Posted on 11/26/2005 7:19:01 PM PST by Lorianne
Young women are being imprisoned as sex slaves in secret underground bunkers before being trafficked to Britain, the Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Our investigation uncovered shocking evidence in eastern Europe, including video footage, of groups of women locked in squalid cellars below motels.
A police video shows young girls being released from a cellar The victims - found by police in a series of raids - were allowed out of the cramped bunkers only to "service" clients in nearby rooms before being taken straight back underground.
The "cellar girls" were among thousands of young women lured to Macedonia from their native countries across eastern Europe by ruthless criminal gangs.
Promised jobs as waitresses, au pairs or dancers, they are forced into prostitution before being sold to human traffickers.
In a series of undercover investigations, the Sunday Telegraph has already revealed that women can be bought for £1,400 in Romania. They are among the victims of what has been described as "medieval slavery in the 21st century".
Many end up in Britain, enslaved by ruthless Albanian gangs who, according to Scotland Yard, now control almost all of London's prostitution rings.
Travelling last week to Macedonia to investigate reports of "girl markets", we found evidence that girls were being sold, individually and in groups.
Police video recordings revealed to us show young women from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria emerging, dazed and frightened through hidden trapdoors.
One clip shows a dank, windowless corridor which officers said led to a cellar with no lights or heating and with mattresses strewn over the dusty floor. Other footage reveals another cellar and an attic where sex slaves were kept.
Western Macedonia has a mainly ethnic Albanian population and, with Kosovo and Albania, forms part of Europe's biggest people-trafficking area.
The traumatised women saved by police were taken to a shelter in the capital, Skopje, where they were given counselling and asked to give evidence against the traffickers.
A number of ethnic Albanians have been charged with trafficking and the women have gone home.
A police spokesman in Skopje said: "The people who can subject women to this medieval slavery in the 21st century are inhuman. They are sick."
Growing concern about the tide of eastern European women being brought into Britain and forced into sexual slavery has prompted Tony Blair to declare war against people-traffickers.
After being made aware last night of our investigation, he said: "It is shocking. Some of these Eastern European gangs cover their attacks so well and the scale of their intimidation is colossal."
Mr Blair warned that the police and security services' powers were "not sufficient" and that new measures would be brought in soon.
These could include suspects being held without charge for longer than the 48-hour maximum.
Some Arabian sheik offered big bucks if some trader could get him a young, blonde American girl...and ended up with Natalie Holloway.
"Supply and Demand
Shame on the supplier and shame on the demand."
Yup. That's why I can't fathom how some otherwise good men can go to prostitutes. How can they be sure if the gal they're patronizing is working under duress, thereby making them rapists rather than customers? I wouldn't want that on my conscience.
Aren't they the poor down trodden 'Muslim' drug smugglers that Clinton saved from Milosevic.
All caught and convicted of trafficking in the slave trade should be executed.
I wondered that myself and then I wondered if the boys were part of it or just the father, the judge.
The conspirators in Aruba made a boo-boo when they grabbed an American girl instead of a young woman from another country. They didn't count on Fox News and CNN giving this disappearance round the clock coverage.
...and when her roots grow-out?
She is in my prayers.
+
People like you are disgusting.
Some people are more than disgusting. Don't you agree?
We all know that prostitution is a victimless crime which should be legalized. Sarcasm off.
Author forgot something
Now will somebody please remind me why Europe is persecuting Milosovik for trying to remove these scum from his territory
No punishment is too harsh for those who traffic in or patronize this trade.
THE WAR IN BOSNIA signalled the final dissolution of what remained of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
When Bosnia declared independence in April 1992, following a referendum, violence broke out throughout the republic. Milosevic vowed to defend Serbs from what he called "Croatian genocide" and "Islamic fundamentalism". More than three years of war followed - the bloodiest in Europe since World War II.
Public opinion in Belgrade was mixed. Many people - particularly families who were affected by the draft - wanted to see an end to war. But others wanted to protect their Serb brethren in Bosnia, and rallied behind Milosevic.
As the extent of Serbia's war crimes was revealed, Serbia was further isolated as a pariah state by the international community.
Get bent. If you don't think there'll be a book coming out of all this crap then what planet are you from?
If "my daughter was kidnapped by white slavers" has more potential for lurid innuendo than "my daughter was stupid enough to leave a bar with three strange guys" then which plot do YOU think will hit the bookshelves?
I don't remember hearing a whole lot about slavers early-on in this soap opera but it seems that lately nobody's talking about 'death' or 'body' anymore and 'slaves' is all the rage.
In the absence of a body, breathing or bones, possibly about the only story they couldn't make a book out of would be that she was beamed-aboard the Galactica.
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