Lap-dance clubs ‘new hotbeds of slave labour’
NAIL bars and lap-dancing clubs are the new hotbeds of human trafficking as the problem spreads ‘across the length and breadth of Scotland’.
Stark figures showed 150 potential victims of trafficking were identified last year – a rise of more than 50 per cent since 2013 – in locations ranging from Orkney to Alva, Clackmannanshire.
Experts warned that customers of some nail bars and adult entertainment venues were inadvertently funding traffickers who force girls and young women to work in them.
Victims as young as eight – of 28 nationalities including Vietnamese and Albanian – have been trafficked into and around Scotland.
Native Scots are among those who ‘buy’ sex slaves and force children and young women to work for them and organise their exploitation, as well as traffickers based overseas.
Police Scotland is trying to establish the extent of the involvement of Scottish-based serious organised crime groups in the thriving ‘trade’ of sex slavery and domestic servitude.
Launching an awareness campaign yesterday, Justice Secretary Michael Matheson said: ‘Generating awareness that the exploitation of adults and children is happening in Scotland today is key to bringing it to an end.’
Organisations backing the campaign – including Police Scotland, Migrant Help and Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance (TARA) – stressed the importance of bringing the largely hidden crime out into the open.
TARA operations manager Bronagh Andrew said: ‘Since 2004, our service has supported women who have been trafficked and sexually exploited within Scotland’s sex industry.
‘Women have been recovered, not just from our cities but from towns and villages across the length and breadth of Scotland.’
Detective Chief Superintendent Lesley Boal said that in some cases establishments such as lap-dancing bars may be staffed by victims of human trafficking.
She added: ‘We want landlords, leasing companies, postal and hotel workers to be our eyes and ears in the community and alert us to possible human trafficking.’
‘Our eyes and ears in the community’