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'Evil and disgusting' trade in sex slaves
SICKENED police officers visited 36 suspected city brothels in a matter of weeks in search of human sex slaves.
SICKENED police officers visited 36 suspected city brothels in a matter of weeks in search of human sex slaves.Their campaign – Operation Radium – was launched in May in a bid to identify 100 of the establishments in Cambridgeshire and find out if they were selling the services of kidnapped foreign women.
Special report:
Operation Radium aims to save women.
Human trafficking: Case studies.
Caring for the trafficking victims.
Human trafficking: The hard facts.
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In the space of just six months, a total of seven women – five in Peterborough – who had been horrifically abused, have been discovered.
Many had been battered and bruised. Some had been forced to "service" up to 60 clients a day. Some had been gang raped.
Since May, officers visited 57 suspected brothels across the county but today, for the first time, they launched an appeal for members of the public to help them rescue more women and bring perpetrators of these sickening crimes to book.
They said the move forms part of a national drive against the sex slave trade which lures women from places such as Eastern Europe, Africa and the Far East to the UK under the pretext that training for jobs such as nursing or citizenship will be made available to them.
However, instead of healing others the women end up with their bodies battered and their dreams shattered after being held prisoners in brothels and their bodies used for sex.
The head of Cambridgeshire Constabulary's serious and organised crime unit Detective Chief Inspector Paul Fullwood, who today blasted the practice as "evil and disgusting", said: "Peterborough has a hugely diverse population and there are opportunities for victims to be recruited and brought to the city.
"However, the practice is widespread in towns and villages across Cambridgeshire.
"We know that many brothels operate under the guise of other businesses, or they may just be ordinary-looking homes in quiet, residential neighbourhoods.
"This is where the public can be our eyes and ears. People see and hear things in the streets where they live."Police have so far visited 57 brothels in the county and arrested 20 people – 16 for immigration offences, one for the management of a brothel, three for trafficking offences and one for fraud.
They said the operation was not being launched because Cambridgeshire had a high number of cases of human trafficking, but because there was an increase in the crime nationally.
MP for North West Cambridgeshire and joint-vice chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Trafficking of Women and Children, Shailesh Vara, said: "It is a tragedy that, in the same year that we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, we still have slavery on our own doorstep.
"It is a barbaric practice, and it has no place in a civilised society.
"I commend the police in their efforts to stamp out this vile trade in human misery."
Posters and information cards urging communities to be vigilant and report any suspicions will be distributed across Cambridgeshire in the next few weeks.
The so-called "clients" of the sex trade will also be asked as part of the public appeal to anonymously report situations where they think women are victims rather than willing sex workers.
If you can help, call 0845 456 4564, in confidence, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555111.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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