LONDON: Britain should pay €90,000 in compensation to two Vietnamese men who were convicted of drug crimes despite signs they had been trafficked as children and forced to work on cannabis farms, Europe’s top rights court ruled on Tuesday.
The British government has three months to decide whether to appeal the ruling at the ECHR’s grand chamber.Anti-slavery advocates welcomed the ruling and said it could affect the treatment of victims in other European nations. However, prosecutors ultimately concluded that they had not been trafficked and Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled that the decision to prosecute them had been justified, the ruling said.
The UK thus violated Article 4 — prohibition of forced labour — and Article 6 — right to a fair trial — under the European Convention on Human Rights, according to the ECHR.