Abstracts: February 2006

03-Feb-06
Sex trafficker sent to jail
According to this article:

Albanian Ilir Markvukaj found guilty of sex trafficking and jailed for 6 years.  Victim was a 19 yr old Lithuanian girl, sold for £4,000 before being forced to work in Manchester brothels. 

• Slingsby, Mike. Manchester Online http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news
  /s/203/203176
  _sex_trafficker_sent_to_jail.html

07-Feb-06
Sex trafficking is 'real problem'
According to this article:

BBC Wales' Week in Week Out programme deals with foreign women forced into prostitution and the problem in Wales.  Two members of a trafficking gang  (Gjergj Mungiovi-Cuka & Akil Likcani) were jailed in Dec 2005 after forcing a Lithuanian woman to work as a prostitute  in three Cardiff brothels.  Cuka sentenced to 4 yrs, Likcani to 6 yrs.

Victims are interviewed.

Quote:
"We think of the abolition of slavery more than 150 years ago, and yet this is what these women are ending up as being, they are ending up as being slaves."  Consultant clinical psychologist Richard Pates, who set up an outreach programme for prostitutes in Cardiff

Pates said that 40% of the prostitutes seen weekly were foreign and many admitted to having been trafficked.

See: BBC Week In Week Out: Sex Traffickers

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4687048.stm

07-Feb-06
Trafficked women tricked into prostitution

BBC Wales' Week in Week Out programme (see above) will include interviews with Eastern European women who were duped into prostitution in South Wales. 

• Williams, Tryst.  Western Mail. http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/
  tm_objectid=16673843&method=full&siteid=50082&
  headline=eastern-european-women----tell-how-they-were-tricked-into-prostitution-in-wales-name_page.html

11-Feb-06
Asians held in Britain brothel raid
According to this article:

During a raid on a brothel in Grimsby (Yorkshire), police arrested 13 Asian women and an equal number from England and Latvia. Humberside Police said they are investigating the trafficking of Asian females into the UK for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

Detective Chief Inspector Dena Fleming, the officer in charge, said, "This is an investigation into the trafficking of Asian females into the UK for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

The public was warned to be on the lookout for houses known to be occupied by a number of foreign women regularly visited by different men.

Several reports indicate that sex traffickers are using illegal routes into the UK to traffic women from the Indian sub-continent and Southeast Asia. They are reportedly dispersed to towns in Britain with large Asian populations.

•  Indo-Asian News Service. Feb 11, 2006.
  http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/
  181_1622831,00050003.htm

17-Feb-06
Gangs smuggle sex slaves into Capital from Eastern Europe
According to this article:
The Organised Immigration Crime Unit is investigating people smuggling in Scotland.  They announced on this date that at least two 21 year old women had been sex trafficking victims and were brought into Edinburgh to work as prostitutes against their will.  Both women had escaped and alerted police. 

One of the women was from from Burundi and had been flown to the UK from Eastern Europe then forced into prostitution.  When she presented herself to the Leith Police, she did not even know she was in Scotland and police believe the intention was to keep her as a prostitute in a private flat.  (Note: the proposed changes to UK law will allow small brothels such as this to exist legally.)

The second woman was Lithuanian and came to Edinburgh believing she would be working as a dishwasher but was forced to have sex with a number of men for money and then moved to Birmingham.  She escaped in Birmingham and went to the local police.

Detective Superintendent Brian Donegan is in charge of the Organised Immigration Crime Unit which works with the UK Immigration Service.  He said they were continuing to track down pimps bringing women into Edinburgh and that investigations into sex trafficking were among its top priorities.

Crime rings associated with the Mafia have smuggled sex slaves into Edinburgh.  Approximately 70 foreign women work in licensed saunas and private flats.

But Ruth Morgan Thomas of Scotpep, said her group had found no additional evidence of foreign women being brought here and forced into the sex trade and gave details regarding the women her organisation had visited in Edinburgh's saunas and brothels.

The Evening news was informed by a city council spokeswoman that 20 licensed saunas currently operated. Ten saunas were contacted by the Evening News,  nine of which said that they had prostitutes from outside the UK working there.

• McEwen, Alan. The Scotsman. Feb 17, 2006.
  http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=249882006