In September 2014, Australian Mohamed Ahmed Omer booked a one-month family vacation from Melbourne to Sudan with his wife and two young children—except once in Sudan, he took the kids, and his wife's various forms of identification, and fled back to Australia without her, essentially stranding her in Africa. Now, the 52-year-old will spend 4 1/2 years behind bars after becoming the first person in Victoria to be found guilty of "exit trafficking," which ABC Australia defines as "a person coercing, forcing, or threatening another to leave Australia against their will."
Omer's wife, who wed him in an arranged marriage in 2010, was stranded in Sudan for 16 months, per the Guardian. After he'd taken their children and left her behind, the woman reached out to the Australian Embassy in Egypt and discovered her visa had been canceled. "It can be almost impossible for people caught in this situation to return to Australia," notes the Mercy Foundation, an Australian social justice group. "However, as Australian citizens or permanent residents, they have a right to return home." After much legal wrangling, the woman was finally able to get a temporary visa to head back Down Under in February 2016.
At a July presentencing hearing, the woman told the court that being without her children for that period was "the most devastating experience of my life," and that her kids had undergone "unimaginable suffering" as well. Evidence was also heard in court that Omer had "behaved aggressively and threatened the woman during the marriage," in addition to being controlling, per ABC.
story continues below
After a jury trial that stretched for a month, Omer, who'd pleaded not guilty, was convicted of exit trafficking in April. Due to time already spent behind bars while in custody, he'll be eligible for parole in three years and three months. "You treated her as a chattel that could be simply discarded," Judge Frank Gucciardo said Tuesday during Omer's sentencing hearing. (More Australia stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
