Skip to content

We’ve got your problem right here Emma

Sgt Emma Slade, who has responsibility for policing prostitution in Avon and Somerset, said: “Vulnerable women are being enslaved and exploited for sex within pop-up brothels. They are isolated and suffer terrible abuse. Many of the women are recruited and trafficked on false promises of legitimate work but find themselves in a very different circumstance.”

Slade said that when police carried out safeguarding visits to brothels, they often found women from the far east and eastern Europe who spoke no English and did not know the emergency services phone number.

That someone is from the Far East or Eastern Europe does not mean they’re enslaved. It simply means they’ve moved from there to here to rent out their gonads.

Sex slavery is appalling, a vile crime, repeated rape. Migration to be a tart in a higher paying market might be something that you disapprove of but it’s not even a crime.

40 thoughts on “We’ve got your problem right here Emma”

  1. Yes. Agreed.

    But the “false promises of legitimate work”, assuming it is true (something you used to be able to assume from the British Police unless you were ‘one of the usual suspects’ or it was the value of a drugs seizure), is worrying. And probably gets you in to the unfortunately expansive definition of ‘modern slavery’.

  2. From the first paragraph, I don’t think there’s any reason to think that Sgt Slade can’t tell the difference between slavery and migration.
    The segue into the second paragraph might be something that is better blamed on the Guardian rather than the sergeant.

  3. I dunno.

    My guess is that there are lots of women from eastern Europe and the far east who are prepared to be prostitutes. Why, then, would anyone seek out women who did NOT want to be prostitutes?

    Once here, and if here illegally and found by the police the women would have two choices;

    “fair enough, you got me guv” which would mean deportation or

    “boo hoo, I was trafficked here” which would mean sympathy, a cup of tea and a flat.

  4. We have safeguarding visits to Brothels because collectively we haven’t accepted we should stop criminals bringing in drug, prostitutes and all manner other horrors at or before the border.

    Once in, there is an expensive list of Human Rights we are forced to work to pay for, but are too stupid to punish electorally while we continue to under breed ourselves out of existence.

    Some people are only capable of manual Labour and Fucking.

  5. What Andrew C said. And please, don’t tell me Sgt Slade doesn’t know in her heart of hearts that that’s exactly what’s going on in 90% of cases.

    But I guess it looks good on her resume…

  6. It appears the sergeant doesn’t actually know the emergency services phone number. 112 is the same number across the entire of europe – including eastern Europe, and is also used in many parts of the far east (at least from mobile phones). Even 911 works in the UK. There may have been a few people who weren’t sure of the number, of some far eastern’s from countries where it isn’t actually standardised in their own country either, but I doubt there were many who when trying to dial it wouldn’t have got through.

  7. The rise in child slavery……

    “There has been an eightfold increase in the number of child victims of modern slavery referred by local councils in England for support.
    National Crime Agency figures reveal the number of children earmarked for help grew from 127 in 2014 to 1,152 last year – an increase of 807%.”

    Note how ‘earmarked for help’ now makes someone a ‘victim of slavery’

    “Under the Modern Slavery Act 2015, it is an offence to hold a person in a position of forced labour or facilitate their travel with the intention of exploiting them soon after.

    County-lines drug gangs move young people around the country with the intention of forcing them to aid with the distribution of drugs for criminal gain.”

    Back to my point above. I expect that there are loads of young teenagers happy and willing to work for drug gangs in return for money so why would anyone seek out kids who didn’t want to?

    But facilitating their travel with the intention of exploiting them (even if they cheerfully want to do the work and don’t feel in the least bit exploited) is now defined as ‘slavery’.

    Unsurprisingly the number of ‘slaves’ increases.

    As with poverty, change the definition and invent a new problem. Which can only be solved by state intervention. Which can only happen with increased budgets.

  8. What’s this ‘county lines’ crap? Does ‘our FBI’ get involved if there’s a crime which is committed from Beds to Herts?

  9. Hallowed Be,

    “it’d be fine if they went on to tell us how many slavers they’d prosecuted.”

    There is the odd case of this. And by odd, we’re talking counting on your fingers. They made it last for a couple of weeks before getting busted and got a very long stretch for it.

    If I wanted to enslave women in the UK, The last thing I’d do is prostitution. Put your slave in a situation where she’s frequently meeting strangers privately? Maybe trusts a guy and tells him what’s going on, and to please go to the police? Why not just have them somewhere out in the fens picking food, or working in a kitchen?

