’s first written decision involving employment-related trafficking.
Provincial Court Judge Miguel Martinez found Sohel Haider, 55, and Mohammed Masum, 44, guilty of human trafficking in a decision released Aug. 7. Masum was also convicted of three counts of sexual assault.
The victim, a temporary foreign worker from Bangladesh, is identified in court documents only as S.K., due to a publication ban.
The offences are alleged to have occurred between Aug. 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, while S.K. worked at restaurants in the towns of Gull Lake, Elrose, and Tisdale.
Sentencing arguments were made in Saskatoon Provincial Court on Aug. 14. Both men were remanded in custody until Oct. 22, when they are scheduled to be sentenced.
The decision is Saskatchewan’s first written judgment involving employment-based human trafficking and could potentially influence future prosecutions.
Crown prosecutor Leslie Dunning said after the convictions that Saskatchewan prosecutors have largely relied on Ontario case law because so few employment-related trafficking cases have gone to trial.
“I think going forward, this case certainly sets a precedent for human trafficking cases because we don’t have written decisions in our province,” she said.
Arrival
The complainant arrived in Canada from Bangladesh in August 2022, first staying in Toronto before moving to Saskatchewan to work for Haider at his Empire Diner restaurant in Gull Lake. She had hoped to remain in Canada permanently and was seeking employment that could help her obtain a work permit, according to court documents.
S.K. arrived in Gull Lake on Sept. 28, 2022, and began working at the restaurant as a waitress and kitchen helper. The court heard she was put to work almost immediately, with little job training, and worked six days a week.
She lived at a house in Gull Lake, where she slept on a single foam mattress on the floor.
The court heard that Haider controlled S.K.’s movements and immigration status and told her she would have to pay about $12,000 for a work permit, in monthly $1,000 instalments. S.K. also testified she was never paid for her work, despite being promised wages.
Haider denied she ever worked in the restaurant, insisting she was only provided room and board while awaiting a work permit. Judge Martinez rejected that evidence.
Haider later sent S.K. to work at the Little Town Restaurant in Tisdale owned by Masum, about 542 kilometres away in northeast Saskatchewan.
Haider told the woman in November 2022 that they would leave for Tisdale in a week, but later that day, he told her to pack since he would drive her there that night, the court heard.
S.K. testified that she was “very upset by this sudden change of plans,” and asked him to take her to Regina or Saskatoon instead so she could return to Toronto or go back to Bangladesh. She also asked to be paid, but Haider said he “had no money.”
While working for Masum in Tisdale, S.K. worked approximately 12-hour shifts six days a week. Records she kept showed Masum paid her about $3,500 for work performed from mid-November 2022 to early March 2023. Masum denied she ever worked in his restaurant.
The court also heard that Masum took S.K.’s passport and used it to pressure her into sexual activity. S.K. testified that Masum sexually assaulted her eight times between November 2022 and February 2023, including seven instances of rape.
S.K. was later taken to Elrose, where she learned that her approved work permit was tied to Bob’s Diner, a restaurant associated with Haider. The closed work permit authorized her to work for that employer at $13 an hour.
MLAs Intervene
The case drew the attention of Saskatchewan MLAs Doug Steele and Hugh Nerlien, who became concerned about S.K.’s circumstances.
Steele, who regularly visited the Empire Diner, gave S.K. his business card and later helped connect her with a social worker.
Nerlien testified that he was concerned because S.K. had been moved several times and there were periods when they did not know where she was or whether she was safe.
Nerlien connected S.K. with social worker Jody Campbell. S.K. disclosed to Campbell that she had experienced “sex violence” and “sex tasks” during her time in Saskatchewan, terms translated from Bengali through an app.
When S.K. lived in Elrose starting in March 2023, she was in a partially finished basement with a bare concrete floor and a filthy bathroom with no door, the woman testified.
“S.K.’s living quarters can best be described as squalid,” wrote Martinez.
S.K. later contacted Steele and Campbell, saying she did not feel safe and needed help. Steele arranged for a constituency assistant to take her to a women’s shelter in Swift Current on March 23, 2023.
Shelter workers helped her obtain a new cellphone, health card, work permit, and banking information, and reported the situation to the RCMP.
Judge’s Decision
Both men testified in their own defence. Haider said S.K. never worked at his restaurant and that he was simply helping her while she was unemployed. Masum similarly denied employing her, saying she was his “guest,” and denied having inappropriate physical contact with her.
Martinez rejected the men’s testimony as “implausible, self-serving, or otherwise not worthy of belief,” noting that other witnesses contradicted their accounts. He found S.K.’s testimony “credible and reliable” despite some inconsistencies, which he attributed in part to a language barrier.
“Her story held together even under vigorous, probing, and lengthy cross-examination,” Martinez said.
The judge found that the Crown had proven the human trafficking charges beyond a reasonable doubt, concluding that Haider and Masum recruited, transported, transferred, received, harboured and controlled S.K. in circumstances that met the Criminal Code provisions for human trafficking.
“As they were from the same cultural background as S.K., Mr. Haider and Mr. Masum were acutely aware of her vulnerability as a married Muslim woman, travelling alone in a foreign country,” Martinez wrote.
“Mr. Haider removed S.K. from Toronto and brought her to a small prairie town, essentially in the middle of nowhere. A place where she knew no one,” he continued. “A place from which she could not leave without someone else’s assistance.”
The judge said the men also exploited S.K.’s fear of being forced to leave Canada to obtain free or cheap labour from her.
“I do not have any reasonable doubt about the guilt of either,” Martinez wrote.
