Canadian men hold Bangladeshi woman captive, force her to work 12 hours everyday: Police

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMB) accused two men from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan of holding a Bangladeshi woman captive and making her work 10 to 12 hours a day for months in a poorly lit, unfinished basement.

In a news release on Thursday, RCMB stated that a 52-year-old man from Elrose is charged with one count of trafficking a person while a 41-year-old man from Tisdale is now charged with trafficking a person and three counts of sexual assault, reports CBC News.

According to the police, the Bangladeshi woman with a visitor's visa was looking for work. She responded to an advertisement on a "popular job bank" to work at a restaurant. 

She relocated to Saskatchewan from another province and was given a work permit.

The woman was forced to work 10 to 12 hours a day for several months at restaurants in Tisdale, about 200 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon, Gull Lake and Elrose, both in southwest Saskatchewan.

The Canadian police also said that the woman was forced to stay in an unfinished concrete basement when she wasn't working. The basement was poorly lit and heavily water damaged.

The investigation that resulted in the two men's arrests last week demonstrated that human trafficking can take many different forms and isn't just a "big-city issue," according to Supt Glenn Church, the officer in charge of the Saskatchewan RCMP's enforcement response team.

The men allegedly threatened to call the police or warned her that if she didn't comply, her work permit would be revoked, according to the RCMP.

The two men were arrested in Tisdale on June 29 as a result of the investigation. On Wednesday, a third man was arrested in Elrose. He was, however, released later without being charged.