Latest news Andelfingen ZH court must decide on "house slave" case

A married couple from the Winterthur region had to answer to the Andelfingen district court on Tuesday. They are accused of exploiting young foreign women as "domestic slaves" and locking them in a cage. The man finds everything very exaggerated.

The first of the two victims tearfully recounted the almost 10 months he spent with the 46-year-old Swiss man and his wife from the Philippines. The couple locked her in a small cage every day, tied up and chained, she said.

They cleaned the house for hours, six days a week for a monthly wage of 800 francs. At 3 pm, the "slave" had to return to the cage to study hotel management. Every two weeks, the "master" gave her a test. If she made a mistake, she was punished, for example by having her hands tied behind her back or wearing tight gloves.

Locked in the cage for the night

Once she had finished cooking and tidying up for the couple in the evening, she was tied up again and locked up for the night. At some point, the young woman put the shackles on herself. She was told that the cage and the shackles were "a condition of the hotel management school". It was the only way to get her degree and visa.

She already had doubts and kept asking the couple why she was being locked in a cage. "This is not a school." She also had the feeling that the wife was under the husband's influence.

Treated "like an animal"

The second victim, who is slightly older and lived in the house for four months, said that the couple "treated her like an animal". However, she was "only" tied up twice, both times because she allegedly did something wrong. The judge expressed his incomprehension as to why she had stayed there anyway.

The woman justified this by saying that she had grown up in a religious environment and had always had to obey. "When I saw the job offer, it was a chance for me to get away and study." And she actually learned a lot of German words.

"I also didn't know anyone in Switzerland and would have been ashamed to go back to my parents." Today she thinks differently. What is astonishing is that guests apparently knew about the cage. Anyone who came to visit had seen it. "People knew that I was locked up," she affirmed. Why no one did anything remained unanswered at the trial.

"Everyone thinks I should have noticed"

The wife, who was also accused, claimed that her husband - a narcissist according to the expert opinion - had manipulated her. She had really thought herself that the cage was part of the employees' training. "Everyone now thinks that I should have noticed and that I was stupid."

However, she was new to Switzerland at the time. She was not only financially dependent on him, but also mentally. "I trusted my husband." The public prosecutor's office is demanding a conditional prison sentence of 10 months and a five-year ban from the country for multiple counts of aiding and abetting deprivation of liberty.

"I took advantage of her naivety"

The 46-year-old husband, who lived out his pronounced tendency to dominate with the two successively employed "house slaves", admitted that he had manipulated his wife. "I took advantage of her naivety." She was not part of the "setting". "When the first woman arrived, she was surprised."

The Swiss man admitted everything during questioning. However, the accusation sounded very exaggerated, "like Sodom and Gomorrah". But he had by no means set up a "Nazi regime". "We lived together." There was no shouting or crying. There was no question of coercion. He opened the cage when the women asked him to.

The Swiss man has been charged with human trafficking and deprivation of liberty, among other things. Because he has confessed, the trial will be conducted in summary proceedings.

If the court accepts the prosecution's proposal, the man will receive a partial prison sentence of 36 months, of which he will serve 9 months. He has already served five months of this in pre-trial detention. However, it is also possible that the district court will send the entire case back to the public prosecutor's office at the sentencing hearing on Wednesday.