London police free 3 women held as slaves for 30 years
Print Edition
Police said yesterday three women rescued from a London house after apparently being held as domestic slaves for 30 years were not related to each other and there was no evidence of sexual abuse.
Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland from the London Metropolitan Police’s Human Trafficking Unit said the women, aged 69, 57, and 30, had limited freedom over the years.
But he said the youngest of three appeared to have been in servitude for her entire life.
“The Human Trafficking Unit of the Metropolitan Police deals with many cases of servitude and forced labour. We have seen some cases where people have been held for up to 10 years, but we have never seen anything of this magnitude before,” Hyland told reporters.
Police said they arrested two people yesterday after the three women were rescued from a London home.
Officers from the London Metropolitan Police Service human trafficking unit detained a man and a woman, both aged 67, at their home in south London yesterday morning.
Police said in a statement that the arrests were part of an investigation into slavery and domestic servitude sparked in October when the Freedom Charity reported receiving a call from a woman who said she had been held against her will in the house for more than 30 years.
Further enquiries led to the house and, with the help of negotiations conducted by the charity, the rescue of the three women: a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman.
“All three women, who were highly traumatized, were taken to a place of safety where they remain,” police said in the statement, adding that an investigation of the “very serious” allegations was underway.
It was unclear which woman claimed she had been held for more than 30 years and there was no other information immediately on the circumstances of the other two.
Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland said a television documentary on forced marriages relating to the work of the Freedom Charity was the catalyst that prompted one of the victims to call for help and led to their rescue.
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