Macedonian police have arrested a trafficker and rescued 14 young girls from forced prostitution in the area of Tetovo, one of whom was only 15 years old. All of the girls were Macedonian citizens, apart from one who was Serbian. Six of the victims were minors. All of the girls were forced to work in local bars and exploited sexually. They are now being cared for in the Transition Care Centre in Skopje. To read more about this and related subjects, please go to
http://www.makfax.com.mk

The Red Light Destrict in Amsterdam is a tourist attraction, but most girls behind the windows are being threatened, abused and exploited. The Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant has reported that three quarters of the window prostitutes in the Netherlands are victims of human trafficking. The report was made after conversations with the Dutch police National Coordinator of Human Trafficking and other officials. This estimate of the proportion of victims among window prostitutes is much higher than estimates based on conversations with the prostitutes themselves. Eyewitness testimonies and telephone conversations recorded by the police seem to point to a great degree of exploitation. It is likely that prostitutes are frightened to admit they are being abused and exploited.
According to the national coordinator of human trafficking, Henk Werson, there are many organised gangs working in the field of human trafficking. ‘Many prostitutes need to earn many thousands of euros a week for their pimp and will be abused if they fail’ Werson says in the Volkskrant.
More information (in dutch)Elsevier article: http://www.elsevier.nl/nieuws/nederland/artikel/asp/artnr/151010/index.html
For the Volkskrant article(in dutch):
http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article422427.ece/Driekwart_prostituees_uitgebuit

A court in Haifa, Israel has sentenced a brothel owner in the city to five years in jail for selling a woman to a brothel in Acre. He sold her in return for part of the profits the brothel made from her exploitation. He later sold two more women to the brothel for US$10,000. Noam Reizin, 50, from Haifa will also have to pay compensation to one of the women who filed a complaint against him. The women were held against their will and forced to have sex with 25 men a day. Although the maximum sentence for human trafficking in Israel is 16 years, the average sentence is only 3 years. This is not enough to deter traffickers, when there are such large profits to be made.
To read more about this and related subjects please click go to;
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/856208.html

Hui Feng Zhu, aged 24, of Manchester, England, has been found guilty of trafficking two young Brazilian women, aged 19 and 21 at the time, into forced prostitution in Portsmouth in the south of England. He had promised them jobs in a restaurant, but when they arrived in the country he took their passports from them and forced them to work in a brothel. Hui Feng Zhu has been sentenced to 8 years in prison. Det Ch Insp Richard John, of Hampshire Constabulary, said: “The victim was dressed in underwear and actually looked quite frightened and terrified by what was clearly an horrific ordeal for her. She was servicing about ten clients a day.”
To read more about this and related subjects, please visit
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/6619289.stm