Some members of the public believe the sentence meted out to two middle-age men, who pleaded guilty this week to conspiracy to trafficking in persons, was too lenient.

The men were sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment each, at hard labour, but there are persons who say they should have been given longer prison sentences. "How can two grown men solicit a 14-year-old girl to go to a hotel room to have sexual intercourse with a man and end up with such a light sentence?" one woman asked.

"They should have been sentenced to at least five years in prison," another remarked.

It is so disgraceful that these two men did such a terrible thing to a child but I am so glad that they approached the right person, who got the police involved," another woman said.

"They should rot in jail for the rest of their lives," the woman added.

The men were charged under Section 10 of the Child Care and Protection Act, which came into effect in March 2004. The section states that "no person shall sell or participate in the trafficking of any child".

It states further that any person, who commits such an offence "shall be liable to conviction on indictment before a Circuit Court, to a fine or to imprisonment with hard labour for a term not exceeding 10 years, or to both such fine and imprisonment".

The men committed the offence in May 2006 but the Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Suppression and Punishment) Act was not passed until February 2007. The punishment for trafficking under this Act is the same as the punishment under Section 10 of the Child Care and Protection Act.

Maximum sentence

Although the men were charged with trafficking in persons they pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of conspiracy to trafficking in persons. The judge, in sentencing the men, told them that the maximum sentence for what they pleaded guilty to was two years imprisonment.

The judge said he took into account the fact that the men had pleaded guilty to the charge and then sentenced them to 12 months' imprisonment each at hard labour.

The men were in custody for nine months before they were granted bail.

"How can two grown men solicit a 14-year-old girl to go to a hotel room to have sexual intercourse with a man and end up with such a light sentence?" one woman asked.