- East European prostitutes and pimps are operating in
every town and city in Britain, the head of the country's biggest vice
squad said yesterday.
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- The huge growth in foreign prostitutes in Britain has
also lead to an increase in unprotected sex, police intelligence shows.
East Europeans mainly from Lithuania, Estonia, Kosovo, Albania, Moldova,
and Romania account for about 80 per cent of the prostitutes and pimps
in central London, said Superintendent Chris Bradford, the operational
head of the Metropolitan Police's clubs and vice squad.
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- He told The Independent: "I have been in the game
for five years and I have seen this transfer of east Europeans to provincial
Britain. All the provincial towns and cities are suffering. Whether it
be Tunbridge Wells or Ashford [in Kent], it makes no difference. I would
suggest every town in Britain has a problem from east Europeans [prostitutes
and pimps]."
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- He said east European prostitutes were also working in
Wales and Scotland. "Glasgow and Edinburgh have serious problems,"
he said. "Anybody who says they don't have a problem in their town
just needs to turn to their local newspaper and look at the personal ads."
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- Most of the women come to Britain looking for work in
clubs, bars, restaurants, and domestic jobs, although some are already
prostitutes who want to make better money, Supt Bradford said. After they
arrive they are often coerced into working in the sex industry and told
they and their family will suffer if they do not perform.
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- "They are vulnerable and their pimps will take their
documents from them and tell them if they run away they will be captured
and if they go to the police they are corrupt and will be returned,"
Supt Bradford said. "The girls are terrified. They find themselves
trapped."
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- He said women were often moved to work in different towns
and cities, particularly if police started investigating. This week, an
Albanian pimp in London, where 8,000 east European prostitutes operate,
was jailed for 11 years for trafficking 40 Lithuanian women and passing
them to other pimps for £4,000 each, or making them sell sex for
up to 13 hours a day.
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- With the growing number of foreign prostitutes, the competition
for cut-price sex and for more extreme services has intensified, Supt Bradford
said. One of most alarming developments has been the growing number of
prostitutes offering unprotected sex.
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- Men are now offered sex without a condom at an extra
fee. In London, a typical fee for full sex with a condom is £30,
but without protection it is £45 to £50. Similarly, anal sex
is offered with and without a condom. "When you consider some women
are having sex with 30 clients a day this has implications for the spread
of diseases," Supt Bradford said.
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- The foreign pimps, who usually operate in groups of about
five controlling 15 women, are more likely to use extreme violence on them.
The officer said: "The old pimp-prostitute relationship was based
on violence. It used to involve a black eye or a slap, but we now have
girls beaten unconscious and raped by several men as a punishment. Lots
of these pimps are from brutalised societies and that is all they know."
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- ©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/story.jsp?story=614925
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