Hell in Highlands

It was a clear case of modern-day slavery.

Shamsul Arefin promised four Bangladeshis jobs at his hotel in the Highlands region of Scotland and charged each of them up to £18,000 to escape poverty in Bangladesh.

But what was meant to be a new start became a nightmare for Sheikh Bhuiyan, Hasan Mahmud, Kamal Ahmed and Abul Azad.
They were told to pay him substantial sums of money which he described as a "deposit" in exchange for employment and a salary.

On their arrival at the hotel, their wages were reduced to a fraction of the contracted amount and they were required to work far longer hours with their duties extended beyond the kitchen.

The men told how they had to paint the hotel, clean rooms and cut and move logs in the hotel grounds in freezing winter temperatures.

Arefin threatened his victims with termination of their employment when they complained and refused to return the money they had paid him.

“We worked from 5 o'clock in the morning until after midnight every night,” says Sheikh Nasir Ullah Bhuiyan, 38, who is from Chittagong.

“We had to do everything, not only the kitchen, but housekeeping and cleaning, the toilets, outside, everything.

“When I confronted Arefin about the pay after months of work, he got very angry. He said, 'I am paying all the staff like that, you're not unique. If you don't like it, go to hell.' I'd never been out of Bangladesh. I was afraid I would have no place to live.”

Nasir arrived at the hotel in May 2010.

“I paid him £16,000 to bring me here. I borrowed it from several people so I'm still in a lot of debt, which makes me very anxious.

Arefin no longer owns the Stewart Hotel, near Appin in Argyll. He was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in 2015 after being convicted of trafficking the four workers.

They now face a battle to stay in Scotland and are hoping they'll be granted asylum.

One of the four, Abul Kalam Azad, 31, left his wife and baby son in Bangladesh and flew to the UK in 2009, expecting to start work as a chef in a busy restaurant in the capital.

His father sold family land to help pay Arefin's “fee”.

Azad also went to moneylenders. One of them has told him he will cut out his kidney if he fails to pay him back.

“I was promised a salary of £18,000 but it was just like slavery. All I got was £50 or £100 here and there.”

Azad now works in Fort William but moves often because he's afraid. He admits it's “not much of a life” but says he cannot return to his wife and son in Bangladesh.

“Arefin has powerful relatives,” he explained. “If I go back to my country, I'm afraid that I'll be killed.

“One of the lenders I borrowed from has threatened to take out my kidney if I don't pay back my loans, but I have no way of doing that.

“I'm in very big trouble and I don't know how to get out of it. But although it was a very bad experience, I love Scotland.”

He had first met 47-year-old Arefin after responding to an ad in a Dhaka paper offering jobs as a chef in the UK. Azad, the eldest of six sons, was struggling to earn a living working as a cook in his family's small restaurant in a suburb of Dhaka.

The advert led him to Arefin. A big man with a powerful voice, he exuded confidence and authority. His wife had important connections in Bangladeshi political circles and he owned a chain of businesses both there and in the UK, including the Stewart Hotel.

Chef Hasan Mahmud, 44, too wanted to help his wife and child but ended up in the clutches of “monster” Arefin.

“I was terrified working for him. He was like a master and we were like the slaves. He had a terrible temper and would throw plates.

“Once, when someone was a few minutes late, he threw a pot of hot oil on the floor at our feet.

“He had control over us. He said he would send us back to Bangladesh. He has important relatives and I was very scared what would happen if we were sent back.

While working at the hotel, the workers were too scared to talk to locals or guests about what was happening.

“He told us, 'You can't talk to anybody. If you do, I will cancel your visa,'” Azad says.

There was no mobile phone reception, no internet access and no transport. Arefin accompanied them whenever they went into town on hotel business. Some of the workers slept on the floor of empty rooms; others were forced to sleep in a decrepit caravan behind the hotel, with only slug-infested blankets for warmth.

In the middle of winter, they were made to go outside in the freezing rain and snow to chop logs, wearing only the sandals they'd brought with them from Bangladesh.

