A WOMAN was allegedly kept as a domestic slave in a house in Belfast, a court has heard.
She was supposedly passed from one Nigerian family to another and forced to do compulsory labour over a nine-month period by a pregnant mother and her husband.
Precious Izekor, 25, from Castlereagh in East Belfast was detained in Scotland on Tuesday and brought back to Northern Ireland to face a forced labour charge.
Her husband 33-year-old Osarobo Izekor was detained on Wednesday on the same charge.
The alleged offences took place between December 31, 2016 and October 1, 2017.
Detectives from the PSNI’s Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Unit made the arrests as part of an ongoing investigation.
The pair were arrested last week (Image: Getty)One claimed that: “The victim states she was essentially transferred from one family to another … and would be in fear of being taken back to Nigeria and back to poverty.”
The couple are the first to be prosecuted for alleged involvement in domestic slavery in Northern Ireland.
According to police, the victim escaped the house where she was living and alerting a member of public to her situation, who contacted the authorities.
Police say the victim has family in Nigeria and comes from “an extremely poor and impoverished background” at the other end of the social scale from the couple who are accused of keeping her in servitude.
Mrs Izekor, a pregnant mother of two who holds dual British and Sierra Leonean citizenship denies the allegation.
Appearing before Belfast Magistrates’ Court she spoke only to confirm she understood the charge.
She has been reused bail due to the fear that she could flee to Africa in light of the allegations and has instead been held in custody to appear in court again in four weeks time.
