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October 2005: Sex Trafficking |
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01-Oct-05 | Lithuanian girl bought for £700 'was willing prostitute' | Yorkshire Post Today Olwen Dudgeon |
Defendant Tasim Axhami pleaded guilty to trafficking. He told jury he paid £700 to "traffic" an 18 yr. old Lithuanian to Yorkshire after being told she could earn money for him in the sex trade. Claimed he was under the impression the girl was willing participant. A friend's (Emiljan Beqirat, age 18) girlfriend, Vilma Kizlaite, was already working as a prostitute and he claimed she said she could bring a girl over for him who would "make £500 a night for you." The 18 yr. old arrived at Gatwick with another, older girl, who left with a person known to him as "Samir". Emiljan Beqirat also pleaded guilty to trafficking. Both girls told the jury they were tricked into traveling to London by men they knew in Lithuania and found they had been sold to Albanians. The 18-year-old claimed she was repeatedly raped by Axhami and forced to work as a prostitute. The second girl, 19 at the time, said she ended up in London where she was raped and forced to work as a prostitute. | |
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01-Oct-05 | Police free sex trade women in raid on massage parlour | Guardian Steven Morris |
Birmingham Cuddles Massage Parlour 19 women from 10 countries (east Europe, Italy, Turkey and east Asia) are under police protection after Sept. 29th raid (Operation Strikeout) on Birmingham massage parlour. Women held against their will behind locked doors and electric fence and it is believed they were tricked into the UK by job offers as nannies or waitresses. Two men and a woman arrested. See original articles for further details. |
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| Foreign sex slaves freed in dramatic police raid | Scotsman Tara Fawcett |
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| Sex slaves freed | Mirror Rod Chaytor |
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02-Oct-05 | Probe launched into ‘bogus’ Scots colleges | Sunday Herald Paul Hutcheon |
Police investigating "bogus" Scottish colleges possibly being used by people traffickers. | |
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05-Oct-05 | Home Office defers expulsion of women held in brothel raid | Guardian Audrey Gillan Julie Bindel |
Birmingham Cuddles Massage Parlour Six of the 19 women rescued by police from "Cuddles" brothel in Birmingham (see above) were due to be removed from the UK by immigration but had their expulsion deferred following pressure from campaigners. Human rights lawyers were refused access to the women, who were being held in Yarlswood detention centre in Bedfordshire on the grounds that they were not victims of trafficking and were in the country illegally. |
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09-Oct-05 |
Britain's shameless role in helping sex traffickers keep thousands of women in slavery |
Independent Sophie Goodchild, Marie Woolf and Tom Anderson |
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Oct. 10 Committee of MPs and peers to debate whether to launch a formal inquiry into the Government's failure to sign the new European agreement aimed at combating human trafficking. |
| 10-Oct-05 | Australian brothels and sexual slavery | On Line Opinion Vicki Dunne |
Vicki Dunne argues Australia's attitude to sexual servitude is not based on humanitarian principles. Trafficking of women, mainly from South-East Asia and China, to work as slaves in Australian brothels. | ||
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11-Oct-05 | 19 held in people smuggling probe | BBC News | Operation Bluesky. Dawn raids in London and Lincolnshire smashed people smuggling racket believed to have brought up to 200,000 Kurds into UK. 19 arrests. | |
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12-Oct-05 | Women and children smuggled in for sex | CEN News | Cambridge expert, Graham Ritchie (a director of the Unit for the Law of Children and the Vulnerable - at Anglia Ruskin University) stated that the trafficking of women and children to the UK for the sex trade has become endemic. says the transportation and exploitation of women and children probably involves thousands of people in the UK. He said organised crime in the former Soviet bloc had led to Eastern Europe becoming the main supplier of workers to the sex trade in the UK. Ritchie believes that the Government's information on female sex trafficking victims is out of date, the figures for children are simply unknown, and that trafficked children have gone missing from West Sussex social services. Ritchie's unit will be monitoring people trafficking in Europe over the next year. |
