Source: Radio New Zealand
Sneha Patel is sentenced to 11 months’ home detention for exploiting three migrant workers and failing to pay them thousands of dollars in wages. RNZ/Libby Kirkby-McLeod
Being exploited left three workers permanently traumatised and facing financial hardship, according to the Migrant Workers Association of Aotearoa.
President Anu Kaloti supported Sneha Patel’s victims for seven years as they sought justice, and was in court on Wednesday when Patel was sentenced to 11 months’ home detention and ordered to pay nearly $50,000 in reparations.
Outside the court, she said the consequences of Patel’s offending had been long-lasting for the victims.
“It’s something that they can’t get rid of for a long time, I think it permanently traumatises them.”
Patel was sentenced for exploiting three migrant workers and failing to pay them thousands of dollars in wages. All the victims’ names were suppressed.
Patel owned and operated several Hamilton- and Auckland-based businesses, including a beauty salon, dairy, superette, a fruit and vege shop cleaning business and a lawn-mowing business.
One victim was paid nothing at all for two months’ work at a time when prosecutor Tim Gray said Patel was “expanding her empire”.
The victim, who was in New Zealand illegally, had to live in a car. Patel promised him she was saving up his wages to help him get a lawyer – this was a lie.
Patel failed to pay the second victim her contracted wages and holiday pay, and then demanded the victim pay her back for weeks of missed work after the victim suffered a miscarriage.
“[The victim] can’t mention or think about that incident without breaking down in tears,” Kaloti said.
Patel provided Immigration New Zealand proof that she had agreed to pay a third victim above minimum wage. Instead, she did not pay the victim anything at all for two months.
President of the Migrant Workers Association of Aotearoa, Anu Kaloti. Libby Kirkby-McLeod / RNZ
Judge Stephen Clark told Patel the victims had trusted her, and she had lied and exploited them.
Patel, who now pregnant, began home detention immediately after the sentencing.
Kaloti said the offending warranted jail time and the sentence was somewhat disappointing.
“Nevertheless, it feels like there has been some justice delivered.”
She said she was pleased the judge had noted Patel did not seem to show true remorse and often tried to shift the blame.
At one point the judge called some of Patel’s reasoning for her offending “nonsense”.
“Some of the commentary from the honourable judge clearly told us that there are so many holes he could see through,” Kaloti said.
Gray told the court worker exploitation had an effect not just on the victims, but on the broader labour market. He said deterrence and denouncement was important.
“If you can get away with paying a migrant worker less than the minimum wage, or nothing at all, you take away a job that a legitimate worker would be entitled to do, so it suppresses wages and has effects beyond the human drama.”
Patel was an Indian national who held New Zealand residency.
Katoli said migrants exploiting other migrants was concerning.
“Somebody who comes to a new country, their employer is from the same culture, same country, speaks the same language, trust is formed immediately,” she said.
“It is really really sad that the very employers who were once migrant workers themselves have taken to this offending.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
