The RCMP in Montreal have arrested a couple and charged them with human trafficking in a case they say is the first of its kind in Canada.

Nichan Manoukian and his wife Manoudshag Saryboyadjian were charged in connection with an Ethiopian nanny they brought legally to their home in Laval, north of Montreal, in 2004.

Police said the couple found the woman through an agency in Lebanon.

The charges of human trafficking, withholding or destruction of identification documents, and profiting from human trafficking relate to what police say happened to the woman after she arrived in Laval.

According to police:

• The accused couple refused to let the woman leave the house alone.
• She wasn't allowed to make any phone calls.
• She was at the family's beck and call 24 hours a day.

It was a year and half before someone in the community called in an anonymous tip, and, police said, they removed the woman from the home within a week.

"She was confused, she was scared. It took a while before we could gain her trust," RCMP Const. Magdela Turpin told a news conference Friday.

It was another year and a half before police were in a position to lay charges.

Turpin said this is the first time human trafficking charges have been laid under the Canadian Criminal Code, after a new law came into effect in November 2005. In the past, human trafficking was treated as an Immigration Act violation.

No date has been set for the couple to appear in court.