Police Crack Down On Sex Trade ‘Slavers’

Police yesterday redoubled their campaign against sex slave traffickers as it emerged women from 37 countries were working in Glasgow brothels.

Forces across the British Isles have already made 200 arrests and rescued more than 80 women and girls, some as young as 14, from forced prostitution under Operation Pentameter.

In four months officers from the UK and Republic of Ireland raided 515 brothels, massage parlours and homes, finding women from eastern Europe, the Far East, Africa and South America.

Last summer they even uncovered “slave auctions” for women in the arrivals halls for British airports.

Yesterday they launched Pentameter II, a new and bigger operation. Scotland, insiders stressed yesterday, is far from immune to the trade with trafficked women discovered across the country.

Assistant chief constable John Malcolm of Strathclyde Police, who is leading the operation on behalf of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, said: “The trafficking of human beings is a form of slavery and will not be tolerated in a civilised modern society.
Many people suffer abuse at the hands of those who have brought them

“Many people suffer abuse at the hands of those who have brought them to this country and are forced to engage in the sex industry to pay for food and shelter.

“The police service in Scotland will be working to ensure not only that the traffickers are traced and dealt with but also that their innocent victims are released and given care and support.”

The Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance, a Glasgow group, said it had identified women of 37 nationalities working in the off-street sex trade in the city.

Rescued women include a young African women forced into prostitution in her home country before being trafficked to Britain. She had no idea where she was going until some time after she arrived.

She was held in a Glasgow flat, bound by a ritualistic oath she had made in Africa that, she believed, would lead to her dying if she betrayed her exploiters.

A young Latvian had been told she was getting a job in a cafe in Britain to help pay for her studies. She was raped and forced into prostitution, being told she would be shamed at home if she did not continue.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said: “This operation will assist our wider efforts to ensure that Scotland is a hostile environment for human traffickers and will send out a clear message that we, as a society, will not tolerate this modern-day slavery.

“The operation is not only about bringing traffickers to justice, but about protecting and supporting the victims of trafficking.

“Pentameter II will help improve our knowledge about the nature and scale of human trafficking in Scotland, ensure that trafficking becomes core police business and raise awareness of this crime among the wider public.”

A permanent unit, the UK Human Trafficking Centre, was set up in the wake of the first Pentameter operation, bringing together police, prosecutors and officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Yesterday, senior officers south of the border urged the clients of illegal brothels to report any suspicions they had about women who may have been trafficked – saying anybody who did so through Crimestoppers would not be prosecuted.