A jury has convicted 63-year-old Moeaia Tuai of 2 counts of modern-day slavery and 17 additional charges related to a female victim, including rape, sexual violation, and indecent assault. He remains in custody awaiting sentencing in the Auckland District Court.
Tuai is making headlines in the New Zealand media as being a “Samoan matai” and a “slavemaster” in New Zealand’s most infamous slavery trial. His matai title could not be verified.
Moeaia Tuai moved to New Zealand from Samoa in 2005 with a work permit as a builder.
Around 2015 after living in Auckland for 10 years, he helped the two victims in his slavery case immigrate to New Zealand.
He was found guilty of enslaving two Samoan youth – a male and a female. He forced the young woman to pay him her wages for four years, while he raped and sexually abused her.
At his trial, his own diaries were used to document the hours the young woman worked, her pay and when she was punished with beatings.
“Treating a person as if they were owned” was the legal description given to the jury.
“Restricting freedom of movement – where a person can go, restricting freedom of association – who they can spend time with, restricting freedom of communication – who they can contact and talk to – using actual or threatened violence for breach of rules, retaining income and denying access to money, threatening consequences such as deportation to ensure compliance, restricting access to education to maintain control.”
Only one of those elements was needed, but the Prosecution said Tuai had done the lot.
He put them to work, restricted their movements and communication, and controlled their money, paying them very little for their work.
He kept their passports, bank cards and wages, assaulted them and threatened both with deportation if they spoke out.
The young male victim dreamt of finishing school, before he was put to work for 50 to 60 hours a week. He was paid $100-150, $2 or $3 an hour.
The male victim escaped after four years in 2020.
It would be four years later befor the female victim would escape in 2024.
The Court heard that Tuai guarded his second victim after the first ran away – driving her to and from work at a laundrette and factory, and even refusing permission for her to attend a daytime work function.
He coerced her to make a false allegation of rape against another man who she had started to see, said the Crown.
But she took her chance to escape, contacting a relative, laying a false trail of where she had gone and then contacting police.
The two young victims – who cannot be identified – had to hand over their incomes to Tuai. The Court heard estimated income forcibly taken to be $78,000 or more for one victim alone.
He denied all the charges, but the jury was unanimous in finding him guilty of 19 charges: two of slavery and 17 sexual offending against the female victim.
Ownership, possession, control, threats
Tuai did not allow the victims to talk to each other, even when they were eating at the same table. He did not allow them to talk to other people. He threatened to kill the female victim if she told anyone he’d sexually assaulted her, and both of them with deportation.
The jury heard the call Tuai had made to Internal Affairs the day after the female victim ran away – and his disappointment as he realised he could not carry out his threat.
The New Zealand media are reporting that the Aucklander was a Samoan matai. And also reporting Joseph Matamata as a Samoan chief, who in 2020 became the first New Zealander convicted of both slavery and human trafficking.
Thirteen of Matamata’s victims in Hastings – one just 12 years old – were held behind a tall wire fence and put to work.
Rare conviction, less rare occurrence
Investigation and prosecution numbers are hard to track down, but Tuai’s slave dealing convictions are believed to be the fifth in New Zealand history.
In a 1991 case, a Thai man sold a woman to an undercover police officer as a slave for $3000. She had been working in a massage parlour and a go-go bar, and the evidence suggested he had brought a succession of girls and young women from Thailand to live off their earnings.
More recently, Fijian woman Kasmeer Lata forced her underage daughter into prostitution in Auckland – the first time on her 15th birthday.
She was sentenced to more than 10 years’ imprisonment for dealing in slaves and dealing in a person under 18 for sexual exploitation, while Lata’s partner Avneesh Sehgal sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for his part in the offending.
In cases not prosecuted as slavery, debt bondage or immigration-related promises or threats have been used against workers to exploit them in slavery-like conditions.
A ministerial advisory group set up to deal with cross-border and serious crime reported that nearly four times the number of migrant exploitation complaints had been made in 2024 compared with the previous year.
“It is highly likely that serious migrant exploitation, such as people-trafficking, forced labour and sexual exploitation, is underreported and growing within New Zealand.”
University of Auckland’s Centre for Research on Modern Slavery director Christina Stringer said the small numbers of slavery prosecutions, as well as human trafficking, may suggest they are rare – but she strongly disagrees.
“Successful prosecutions often rely heavily on victim testimony, and many migrant workers may be unwilling to come forward – or may not even recognise themselves as victims.”
Tuai will be sentenced in February and will be remanded in custody until then. The maximum sentence for slavery is currently 14 years, and 20 years for rape.
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