Arrests as four Chinese sex slaves rescued during raid

Published on Sunday 10 February 2008 21:37

FOUR Chinese women trafficked into Scotland by gangs to work in the sex industry have been found during a series of raids by police.

The women, in their 20s, were found in two separate properties in Grangemouth and an up- market area of Stirling.

Two Chinese men were arrested at the same time.

A police source said yesterday: "This is an excellent result and once again illustrates the insidious extent of the sex trade in Scotland.

"This weekend is the start of Chinese New Year, and for these four girls, the Year of the Rat should be an awful lot happier than recent times that they have endured.

"Girls like these tend to come from very rural and very poor parts of China. They would have been forced to hand over many thousands of pounds to the snakeheads, after being promised jobs here as waitresses, dancers or nannies.

"They then have to endure dreadful conditions as they are trafficked through Central Asia, the Balkans and eastern Europe, before arriving in Britain without anything, apart from the hollow promise of a new life.

"Unfortunately, the girls who the police rescued are the tip of an iceberg, and there will always be many hundreds of others back in China more than happy to try their luck in Britain."