  10. “My guess is that there are lots of women from eastern Europe and the far east who are prepared to be prostitutes. Why, then, would anyone seek out women who did NOT want to be prostitutes? ”

    There’ll be no shortage of British women who want to be prostitutes. Or Irish, Dutch, French, German, Belgian, Danish, Italian… Certainly no shortage of Spanish but possible Andorran. That’s before you get to the Eastern European countries or further afield.
    The limiting factors are having somewhere to work & importantly, finding paying customers. Of which there are a short supply of. And of course, the sort of women who aspire to be prostitutes are mostly too lazy & disorganised to get out of bed in the morning, so are mostly too lazy & disorganised to get back into bed for money.
    Why anyone would be daft enough to keep any as sex slaves, heaven knows. You certainly wouldn’t be doing it for profit.

  11. ”There may have been a few people who weren’t sure of the number“

    Perhaps they’d seen the IT Crowd and were trying to remember 0118 999 881 999 119 7253.

  12. BoM4: yes so failing of the journo really, just echoing a police PR notice. Everyone would rejoice, at the banging up of a slaver. Moving tarts on is slightly less glamourous.

  13. This has been going on for years. After all, didn’t Lewis Carroll write:

    The Queen of Hearts
    Enslaved some tarts,
    All on a summer’s day;
    The Knave of Hearts
    Trafficked those tarts,
    And took them clean away.
    The King of Hearts
    Called for the tarts,
    And beat the knave full sore;
    The Knave of Hearts
    Brought back the tarts,
    And vowed he’d steal no more.

  14. I am sure any foreigner worried about being fined, banged up or deported for offences in the UK will try to play the modern slavery card.

  15. Off Topic but FFS

    “Extinction Rebellion protesters have blocked Oxford Circus in central London in defiance of a city-wide ban on their demonstrations.

    The climate change protest group set up wooden tripods to block the junction as demonstrators sat or lay in the road….

    Dozens of police were seen surrounding the demonstration and talking to protesters.”

    Talking to protesters.

  16. Obviously, government should be in charge of brothels.

    ‘who spoke no English and did not know the emergency services phone number.’

    Written by a professional?

  17. ‘who spoke no English and did not know the emergency services phone number.’

    How does Plod know she did’t know the emergency services number if she didn’t speak English? How many Far East and Eastern European languages is Sergeant Slade fluent in?

  18. How many Far East and Eastern European languages is Sergeant Slade fluent in?

    Does her granny always tell her that the old songs are the best?

  19. So why is she leaving these women there to be exploited?
    Given it seems this safeguarding is a routine thing the police do you would have to be pretty stupid to have enslaved women working somewhere where they get to talk to the police every now and again.
    Anyone ever taken a job and have it not turn out as advertised, turned up at a hotel/B&B and it’s not as expected? No doubt the recruiters spin a yarn to get the girls to come, but that’s not trafficking them.

  20. Bloke in North Dorset

    Maybe the odd girl was duped but I’ll bet deep down even those who were spun a yarn knew what they were getting in to. The real issue is whether or not they can easily walk away, if they can’t that is moving towards slavery.

    Anyway, I thought women entering in to prostitution always tried to get well away from their local area in order to preserve social capital? Now that international travel is so cheap it makes sense to move to another country. At least if you are arrested its less likely your family and friends will find out. I suspect for Asian girls there’s the added benefit that they can put their prices up, cheaper for men with yellow fever to pay at home than travel to Asia.

    As for plod getting involved and making splashy headlines, there was a case in Cornwall earlier in the year when some farmers were accused of modern slavery. The BBC and campaigners were all over it. Nothing much was heard when the case was dropped because the workers were close to rioting when the heard their boss might go to jail. They also felt insulted that they’d been accused of being slaves.

  21. The fact a sgt. has responsibility for the policing of prostitution for all Devon and Cornwall shows the importance the police attach to the issue, or is it just badly worded and she is a sgt. that works in vice

  22. From the Far East? Why would architects and dentists from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan be coming here to rent out their fannies?

  23. “Some people are only capable of manual Labour and Fucking.”

    Our largely indigenous proles in a nutshell.

  24. Slade said that when police carried out safeguarding visits to brothels, they often found women from the far east and eastern Europe who spoke no English and did not know the emergency services phone number.

    I expect these women know how to play Plod like a fiddle. Can’t speak English? Pull the other one.

  25. Dennis, He Who Laughs At Euroweenies

    Why are there safeguarding visits to brothels? Brothels are illegal.

    Because that’s what passes for law enforcement in Britain.

    Now remove that bumper sticker and surrender that butter knife.

  26. Obviously, government should be in charge of brothels.

    Finally, a job worthy of Richard Murphy’s talents.

  27. I did see something amusing a while back complaining about racism and discrimination as the adverts would say ‘no ethnicity type x’ and so on, missing the point that they were complaining about discrimination in a technically illegal service anyway

  28. Would the equivalent of piss up in a brewery be an orgy in a brothel, either way he’d fuck it up and not in the way it was intended

  29. Caring? About what? Or was that sarcasm?

    Be careful… The Hurt Feelings squad of the Metro Police is watching.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *