SEX SLAVES “LEFT WAITING DAYS FOR POLICE RESCUE”
SEX TRAFFICKING victims can be left waiting days in UK brothels while police “make observations” before stepping in to rescue them.
The women, commonly referred to by Home Office ministers as being expected to service as many as 30 or 40 clients a day, could be left waiting “a number of days” while police keep the brothel “under observation,” Home Office minister Lord Brett (right) told the House of Lords during debates on the Policing and Crime Bill, which includes a controversial measure to criminalise clients of sex workers deemed coerced or trafficked.
Their ordeal would continue until “at some point, sufficient evidence will have been gathered,” he said.
Said Lord Brett:
If a brothel is under observation and it is suspected that prostitutes are being trafficked, primarily because they are being moved between different cities, which is quite a common occurrence, the place will be kept under observation for a number of days.
People will be seen going in and coming out, prostitutes will be seen going in and coming out and the movements of the people running the brothel will be seen. At some point, sufficient evidence will have been gathered to make arrests. They will be made in the light of those observations.
Meanwhile the ‘victim support’ page of the police ‘Blue Blindfold’ anti-trafficking site has been ‘coming soon’ now for over two years.
Two nationwide hunts for sex trafficking victims involving all 55 UK police forces discovered only 255 persons trafficked, well under the 4,000-strong Government estimate and less than a third of 1 percent of the UK‘s estimated 80,000-strong population of sex workers.
Giving examples was “always dangerous,” said Lord Brett.
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