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Trafficked women are being sexually exploited in almost every town in the country, a Scottish Government-backed group has claimed.

Campaigners say organised crime groups are branching out of major cities and setting up secret brothels in rural areas.

Trafficking Awareness Raising ­Alliance (TARA) helps women who have been freed from gangs and receives referrals from local ­authorities all around the country.

Counsellors dealt with 44 women who were identified as new victims of sexual slavery between April 2018 and March 2019 – a rise of 42 per cent in the previous 12 months.

The majority of women who said they had been forced into prostitution told TARA that their services had been advertised online.

Sexual exploitation is part of a wider trafficking problem in which men and women are used as forced labour or domestic servants.

(Image: SWNS.com)

Figures from the National Crime Agency (NCA) show that 82 men and women were found to be working as slaves in Scotland in the first three months of this year, compared with 53 in the same period last year, an increase of almost 40 per cent.

Many of the women forced to work as prostitutes can be held captive for years before they escape.

TARA’s operations manager, ­Bronagh Andrew, said: “There are hardly any areas of Scotland that have not had reports of trafficked women being sexually exploited.

“It’s not just a problem in cities, we’re seeing it in rural areas as well. Our concern is that no one knows the real scale of the problem.”

Women who receive help from TARA have usually been rescued by the police or by Border Agency ­officials.

Others have escaped their captors by jumping out of windows or fleeing cars parked at traffic lights.

(Image: Alamy Stock Photo)

The victims can come from as many as 25 countries, with the most ­common being Albania, Vietnam, Romania, China, Nigeria and Namibia.

They have been found in almost 30 towns and cities across Scotland, including Aberdeen, Glasgow, ­Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth and ­Inverness.

Victims have also been found in Alva in Clackmananshire, Fort ­William in the Highlands, Larkhall in Lanarkshire and Annan in ­Dumfries and Galloway.

According to the NCA, there were 150 Scottish trafficking cases in 2016, up 3.4 per cent up on 2015. In 2017, the number of cases rose to 207.

There were a record 222 cases north of the Border last year.

Bronagh revealed that 147 women forced to work as prostitutes had sought their help since 2015. They are now helping 83 victims, their highest number.

(Image: Collect)

Some of the women have also been used as cheap labour in nail bars and cannabis farms.

Bronagh said: “Most of the women we see are aged 25 to 35 but we’ve helped women as young as 18 and others in their late 50s.

“Trafficked victims have asked their customers to try and help them.

“Some men will help, others will just shrug their shoulders and some will tell the ­trafficker what she has said.

“As a result, the women have been assaulted. I cannot think of a single case where a customer has taken a woman to a police ­station.”

Victims are usually from extreme poverty and have been promised a new life in Britain by the traffickers, who present themselves to their ­victims as Good Samaritans.

(Image: Collect)

Bronagh added: “Women can often be groomed from a young age before they’re trafficked.

“The women can be brought in by plane, train and car. Some are brought in on their own passport, others are given false ­documents or simply smuggled in.

“They think they’re coming here to go to school, to get a job and learn English. Occasionally you will get women who are already working in the sex industry.

“They’ve been told they will make much more money and see fewer punters. It’s all a lie.

“Some of the women we help have been sexually exploited since the age of 13 and 14, which usually begins in their own country.”

(Image: PA)

TARA works closely with Police Scotland’s trafficking unit at Gartcosh in Lanarkshire.

Bronagh said: “We give women legal advice, accommodation and health care and look after them for 12 to 18 months.

“We also have to help women deal with the long-term psychological trauma of being ­trafficked. Some of the women we’ve helped have been exploited for decades.”

Last year, TARA and another group helping trafficking victims were given a Government grant of £3million.

Bronagh said: “These women are expected to be available for sex 24/7.

“They’ve no freedom and no control over their own own lives.

“Most women have between two and five men each day.

“Other women talk about double figures on a daily basis. They very rarely get paid.

“We had one woman who was exploited seven days a week and by five men each day.

“Once a month she got £100 from her captors and she thought she

was rich.

“Clearly she was not getting ­anything like the money she was ­earning for the traffickers.

“The traffickers take money off for rent, food, website advertising, condoms and laundry costs. They even fine the women if they get a complaint from a punter.”

(Image: Collect)

Highlands and Islands Labour MSP Rhoda Grant, who has campaigned against the exploitation of women by the sex industry, said: “We’ve prided ourselves on our ­measures to combat violence against women but we still have a long way to go.

“Our laws penalise those forced into prostitution. They do nothing to ­protect them. Northern Ireland and the Irish republic made the ­purchase of sex an offence and because of that, they are not welcoming to traffickers.

“It is not good enough in 2019 that that this form of violence against women is being effectively actively promoted by sites like Vivastreet.”

Davy Thompson, of White Ribbon Scotland, a charity that works with men to stop violence against women, said: “Trafficking for sexual ­exploitation is clearly an example of violence against women.

“Sites which carry adverts linked to trafficking should consider that this isn’t sex, it’s rape.”

The evidence we uncovered has been made available to police.