Vietnam girls trafficked for nail bar work

A COUPLE who trafficked Vietnamese girls and forced them to work for free in nail bars have been jailed.

Viet Hoang Nyguyen, 29, and wife Giang Huong, 23, of Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, were the first offenders to be successfully prosecuted for exploitation and enforced child labour under the Modern Slavery Act. They were found guilty of conspiracy to require others to perform forced or compulsory labour.

The investigation began after officers raided Nail Deluxe in Bath in February 2016, taking two girls aged 17 and 18 into care. They later went missing but were traced to a nail bar in Burton-on-Trent.

Another woman, 48-year-old Thu Huong Nguyen – who ran Nail Deluxe – was found guilty of conspiring to arrange or facilitate the movement of people for labour exploitation and conspiring to require others to perform forced or compulsory labour. At her Bath home, police found £60,000 in £50 notes inside a stuffed teddy bear and a cupboard of designer handbags.

She was also sentenced to five years’ jail at Stafford Crown Court yesterday.

In court, the judge said the ‘devious and manipulative’ defendants treated their victims as commodities and exploited them for ‘pure economic greed.’

Detective Inspector Charlotte Tucker, of Avon and Somerset Police, said the girls were ‘forced to live and work in unsuitable conditions, with little or no pay’.