Sex slaves victims of scams say Victoria police

Licensing brothels in Victoria has not stemmed a tide of prostitution problems in the state, with allegations women taken to Australia are required to service up to 800 clients before receiving any money.

Victoria police have ordered a review of the illegal sex industry in the state and a preliminary report has found illegal brothels, often staffed by sex slaves, are flourishing. The number has been estimated at 400.

New Zealand last month decriminalised prostitution.

The Age newspaper yesterday said the report would be presented to senior police next month. A source involved in the review said hundreds of women were suspected of being kept as sex slaves.

While brothels have to be licensed in Victoria, newspaper reports have indicated the illegal sex trade is booming there.

Police lately have referred most illegal brothel cases to local councils, which have shut about 40 in the past two years.

But the councils are back-pedalling after a recent court case where the judge ruled affidavits from private investigators were tainted because under the Prostitution Control Act it was illegal for the investigators - or anyone for that matter - to be on the premises of a private brothel.

Councils also are reeling from the expense of the private investigations and now there are suggestions the police review may lead to the return of the vice squad, disbanded four years ago.

The Age report said police believed two common immigration scams were being used to bring women in as sex slaves.

The first involves mainly poor Thai and Burmese women, who are lured to Australia by criminal groups with false promises of wealth. Once in Australia, they claim refugee status, which allows them to work for 12 months until their case is heard.

In the meantime, the newspaper reports, they are placed in "prostitute stables" and forced to work in brothels to repay debts supposedly incurred in bringing them into the country. This involves working seven days a week for six months, for little or no money.

After six months, by which time a woman will have seen about 800 clients, she is allowed to keep about half the money she generates; the brothel owner continues to get the remainder.



The second scam involves mainly Russian women, who are paid up to $A50,000 ($56,280) to marry Australian men, the newspaper reports. Once in the country, they work in brothels to repay the money and usually divorce once they pass the date that allows them to remain in Australia.

The Australian newspaper has been running an ongoing series on the trafficking of women in Sydney and last week reported that brothel operators in King's Cross and Woolloomooloo could not be prosecuted, despite 22 illegal Asian sex workers being found on their premises.

The Immigration Department said there was nothing it could do to punish the owners of the two brothels. The women were found during a raid on the brothels. It said no claims of sex trafficking or servitude were made during interviews with the women.

On Friday, four people appeared in court charged with the enslavement and sexual enslavement of five Thai women after federal police raids on a Melbourne brothel.

The cases are the first under recently introduced sexual servitude legislation, which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years prison.

The arrests came as part of an ongoing investigation called Operation Tennessee, which is to continue in a bid to establish the level of sex slavery in Australia.

- NZPA