Crown seeks harsher sentence for sex slave’s mum
The Solicitor-General is appealing the sentence given to an Auckland woman who kept her teenage daughter as a sex slave for nearly two years, and is seeking harsher terms.
Kasmeer Lata, 36, was jailed for six years and 11 months by Justice Matthew Muir last month for dealing in slaves, dealing in a person under 18 for sexual exploitation, and receiving earnings from commercial sexual services from an underage person.
The High Court judge imposed a minimum period of imprisonment of three years and five months.
The mother had kept the girl as a prisoner, selling her to men in Auckland about 1000 times, and first doing so on her daughter’s 15th birthday. Lata (pictured) was New Zealand’s third conviction for dealing in slaves, while the case was the first of its kind in the country under a specific subsection of the Crimes Act.
At Lata’s sentencing the Crown Solicitor at Manukau, Natalie Walker, called for the offending to be denounced in the most explicit terms. The maximum sentence for dealing in slaves under New Zealand laws is 14 years’ imprisonment.
At the sentencing yesterday of Lata’s partner Avneensh Sehgal, Walker told the court an appeal has been filed against Lata’s sentencing by the Solicitor-General’s office.
When sentencing Lata, who has been called the “most despised woman in New Zealand”, Justice Muir relied on a 1991 case and several others from the UK to help him reach a judgment due to the lack of case law in New Zealand.
Before Lata, only two others had been convicted over dealing in slaves under New Zealand legislation — the first in 1991 and another in 1998.
The Crown has attempted to prosecute seven others for dealing in slaves, Ministry of Justice statistics released under the Official Information Act show.
Two people were charged in 1995, three in 2000, one in 2008, and one in 2009 but none of the charges were proved.
Justice Muir said he wished to send a “strong message to all parents” when he imposed a minimum period of imprisonment on Lata.
“New Zealand’s courts will not [tolerate] the prostitution of children,” he said.