One day in August 2010, Azad and the other trafficked men saw that Arefin had left the hotel. Seizing this brief window of opportunity, they took the one bus to Fort William, walked into the local Citizens Advice bureau and asked for help. They returned to work and waited. A few weeks later the hotel was raided by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and Arefin's sponsor licence was revoked.

Azad was initially flooded with relief. “After the raid I thought: God saved us. God sent someone. Something good is going to come of this.” The men thought UKBA officials would force Arefin to give them their unpaid wages and treat them as legitimate workers. Instead they were told that their visas had been cancelled and they had 60 days to find another sponsor or be deported back to Bangladesh.

In the weeks after the raid, the men tried to find other jobs, but nobody was willing to sponsor them. Their desperation left them vulnerable; they say that more than one restaurant owner offered them a job, but only if they paid £10,000 for sponsorship.

Alyson Smith was one of the few local people who used the Stewart hotel's bar in the evening, coming in with her husband to drink and play pool. Over time she struck up a friendship with Azad, Ahmed, Bhuiyan and one other worker (who doesn't want to be identified). After a month or two they began to talk to her in whispers about what was happening to them.

With Smith's help, the four men finally made contact with Migrant Help, a migrant rights NGO. Case worker Jim Laird arranged for them to board a train to Glasgow and met them at the station. “When they arrived, they were in such a state,” he says.

“These were clearly people who'd been labour trafficked. They'd been given no help at all. The authorities just treated them like illegal workers.”

Over the following months, then years, Laird maintained a close relationship with the men. He first helped them find a safe house and temporary jobs, then worked to get them formally recognised as victims of trafficking by the UKBA.

When the Home Office said they were allowed to stay in the UK on short-term temporary work visas if they agreed to testify as witnesses in a criminal investigation into Arefin and the Stewart hotel, Laird agreed to support them through the process.

It took five years for a criminal case against Arefin to come to trial. During this time Azad and the other men lurched from one temporary job to another, washing dishes or stacking shelves while the interest on their loans mounted at home.

“It was terrible having to face him and relive what happened to us,” Azad says. One of the other witnesses collapsed during questioning and had to be taken away in an ambulance. “And all the time [Arefin] was sitting laughing at us.”

In July 2015, Shamsul Arefin was found guilty of human trafficking under the Asylum and Immigration Act and imprisoned for three years. The case marked the first successful prosecution of trafficking for forced labour in Scotland's history and was heralded by police and politicians across the UK as a positive step towards more successful prosecutions.

But for his former workers, Arefin's conviction has offered no resolution or sanctuary. No longer witnesses in a criminal trial, they are fighting to be able to stay and work in the UK until they have tried to claim compensation, or worked to pay off the money for their visas.

Ahmed has just had his application for permanent residency turned down by the Home Office; the other three are bracing themselves for similar decisions in the coming weeks. Ahmed has been told he will have to pay £140 to appeal. All are terrified that their lives, and those of their families, will be at risk if they are forced to return, unable to pay their debts.

Azad has remained in Fort William, living in a shared apartment. He has been lucky enough to find work as a chef and waiter in a restaurant, but two-thirds of his wages go towards the interest on his loans.

If he is forced to return to Bangladesh, he is convinced it will be the end for him. He says he has had to move his young family three times, because of fears for their safety.

“The UK courts used us to testify, but we have received no compensation for the money we lost or even advice on how to go about trying to claim our unpaid wages,” Azad says.

“We have never wanted or taken benefits from the government. All we want is the chance to work, to provide for our family and recover the debt we paid.”

That prospect is looking increasingly slim. Azad wonders what he would have made of his life if he'd never answered that advert.

“When I talk to my family, I cannot tell them about my life here, because it would break them. Everything we had has been destroyed. The trafficker didn't just take all our money. He took everything from me.”

[From The Guardian, BBC, dailyrecord.co.uk, pressandjournal .co.uk]