A Benin High Court, Edo State, on Monday sentenced a woman and her children to 38 years’ imprisonment for trafficking a 19-year-old girl to Russia for sexual exploitation.

While the mother, Mrs Helen Ehioze, was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, her two children, Mr Endurance Ehiozee, 37,  and Miss Vivian Ehiozee, 31, were sentenced to 14 years’ each without option of fine.

The presiding judge, Justice Geraldine Imadegbelo, sentenced the convicts after finding them guilty of the offences which contravened sections 15 and 16 of the Trafficking in Person Prohibition Law, Enforcement and Administration Act 2003 as amended in 2005.

The prosecutor, Mrs Rosemary Emodogo, said sections 15 and 16 deal with procurement of victims for prostitution and trafficking in persons.

The teenager (name withheld) was reportedly trafficked to Russia in 2012 when she was 19, but the case in court started in 2017. The victim is now 27.

Counsel for the convicts, Mr. J. Omigie, had pleaded with the court for a lenient sentence, saying the convicts were first offenders and had no prior criminal record.