Modern sex slavery in London

[Summerdaysdriftingaway]

Just read this report on ITV on the prostitution industry in London and it mostly being made up of effectively sex slaves. Just awful www.itv.com/news/2020-09-17/londons-sex-slave-industry-how-itv-news-uncovered-the-story

Hard to understand how anyone can not be repulsed by the way the women’s bodies are being sold here.

This is a very sad report. Yet at the same time, it's good to see that this story is getting the attention it deserves.

According to the report, there are 100,000 working girls in London?

Insane numbers. I wonder how they’ve fared under lockdown... clearly a lot of these gangs just kept going so maybe it didn’t have a huge impact on them other than the risk of catching and spreading Covid.

Free movement of people - the underbelly.

The article seems to focus a lot on how the punters are rinsed of cash and blackmailed. It’s almost a throwaway line that these women are sometimes first captured at the age of 9 or 10, deliberately deprived of an education and abused before being moved across Europe.

The girls stay because they know no better , it's all they know, and are scared for their families. Horrible

Yeah I noticed that dry lots of poor blackmailed rinsed has punters, not so much of the child abuse and rape

Just awful.

Why isn't more being said and done about this?

How can it be legal for a 16year old to be a prostitute, HOW?

@AsTreesWalking

How can it be legal for a 16year old to be a prostitute, HOW?

I didn’t think it was. Wasn’t there a lot of effort put in by feminists to ensure girls 16-17 were still considered children for CSE purposes?

BoomBoomsCousin
AsTreesWalking
How can it be legal for a 16year old to be a prostitute, HOW?
I didn’t think it was. Wasn’t there a lot of effort put in by feminists to ensure girls 16-17 were still considered children for CSE purposes?

It surprised me, but the report says this
"Some women are sold at nine or ten-years-old and trained up in Romania in dingy flats catering for locals. They are groomed and with little or no education and know of no other existence than that. Once they are 16 and legal they are trafficked to Germany, Netherlands or Britain where they can ply their trade legally."

@AsTreesWalking

How can it be legal for a 16year old to be a prostitute, HOW?

It isn't, Trees.

It's also illegal - and a strict liability offense (as in, no mens rea, the mere fact that you committed the act is enough to establish guilt) - to pay to have sex with a trafficked woman. I know this because I wrote to my MP, who passed my enquiry onto the Home Office, who got back to me with that piece of information.

It may be legal at that age in Belgium and the Netherlands (I don’t know), or it may just be sloppy reporting, but it’s not legal in the UK. There is, however, a loophole so big you can drive a truck through it in that there is a defence for anyone buying sex that they reasonably thought the child was 18.

And trafficking a 16 year old is a serious crime In theory, but we seem to put no real resources into stopping it.