Investigators are talking about the worst case of modern slavery in London: The police have more details about the case of the three women announced who had to live for decades in captivity apparently. A TV show brought them to secretly sell a cry for help.

The call came out of the blue. On 18 October, a woman reported to the hotline of the London organization “Freedom”. She said she was being held against her will – and already for 30 years. The call triggered a series of events that culminated in the temporary arrest of two suspects on Thursday.

The suspected slave owners should have held captive for over three decades in a house in south London borough of Lambeth total of three women. The suspect couple, a man and a woman aged 67 years, was interrogated, then released on bail. Scotland Yard says the two are not British.

Chief investigator Kevin Hyland spoke of the most severe case of modern slavery in the British capital. The victims are a 57-year-old Irish woman, a 69-year-old Malaysian and a 30-year-old British woman.

The liberation was a drama that lasted for over a week: The employee of the aid organization alerted after the alarm on that Friday in October the police immediately. Because of the weekend, the case was only on Monday to the department of human trafficking. But still did not know the investigators where were the slaves. Your location and other circumstances of the prisoner told the frightened caller only in the course of further discussions.

The flight was planned in secret phone calls

Again and again, the 57-year-old secretly reported to the hotline. Gradually they took confidence to the helpers. Together they planned the escape. On 25 October, a week after the first call, it was done: The three women waited until their two minders had left the house. Then she fled from her prison. The police took them outside in reception. When the liberated women came into the house of charity, there were hugs and tears, said “Freedom” Aneeta Prem-founder of the BBC program “Newsnight”.

Prem had founded the little charity a few years ago to protect young women from forced marriages and familial oppression. Your employees go to schools to educate girls and to encourage self-employment. The liberation of the house slaves is her biggest success.

But the day after the arrests, many questions remain unanswered. What does slavery in this context? What was the daily life of women? What they were, what was forbidden? Where did the Irish mobile phone, from which she called the hotline, according to Prem? And why did it take after the liberation of four weeks left until the suspects were arrested?

Neither the police nor the charity gave award details. It is difficult to determine the facts, because the victims were severely traumatized, Hyland said. The women would have had huge fear their tormentors, Prem said. They would have viewed the two as “heads of families”.

Hyland said the women had had a “controlled freedom”. It was just trying to find out how far this had gone. “We are trying to determine which contact each victim with the outside world had”. Facing the door they were not allowed apparently. The 30-year-old has spent her entire life in captivity. At school they never went.

But they could watch television, and just here it apparently found the necessary impetus on 9 October, she saw a documentary about forced marriages, was interviewed in the Prem. This was decisive for the call to the hotline.

Call for tougher laws

The case fueled the debate on modern-day slavery in the UK again. The Labour MP Frank Field urged to tighten the anti-slavery law of 2010. He since October working on behalf of the Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May to suggestions. His report should be ready by Christmas. The Chairman of the Foundation against Trafficking in Human Beings, Anthony Steen, stated the offense enslavement must be punished with a life sentence.

Officially, slavery in the Kingdom in the 19th Abolished century, but currently the number of slaves and forced laborers is again estimated to be over 4000. Per year receives Hylands unit 200 references to forced labor. 2011, the Government established the first “anti-slavery day” from. At that time, made ​​a particularly serious case outside London headlines: In the county of Bedfordshire, two dozen men were freed from a caravan park. They had long made ​​slaves service up to 15 years. Their tormentors were sentenced last year to prison terms of up to eleven years.

The London liberated women initially remain in the care of “Freedom”. They made progress, Prem said. “We hope that they can build a new life.”

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