‘Ying Kai’ jailed three years in forced-labour case

The Ratchadapisek Criminal Court in Bangkok imposed the sentence in a lawsuit brought by a plaintiff identified only as Kanchana from Mae Hong Son. 
Monta was also ordered to pay Kanchana Bt590,007 in compensation. 
The case was related to allegations that Monta, 60, employed three young women to work as her servants without pay or days off from 2006 to 2010. 
Complaints filed by the two other former maids, aged 19 and 17, were dismissed by the court due to insufficient evidence. 
But the court found that Monta withheld Kanchana’s national ID card and reneged on her promise to pay her Bt6,000 a month in salary and to finance her training at a nursing college. 
Monta had reportedly paid Bt5,000 to Kanchana’s parents when she first picked up the then teenager from Mae Hong Son to stay with her at a Prachaniwet condominium in Bangkok from May 2008 to April 2009.
The court ruled that the ID card was seized for the purpose of benefitting from forced labour, in violation of the Anti-Human Trafficking Act 2008. 
Monta was sentenced to a four-year jail term, but a quarter of the time was deducted because she had given investigators “useful information”.
Monta, who has been detained at Central Women’s Correctional Institute in Bang Khen district since her arrest on July 29, 2016, will be making further court appearances on charges of lodging false police complaints against her former maids and of attempted human trafficking. 
Another human-trafficking case currently on trial involves her allegedly luring a 16-year-old Mae Hong Son girl with a promise of a Bt5,000-salary job and scholarship, but the girl was allegedly forced to serve as a house maid from 5am to 10pm without pay or a day off. 
Monta was previously sentenced to seven years and six months on June 6, 2017 on a lese majeste offence, after she changed her plea to guilty on charges of claiming on three occasions in 2012 to be a royally appointed Khunying. 
Monta is also accused of filing false theft complaints against her 19-year-old former maid, Prapawan “Goi” Jaikla, for which Prapawan spent three months in jail. The teenager was reportedly “punished” for refusing Monta’s offer to work abroad.