Nightmarish BBC report about Romanian girls being sex trafficked to UK

[Slothtoes]

It just doesn’t bear thinking about. This is organised crime on an industrial scale. UK men as the end consumer rape these girls.

We need much much tougher government action here and in Romania. Sex work is brutal criminal exploitation. It’s not ‘work’. It’s organised rape forced by threats of violence, kidnap, drugging and brainwashing female children. It’s horrific.

Report quotes UK police trying to intervene but having to return Romanian girls to a known brothel here because ‘prostitution is legal’ here in the UK. How do we stop female children and women being brutalised like this? What laws do we have to change? It’s heartbreaking. If market forces are causing these crimes, what can we do to use the system we live in against this? This is toxic masculinity, poverty, misogynistic crime and indifferent governments directly attacking girls as young as 10 years old.

Thank you to BBC reporter Jean McKenzie for spending two years researching this incredibly disturbing issue. I don’t even know if I could even watch the full documentary, it’s so distressing. The full documentary is called ‘Sold: Sex Slaves for Sale’ on BBC iPlayer.
This is the news report: www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-60091717

Appalling. The Times was covering this in relation to children being sold on the streets of Glasgow back in 2017. They ran a major investigation as you can see from the articles linked under this one:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/79eabe70-cb21-11e7-b529-95e3fc05f40f?shareToken=748a0e7f487f713c1e36e3b7587f7fbc

This is horrific.

It's absolutely industrial. Romanian young women are also - apparently - also commonly trafficked to Germany and NL where prostitution is legal. Tricked into thinking they're moving to be with their boyfriend...

It's absolutely sickening.

Prostitution may be legal but human trafficking and slavery aren't. The police could surely to God have done something had they wanted to.

As for the brothel and the men holding the women - I thought living off the proceeds of prostitution was illegal. Has that changed?

There was a BBC Scotland investigation on this a few years back! Asian men were the ones keeping the poor Romanian girls in flats in Glasgow after they were brought here by Romanian gangsters. In some cases the young girls were pregnant and the Asian men used this to gain UK residency claiming to be the father of the child. That loophole will have ended with Brexit i suppose. Absolutely horrific for these poor girls whose families were often forced to give them up with violence and threats!
Not heard much since about what the Scottish Govt/police are doing about it. They are too busy with other issues I expect🙄

That Times investigation is on a slightly different topic. Romanian families who have settled in Glasgow are actually selling their children into 'prostitution' or allowing their child to be raped for payment. It is horrendous and I dont know if much effort has been made to stamp out this vile practice😭

The Scottish, and in particular Glasgow police (lack of) response to abuse, rape and murder of prostitutes is utterly shameful. These women have been treated as non-persons for decades (well, forever lets face it).

First they were non-persons because they were addicts and now they are non-persons because they are foreign, trafficked, complicated - it's all just too hard for the poor police.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56605793

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002w1m

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09byqvn

I remember reading horrific accounts of child exploitation and prostitution rackets going on in Govanhill many years ago. And then it seemed to get debunked as an urban myth and alleged to have been made up. I’m not sure but it became mixed up in the whole Independence spats that were going on. I’m totally perplexed because there was such detail in the accounts of seeing underage girls and boys on the streets obviously very vulnerable. Was that ALL a myth. Why would anyone want to dispute it if it were true? Have there been any recent investigations into this?

Regardless of what is or isn’t going on in Govanhill, there is obviously wholesale abuse of Romanian girls and women for sexual exploitation and some of these women and children are ending up in Britain.

No ‘cultural sensitivity’ should provide a shield to criminal activity within our communities.

DH and I watched this and couldn't understand why the police are unable to do something and/or link in with Romanian authorities to do a joint operation. Trafficking, illegal immigration, kidnap, blackmail and death threats against children and families used to keep the girls from running away/getting help, statutory rape, rape, running a brothel, probably drugs involved....

Fuck the police, they are bloody hopeless.

