Mum sold daughter for sex with men - TC Beirne School of Law ...

HUMAN TRAFFICKING WORKING GROUP
Professor Andreas Schloenhardt, TC Beirne School of Law
NEWS REPORT
Headline/Title Mum sold daughter for sex with men
Reported in The Courier-Mail
Date of publication April 17, 2013
Place of publication Brisbane
Author Tony Keim
Page 10
Copyright © 2013 News Limited
The University of Queensland
Brisbane Qld 4072
Australia
www.law.uq.edu.au/humantrafficking

AN 11-year-old Thai girl who came to Australia almost seven years ago, with her Brisbanebased
mum promising to give her a better life, was instead used as a child prostitute.
The Brisbane Supreme Court was yesterday told that upon arriving in August 2006 the girl
was put work in her mother's lucrative sexual massage and prostitution business on
Brisbane's southside.
The mum even billed her daughter as the new star attraction, the court heard.
The 41-year-old Thai-born mother, herself a prostitute, yesterday became the first person
convicted under Australia's tough child trafficking laws.
Justice David Boddice jailed the woman for nine years - saying her actions were ``shocking,
despicable and reprehensible''.
Prosecutors said the woman, then 33, first brought her daughter to Australia from Thailand
for a six-week holiday in 2004 - when she put the nine-year-old to work providing sexual
services for cash.
The court was told the mum made her daughter a partner in her sex business, run from her
Runcorn home, from the age of 11 and even used the girl's “virginity” as an enticement in her
plans to marry the child off to a cashed-up sex client.
Prosecutor Todd Fuller, SC, said: “(The mother) regarded her daughter's virginity as a
commodity that she could sell.”
The mother of three pleaded guilty to 20 Queensland and Commonwealth offences, including
child trafficking and procuring a child for prostitution.
She also pleaded guilty to four counts of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child, nine
of indecent treatment of a child under 16 and five involving a child under 12. Mr Fuller said
the offences had been committed between October 2004 and September 2011.
He said the mother put the daughter to work serving numerous clients every week.
The court was told the girl had four regular customers, including the woman's de facto
husband, and had been photographed performing sex acts.
Mr Fuller said the men had been charged, but had yet to stand trial.
The woman will be eligible for parole in April 2017.
An electronic copy of this document is available at www.law.uq.edu.au/humantrafficking.
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