GENERAL NEWS

Report reveals trafficking in Scotland

Victims of human sex trafficking have told campaigners how they were tortured and threatened to death in Scotland in a new report investigating the world's fastest-growing organised crime.

In a research commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), nine women from Africa including Somalia, Nigeria, Gambia, Uganda and Kenya and one from South America told their stories of fleeing poverty, abuse or tribal violence and being smuggled into Scotland.

The research found that women are trafficked to Scotland mainly from Nigeria, China and Brazil and some come via England.

The main centers for sex trafficking in Scotland are Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Paisley, Stirling and Falkirk.

Human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy, who headed the investigation, said, “However, the evidence that we took from women not only shocked me, as it would any woman, but resolved me to ensure their voices, their experiences, their insights, were heard.”

Calling for families and communities to help tackle the problem of “modern slavery,” she added, “These are stories of ordinary women - mothers, daughters and sisters - vulnerable due to poverty and discrimination, being deceived into Scotland and subjected to horrifying sexual violation.”

Last year, Police in Northern Ireland warned that human trafficking is on the rise with vulnerable foreign nationals forced into slavery and prostitution.

SSM/AS/HE