Two Nigerian brothers, Obioma Banjamin Abba, 32 and Chinedu Justine Obasi, 38 have been sentence to imprisonment by a Gauteng judge in Pretoria, south Africa, for human trafficking offence.
Abba was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment while Obasi was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for running a prostitute brothel in Arcadia, Pretoria.
The brothers were said to keep women captive in their flat in Arcadia where they worked as prostitutes.
Presiding judge, Tolmay said the brothers were supposed to get mandatory life sentence in cases “if there were no mitigating factors”. However, the brothers were saved from life imprisonment because they were first time offenders. Also, he said the brothers had spent more than two years in jail, awaiting trial.
Similarly, the judge explained that, although two women who worked as prostitutes for the brothers were exposed to a lot of trauma, they were already in the sex trade and hooked on drugs when they were recruited.
The two prostitutes earlier told the court of their harrowing life on the streets, while their pimps, the convicts kept them hooked on drug.