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16-Oct-05 | Sex with trafficked women is rape, says minister | Observer Mark Townsend |
The UK and Sweden are hosting a seminar in Brussels on trafficking. Home Office ministers believe that men who have sex with trafficked prostitutes should be charged with rape. Thousands could be prosecuted. Prostitution and the trafficking of women have become the third highest 'black market' income earner after drugs and the arms trade. There is "a significant shift towards criminalising men who pay for sex. Men are not now considered to have committed an offence, although it is illegal for women to solicit and for men to 'kerb crawl' or to pimp women." Former Europe minister Denis MacShane said: 'It's time for honest language. When a man has sex with a frightened, beaten and intimidated woman there is only word to describe it and that is rape. I am pleased that the Home Office now recognises that. We need to see charges against men who have sex with women who are living in fear after being trafficked.' | |
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18-Oct-05 | Sex trade gang 'beggared belief' | BBC News | Tasim Axhami (from Kosovo), Emilijan Beqirat (from Albania) and Lithuanian Vilma Kizlaite (from Lithuania) convicted of trafficking women into the UK and forcing them to work in brothels. Axhami sentenced to 21 yrs, Beqirat 16 yrs., Kizlaite 11 yrs. All three were convicted of trafficking the women and of sex trafficking charges. They were all convicted of false imprisonment but Kizlaite was acquitted on the charge of forcing a woman into sexual activity. Axhami was convicted on three counts of rape and all three were convicted of causing female sexual activity without consent. Beqirat and Kizlaite were also convicted of controlling prostitutes for gain. | |
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18-Oct-05 | New laws plea to protect EU's vulnerable sex trade workers | Unison.ie Conor Sweeney |
A group consisting mostly of current and former prostitutes is lobbying the European Parliament to legalise prostitution in Ireland and other European countries. Call was rejected as "an endorsement of the misery an exploitation" by critics of prostitution. Ireland has no plans to change existing legislation. "Operation Angel" mounted in Ireland two years ago to crackdown on illicit lap-dancing clubs also acting as brothels and exploiting illegal immigrants. See article for further details of debate. | |
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20-Oct-05 | It's all very well condemning the sex traffickers, but what about the punters who keep the trade going? | Guardian Catherine Bennett |
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Excellent Opinion piece by Catherine Bennett pointing out the responsibility of British men who visit prostitutes in regard to sexual slavery of women. |
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22-Oct-05 |
UK charity helps Thai girls and children out of prostitution |
Hand in Hand Ministry | ||
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22-Oct-05 | British Cops Witness Increase in Sex-Slave Trade and Human Trafficking | TVC News | British police claim that organized crime enterprises in the UK are making millions in profit from trafficked women. UK politicians have been critical of the Blair gov. for not doing enough to crackdown on slave trading gangs. Police say that gang wars are breaking out due to the saturation of sex slaves. Critics of the government claim that not allowing rescued victims to remain in Britain long enough to recover from physical and mental trauma is wrong and that more should be done to help freed slaves. There are no accurate gov. statistics on the number of sex-trafficked women. Police estimate that upwards of 10,000 illegal aliens are working as prostitutes in Britain. | |
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24-Oct-05 |
UK hosts conference to fight human trafficking across Europe http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/154_05.html |
CPS Press Release | Europe-wide conference on human trafficking and illegal immigration held at Gatwick Hilton. Presentations on the first day include: Commission and Council Plan 2005 to Develop Common Standards and Best Practices to Prevent and Combat Trafficking in Human Beings (Jürgen Merz) European Commission Council of Europe Convention on Trafficking in Human Beings (Gianluca Esposito) Council of Europe European Standard Module for Anti-Trafficking, Training of Judges and Prosecutors in Europe (AGIS project / Elisa Trossero, Int'l Centre for Migration Policy Dev.) |
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