Restaurant owner pleads guilty to coercing woman into forced labour

An Indian restaurant owner has pleaded guilty to keeping a female employee in forced labour.

Farok Shaik, who owned six restaurants in Victoria, used threats of violence and deportation to force the woman to work with no pay for a year while she and her husband lived in a cupboard.

The woman found the job through Gumtree in late 2012, believing she would be paid $42,000 a year plus super, get visa sponsorship and accommodation.

Instead she was forced to live in a storeroom above Indian Tandoor Restaurant in Yarrawonga while working for no pay.

Shaik refused to pay her and threatened to “kill or hit” her if she kept asking for money, the court heard. He also threatened her with deportation if she stopped working at his restaurants. 

He also prevented the victim from taking up a second job as a carer. 

Shaik was prosecuted by the Fair Work Commission in 2015 and was ordered to pay the woman and her husband $50,000. She was in fact owed $85,000. 

Anti-Slavery Australia referred the restaurateur to Australian Federal Police, and he was charged in 2017 and pleaded guilty last November. 

Shaik said he “he couldn't pay the wages so he chose not to”, the court was told. He is facing a maximum nine years imprisonment.

Sheridan Randall, 15^th June 2020