Three women have been charged in a human trafficking and brothel-keeping investigation after properties were raided by police in Paisley.
The intelligence-led operation was carried out alongside the Home Office Immigration Enforcement team, with officers attending addresses in Scotland’s largest town on September 26.
The women aged 37,38, and 44 were arrested after an extensive investigation into alleged illicit activity at an address in Abercorn Street.
Police spokesman DS Jason Buxton said, “Our main priority is to ensure the safeguarding and wellbeing of vulnerable people affected and at risk by this type of exploitation.
“Those who benefit from this type of criminality will have nowhere to hide. With our partners, we will endeavor to make Renfrewshire and Inverclyde a hostile environment for any criminal activity and continue to strive to ensure it’s a safe place for all.
These arrests come only days after officers in Dundee targeted a property in the Fairmuir area in connection with sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
Detective Superintendent Ray Birnie of Police Scotland said, “The most common (type of exploitation crime) for us is people being trafficked in to work in the sex industry, and we’ve real concerns for the people involved, often against their will and often brought in from foreign countries.
“But it takes many forms and many different guises – including in the drugs trade – and including modern slavery, where people are brought in to work for wages way below what they should get and are exploited that way.”
According to the organisation Survivors of Human Trafficking in Scotland (SOHTIS), it’s a growing problem across Scotland. In the last six years, the number of human trafficking victims in Scotland has increased by 260%,
Cases have been found in every local authority in Scotland.
There are an estimated 360,000 trafficked people in the UK, but only 10% are found every year, the charity said. https://www.sohtis.org/
The header of the SOHTIS website linked above makes a rather chilling observation: “It takes a community to traffic someone and a community to recover them.”
I shall leave that to the reader to decide what “community” they may infer. Why not the word gang?
However, as you may think, I will now go into a rant about foreign criminal gangs. I would like to take the time to look at another side of this, and that is that this can only happen to the degree it does in a society where people are atomised individuals who only care for their immediate loved ones or people in conflict thousands of miles away.
People have lost sight of the bit in the middle, their community, the people they live amongst. This is one of the major failings in the Western liberal democracy we live in. We see something that perhaps doesn’t look right and turn the other cheek, it’s not worth the hassle and besides, if they are from a minority community you could be accused of an ist, ic or ism and besides those community’s police themselves, right, right.
Our weak society has been the perfect breeding ground for those who do not share the most fundamental value: the sanctity of life. Be these homegrown or foreign gangs trafficking people, and it is high time for a little less tolerance from us.
Be the nosey parker in the street, call out anti-social behaviour if you see it, be the busybody neighbour everyone is secretly happy they have and don’t be frightened if you have genuine concerns about being branded a racist.
The people who may call you this are a massive part of the problem, so treat them with the contempt they deserve.
We are not asking you to stand tall, but you must start standing up.
Stand up, knowing a political party is ready to support you.
Together, we can and will build stronger communities these criminals wouldn’t dare cross.
Never be cruel or cowardly
We ask you to join us, support us, help us help you
