Forgive me if I get a little confused here. There’s a report on a raid on a brothel where some 19 women were being held as sex slaves. Good, excellent. Here’s the bit I don’t understand:
Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK,
urged the Government to sign up to the new European Convention Against
Trafficking.
She said: "Amnesty welcomes the West
Midlands police crackdown on traffickers and their vicious trade in
women who are held prisoner and forced to work as prostitutes.
"But the UK needs to protect the victims of this brutal industry as well as catching the traffickers.
"We
must turn the system around so that they are recognised as the victims
and not the perpetrators of crime. The UK Government must sign up to
the new European Convention."
Details of such
activities in Birmingham came to light in February when a gangster was
jailed for 11 years at Southwark Crown Court.
Vullnet Ismailaj, 27, led a prostitution empire that trafficked eastern European women into Britain, netting him £300,000.
The
following month, an Albanian immigrant, Xhevahir Pisha, 21, was jailed
for seven years by Sheffield Crown Court along with two other men for
their part in forcing a teenage girl into prostitution.
The 15-year-old Lithuanian girl was forced to work in a brothel in
Birmingham two days after arriving in Britain when a man paid £4,000
for her. She was imprisoned in Pisha’s house in Coventry.
So we already have laws against what was happening. We’re already jailing those who do it. Why do we need to sign up to a European Declaration on anything? It’s already illegal!
I’d also point out that the way to uncover such operations is good old fashioned coppers on the beat. PC Jones, after a month in his area, would know who the tarts are, know where the brothels were. That’s what beat bobbies are, in part, for, to know what is going on in their small area.
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