Two Saskatchewan restaurant operators have been convicted of human trafficking after a judge found they exploited a vulnerable woman from Bangladesh, using her immigration status and fear of being forced to leave Canada to control her.

Mohammed Masum, 44, and Sohel Haider, 55, were taken into custody Friday after Judge Miguel Martinez delivered his verdict in Saskatoon provincial court.

“Both of the accused exploited [the woman’s] vulnerability for their respective material benefit,” Martinez said, according to CBC News.

The judge found the men used their positions as employers, as well as what he described as their “cultural authority as men,” to control the woman’s movements and threatened to withhold or cancel her work permit or report her to authorities.

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Masum went further, the court found, taking the woman’s passport and refusing to return it until she agreed to have sex with him.

Masum was convicted of three counts of sexual assault in addition to human trafficking. Martinez found that Masum had sexually assaulted the woman on eight separate occasions.

The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, arrived in Canada from Bangladesh in August 2022 and later travelled to Saskatchewan seeking work that could allow her to remain in the country.

She began working at Haider’s restaurant in Gull Lake in September 2022. Although Haider did not yet have government approval to employ her, the arrangement was supposed to provide her with free room and board and $1,000 per month.

Martinez found she instead worked long hours six days per week and was never paid.

In November, Haider sent her to a Tisdale restaurant operated by Masum. There, the court heard, she routinely worked 12-hour shifts six days a week. On her only day off, Masum generally required her to accompany him on trips to Saskatoon to purchase restaurant supplies.

Saskatchewan Party Cypress Hills MLA Doug Steele encountered the woman while she was working at Haider’s restaurant and became concerned about her welfare.

Steele contacted then-area Sask Party MLA Hugh Nerlien after she was sent to Tisdale. Nerlien subsequently visited the restaurant and secretly passed the woman his business card along with contact information for a social worker, according to CTV News.

After the woman eventually received a closed work permit requiring her to work at a specific restaurant in Elrose, Steele and the social worker developed what Martinez described as a plan to “clandestinely extract” her from the situation.

They carried out the plan on March 23, 2023.

Both Haider and Masum denied that the woman had ever worked in their restaurants, while Masum also denied sexually assaulting her.

Martinez rejected their accounts.

The judge described Haider’s testimony as “unconvincing, at times self-serving, often vague and sometimes evasive.”

He was even more categorical about Masum.

“I also did not find him to be the least bit credible,” Martinez said.

The Crown requested that both men be taken into custody immediately following their convictions, and Martinez agreed.

They are expected back in court next week to schedule their sentencing hearing.

Human trafficking carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and a mandatory minimum sentence of four years.