Young women being trafficked into capital to work as sex slaves

Published on Saturday 18 February 2006 00:40

DETECTIVES investigating people-smuggling gangs said at least two women had been trafficked into Edinburgh to work as sex slaves in the past 16 months.

The 21-year-old victims were brought to the city from Eastern Europe to be forced into prostitution.

Both managed to flee their captors and alert police, who yesterday warned that many more women in Edinburgh may be in the same situation.

One young woman from Burundi in Africa, was brought to the UK from Eastern Europe, where she had been forced to work as a prostitute.

Only hours after arriving in Edinburgh she was dumped by a male trafficker. Unaware she was even in Scotland, she went to Leith police station and described her ordeal to shocked police officers.

In the other case, a Lithuanian woman was lured to Britain in November 2004 with the promise of a job as a dishwasher. But she was brought to Edinburgh and forced to have sex with several men for cash.

Her story came to light after she was moved to Birmingham, escaped her pimps and contacted police for help.

Crime rings linked to the Mafia are already known to have smuggled women into the country to work as prostitutes in Edinburgh. It is estimated that around 70 women from as many as 30 nations are working in the city's sex industry in saunas and private flats.

Detectives from the Organised Immigration Crime Unit - the first of its kind in Scotland - are now trying to track down pimps trafficking women from overseas.

The unit's Detective Chief Superintendent Brian Donegan said: "We are now satisfied that it is happening but we are still working to build up the full picture."

However, Ruth Morgan Thomas, co-ordinator of city-based prostitute support group Scotpep, said her group had found no additional evidence of women from overseas forced into the sex trade.

She added that around 10 per cent of women involved in prostitution in the city were from abroad.

And Ms Morgan said: "We've not seen any evidence of coercion among the women we've met. They've made the decision to come here themselves, either as students or on work visas."