If they could persuade one of those poor girls to put a sticker up, they could take her into protective custody.

I admit to not having followed any of the links yet - still too early in the day to stomach that - but, from what I've read here, the argument seems to be prostitution is legal in the UK so bring 'em in. But I see 10 year old girls mentioned - definitely illegal, as is human trafficking etc etc.

But I expect the police are too busy arresting women for stickering.

It’s absolutely stomach turning and in our towns and cities happening right now. So what can we do? Whatever the other down sides, we have a government at the moment with a big single party majority who can push things through if they want to. I’m sure they’d welcome any chance to get the spotlight off themselves and their failings and to make the EU look bad. How do we get them actually interested in this issue though?
Shall we all write to our MPs demanding action for a start?
Are any UK agencies or charities already campaigning on this and we can support them? I don’t want to sit by feeling sickened by this and not doing anything at all to help.

This is absolutely awful, but it is primarily the fault of the Romanian government and police for failing to tackle the issue there. It seems like they simply aren't invested in stopping this, which makes it much harder for all the other countries that these girls are trafficked to. Romania should never have been allowed to join the EU IMO.

DH and I watched this and couldn't understand why the police are unable to do something and/or link in with Romanian authorities to do a joint operation.

But who's going to monitor Twitter ?

I genuinely would not be surprised if the reason the police did nothing is because some of them are 'customers'.

The law needs to be looked at. In the piece on the news the brothel (which of course looked just like a normal house) was raided but the women inside said they were fine, had chosen that lifestyle and were comfortable with it. None would make a complaint, for obvious reasons. So not sure what the police are meant to do in those circumstances. They knew it was a crime and everything about it was iffy, but had not power to do anything because no law applied.

Report quotes UK police trying to intervene but having to return Romanian girls to a known brothel here because ‘prostitution is legal’ here in the UK.

Oh my god.

@IncompleteSenten

I genuinely would not be surprised if the reason the police did nothing is because some of them are 'customers'.

Shades of Fred West ...

"Report quotes UK police trying to intervene but having to return Romanian girls to a known brothel here because ‘prostitution is legal’ here in the UK"

Would be a strange thing for the police to say, given brothels and trafficking are illegal. If the girls are underage that would be another crime of course on top of the others.

Maybe the problem is with regard to trafficking, what counts as trafficking? Is it legal to come to a country voluntarily to do legal work? If so, they would need some kind of indication, that would stand up in court, that they did not come voluntarily?

@SantaClawsServiette

Maybe the problem is with regard to trafficking, what counts as trafficking? Is it legal to come to a country voluntarily to do legal work? If so, they would need some kind of indication, that would stand up in court, that they did not come voluntarily?

Running a brothel isn't legal

Haven't seen the documentary...I know many romanian gypsies who are in the uk and are integrated....they told me that a particular clan from a village called Tanderei are all doing the prostitution and cashpoint scams and the fake sponsor stuff in paris etc....they are despised by other gypsy clans as sell their children into sex trade ...they have the huge gaudy mansions and bmw cars etc...all stolen....i know an area where young gypsy boys offer sex for £10....they hang around an ice rink....all very sad and depressing.

I do not understand why men want to have wed with a prostitute.
I would like to think that none of the men I know would want to have sex with someone who is only doing it for the money or worse been forced into it but I just know some men who would be cause otherwise there wouldn’t be such a demand for sex trafficking!

"Maybe the problem is with regard to trafficking, what counts as trafficking? Is it legal to come to a country voluntarily to do legal work"

Trafficking means you are forced/against your will. It has nothing to do with being from another country.

If a woman is forced to do prostitution in her own home, she is trafficked.

If a woman travels to the other side of the world to do prostitution on her own free will, she is not trafficked.

"Running a brothel isn't legal"

Just to clarify on this, it isn't legal to work in a brothel either (that also counts as "running" it).

Also why I will have nothing to do with any man who watches porn or engages in the paid sex of ANY kind, I'd rather be single for the rest of my life.