The number of migrant women trafficked into Britain to work as prostitutes is far lower than previously thought, a report says.
But charities have questioned the finding, saying the report identified only the “minimum number of victims”.
About 2600 migrant women have been trafficked into England and Wales and forced to work as prostitutes, the report by the Association of Chief Police Officers says.
Another 9600 sex workers were judged to be “vulnerable migrants”, many of whom were abused and exploited, but researchers could not be sure they had been trafficked.
The figure was far lower than previous estimates, which have ranged from 4000, as reported in a 2003 Home Office Study, to the 18,000 announced by the then Chief Constable of Gloucestershire, Tim Brain, in 2008.
The Association of Chief Police Officers’ study found that 17,000 of the 30,000 women involved in the off-street sex trade were migrants, mostly from China, Thailand and eastern Europe.
At least 2600 of them were trafficked into the country and made to work as prostitutes, often with threats of violence.
Half of the trafficked women were from China, with the rest mainly coming from Thailand and eastern Europe.
Some of the women were forced to sell sex to pay off bonds of up to £30,000 ($65,600) to criminal gangs responsible for the multimillion-pound underground trade.
Nottinghamshire Deputy Chief Constable Chris Eyre, who is the national lead on migration crime, said the report was the first to reveal the true scale of the trafficking problem.
It followed a two-year study aimed at improving understanding of the nature and scale of the trafficking of foreign nationals for sex, known as Project Acumen.
But Eaves, a charity that works with trafficked women, expressed concerns about the research, saying the researchers used an “overly prescriptive” definition of what constituted trafficking. But the Association of Chief Police Officers defended its research, saying theirs was more robust and comprehensive than others.
The report said that although some women were subjected to kidnap, rape and imprisonment, others were effectively “self employed”.
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