12,000 foreign 'sex slaves' working in British brothels: Report

London, Aug 19(ANI): A new report has revealed that up to 12,000 foreign women are being forced to work as 'sex slaves' in British brothels by gangs running multi-million pound rackets.

According to the report commissioned by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), at least 2,600 women were confirmed as being trafficked into England and Wales and forced to work as prostitutes.

A further 9,200 sex workers were considered to be "vulnerable migrants" working unwillingly in the sex trade, but researchers could not confirm that they had been trafficked.

The "sex slaves" live and work in appalling conditions and face kidnap, rape and imprisonment, The Telegraph reports.

Police involved in the two-year study, called Project Acumen, also found that 96 per cent of prostitutes in London were migrants, while it was only 32 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber.

Talking about the report, Nottinghamshire Deputy Chief Constable Chris Eyre, the ACPO head of migration crime, said: "Human trafficking for sexual exploitation involves the most extreme abuse of individuals in our communities."

"We recognise that Project Acumen focuses on only one area of trafficking, but it clearly sets out the scale of the problems that those in law enforcement, victim support, social care and border protection, collectively face."

"It provides us with a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of how migrant women are involved in prostitution, how they are influenced, controlled, coerced, exploited and trafficked,"

The report further shows that half of the women were Chinese, with the majority of others from Eastern European and other Southeast Asian nations.

Police chiefs admitted that the number of Chinese prostitutes across the country surprised them.

"We need to step up our efforts and to do more to get a handle on why so many people are trafficked from China," said Mohib Rahman, a Home Office official. (ANI)