17 Apr, 2018
Kasmeer Lata has been jailed for six years and 11 months for selling her daughter as a sex slave over a two-year period. She escaped her horror in November 2016 and reported to police. Avneensh Sehgal, the partner of Lata, pleaded guilty to dealing in underage people for sexual exploitation.
Kasmeer Lata was sentenced on Tuesday in the High Court at Auckland by Justice Matthew Muir for dealing in slaves and receiving earnings from commercial sexual services from an underage person.
Avneensh Sehgal, the partner of Lata, pleaded guilty to dealing in underage people for sexual exploitation and receiving earnings from underage sexual exploitation just minutes after Lata was sentenced.
Sehgal was due to go to trial next week and will now be sentenced next month.
During the 18 months the teen was sold as a sex slave, it is estimated her 36-year-old mother collected about $100,000, keeping half, court documents obtained by the Herald show.
The teenage daughter, in her statement read to the court, said “I have to make up lies about four years of my life and why I live on my own without my parents’ support.
“I see men differently now. I think they always want something from me and that is why they are talking to me,” she said.
“I always wanted my mum to be a normal person ... I wonder what I did to deserve my mum? All I wanted was your love as a child, teenager, and your girl.”
Justice Muir said Lata’s offending has caused “long-lasting, if not irreparable damage to her daughter” as she “effectively pimped her out”.
He imposed a minimum period of imprisonment of three years and five months.
The teen had moved to New Zealand from Fiji with her mother and brothers just a year before her horror began.
However, their visitor visas expired and they began living as illegal immigrants, court documents show.
To overcome their financial problems, Lata placed an advertisement on the website Craigslist which offered her daughter for sexual services. Another ad was bought for the classified section of the New Zealand Herald.
The mum lied about her daughter’s age in both ads.
The teen, was forced to pay rent and bills with the money she earned from selling her body, became pregnant in mid-2015 but was told by her mum to keep working to pay for an abortion. The girl did get an abortion.
