Nineteen women who are believed to have been trafficked into forced prostitution have been rescued from a brothel in Birmingham, UK. The women, who are mainly from Eastern Europe, had their passports removed from them by traffickers, were locked in a house during the day and taken to a massage parlour called “Cuddles” in the evenings where they were allegedly forced to work as prostitutes. Twelve of the women are expected to be released soon, but seven are being held whilst their immigration status is being checked. Amnesty International has called for more to be done to protect the victims of trafficking even if they are in the country without papers. Sarah Green said on behalf of Amnesty;
“Most are deported without any care or support or assessment of the risks they face if sent back.”
“Communities might not want these women back if they know what has happened to them and there is evidence of people being re-trafficked.
“If you deport them very quickly and arbitrarily, you are simply throwing them back into the fire.”
Two men and a woman have been arrested and the police are now interviewing the victims in order to find out exactly what was happening at the brothel. Some estimates put the number of women being trafficked into the UK every year for sexual exploitation at 1,750.

The US government will be funding an anti-trafficking campaign in the north of Vietnam. The project will be working with the Women’s Union in the Thanh Hoa region to try to prevent the large scale trafficking of women and children which is currently occurring. Vietnamese women and girls are currently trafficked to Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Czech republic for sexual exploitation. A large number of women who are trafficked to Taiwan are lured by fraudulent offers of marriage, and then forced into prostitution.
The action funded by the US Embassy in Vietnam will include training courses on trafficking prevention, vocational and business training for disadvantaged women and a distribution of handbooks on small business and also the risks of human trafficking. If vocational training can lead to real jobs in Vietnam then women will be less likely to accept bogus offers of work abroad.

Human trafficking is growing in Kosovo and, according to USAID Director in Kosovo, Ken Yamashita, the majority of victims are now women from Kosovo itself, reflecting the poverty and lack of options given to women in the country. A recent report by the International Organisation for Migration states that most of the victims of trafficking in Kosovo are between the ages of 14 and 30 and come from disadvantaged backgrounds with low levels of education. Organization official Enrico Ponziani said that women wish to leave their current situations because of low levels of income, fear of political instability and gender inequality. Because there are few legitimate migration opportunities they become prey to traffickers. Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi said that the government institutions in Kosovo are committed to fighting human trafficking and they will not only be attempting to assist victims, but also raise awareness in the wider community in an attempt to reduce demand.

A 15 year old girl from Nagpur, India has been rescued from forced prostitution in the Delhi. Her uncle and aunt had met a man called Pappu Singh, a restaurant worker in the capital who said he wanted to marry the girl. He eventually paid the family 60,000 rupees (about $1,350) and they gave him the girl. Singh then allegedly trafficked her to Delhi and forced her to work as a prostitute for six months. She managed however, to contact a local NGO who rescued her and a police investigation has followed.
“Pappu Singh has been married several times. Many such prostitution racketeers could be operating in this region,” said Yashasvi Yadav, SP, Nagpur (Rural).
Police have also arrested the uncle and aunt on charges of trafficking of minors. Meanwhile the girl’s troubles have not ended, as a cousin commented, “When she got married we did not know this would happen. Now she has returned with a bad name, and everyone is blaming her.”
This case underlines the continuing problem of underage marriage in India. It also shows once again that human trafficking is not an immigration issue – many women and children are trafficked within their own country.

Naomi Campbell has agreed to take part in a UN awareness campaign in Colombia to try to reduce the numbers of women and children being trafficked into sexual exploitation, saying she wanted to help in “providing a safe environment for models and preventing exploitation of human beings”. More than a dozen models from a top Colombian agency met earlier this week to discuss how to spread information amongst aspiring models to prevent more young women being trafficked.
Many girls are lured into travelling with traffickers with promises of modelling opportunities abroad. Colombian police estimate that more than 50,000 women and children have been trafficked into forced prostitution abroad, mainly in Japan, Holland and Spain.
“The modelling world attracts a large number of girls, particularly from the remote countryside, and it’s important for the industry to help protect them,” said Sandro Calvani, the UNODC chief in Colombia. “These vulnerable girls will listen to stars like Naomi Campbell.”