NINETEEN foreign women who were allegedly locked away and forced into sex slavery have been rescued by police after a raid on a massage parlour. The women, from seven countries, had their passports confiscated by the owners of Cuddles, a premises in Birmingham that was being used as a brothel, police said. A task force of 50 officers, including 25 women, stormed the premises on Thursday night and arrested a woman, aged 40, and two men, aged 22 and 50, who are believed to have managed the parlour.

The young women, who come from Greece, Latvia, Turkey, Poland, Italy, Japan and Hong Kong, were being questioned with the help of interpreters. Detectives are examining allegations that they were lured to Britain with promises of employment as nannies and waitresses. Immigration officers have been informed but it is not known whether the women are in Britain illegally.

Amnesty International welcomed the raid but called on the Government to do more to protect victims of trafficking amid concern about the burgeoning trade in sex slaves. It is unclear how many women are brought to Britain each year, but in the past 12 months police have conducted 343 operations against traffickers, arrested 1,456 people and seized £4.5 million in assets.

Two weeks ago the head of a Lithuanian prostitution gang who turned young women into sex slaves was jailed for ten years. Viktoras Larcenko, 25, preyed on Lithuanians, whom he lured with the promise of a better life. But once they arrived in Britain their lives turned into a torment of death threats and violence as they were ferried from one brothel to another to entertain scores of clients. One of them was raped by her brothel boss, who liked to “try out” the girls, while another was sold for thousands of pounds, Southwark Crown Court in London was told.

In Birmingham Detective Inspector Mark Nevitt, who led the latest operation, said: “Cuddles massage parlour was targeted as part of intelligence gathered through Operation Strikeout, which aims at robberies and violent crime.

“We went to the property to execute a warrant in human trafficking, and intelligence suggests the girls were brought into the country under false pretences, sold on and held against their will in the massage parlour. These girls could be subject to violence, sexual assaults and forced to work as prostitutes.”

Police gained entry to the premises — tucked between an insurance company and chartered surveyors on the busy Hagley Road — after two male officers posed as clients.

Inspector Nevitt said: “As we anticipated that there would be a lot of half-dressed ladies in there, 25 female officers went into the building first, to ensure that the woman were decent before the male officers went in. “Intelligence suggests that the girls were kept locked in a house in the Birmingham area during the day and transported to the parlour at night.

Amnesty International said that the Sexual Offences Act and the Asylum and Immigration Act, which came into force last year, were helping police to catch and prosecute traffickers but urged ministers to do more.

The UN has said that every year an estimated two million females, many of them children, fall victim to the modern slave trade.

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