Three women freed after being held against their will for 30 years
LONDON (AP) — Three women have been freed after spending 30 years held captive in a south London home, including one woman believed to have spent her entire life in domestic slavery, police announced Thursday.
London’s Metropolitan Police spoke about the rescues after two people — a man and a woman, both 67 — were arrested early Thursday on suspicion of forced labour and domestic servitude.
The arrests came as part of a slavery investigation launched after one of the women contacted a charity in October to say she was being held against her will along with two others. The charity went to the police, the force said.
Those freed on Oct. 25 are a 69-yearold Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman, police said.
Kevin Hyland, head of the Metropolitan Police’s human trafficking unit, said the women are “highly traumatized” having had “no real exposure to the outside world” for the past 30 years.
“Trying to find out exactly what has happened over three decades will understandably take some time,” he said.
Police initially said they did not believe any of the victims were related. Later, however, they appeared to back- track, saying the relationship between the three women is part of the investigation and they will not speculate on it.
The force also said there is no evidence to suggest anything of a sexual nature — but cautioned that the investigation is still not finished. Police would not speculate on any motivation, name the suspects’ nationalities or say if the suspects were a couple.
The revelations raised numerous questions — all still unanswered — about how the women’s ordeal began and why it endured for so long. What brought them to London? What freedoms — if any — did they have? What restrictions and conditions were they subject to? Did neighbours ever see them, or did they ever try to escape?
The women — whose names have not been released — are now safe at an undisclosed location in Britain and have been working with severe trauma experts since their rescue, Hyland said.
It is not known how the women ended up in the house. The 30-year-old, who would have had to either been born in the home or enter it as an infant given the police timeline, appears to have been held in domestic servitude for her entire life, police said.
The Irish woman called the charity from what appears to be an “ordinary house in an ordinary street,” said Aneeta Prem, founder of the charity that promotes awareness of child abuse, forced marriages and honour killings.