(Newser)
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A new report on British sex slavery slams officials for their "shocking" inability to curb the rise of modern slavery and human trafficking, the Guardian reports. Authors of the massive Centre for Social Justice report, due out tomorrow, offer more than 80 recommendations and criticize the "unacceptable levels of ignorance and misidentification" among border agents, police, and social workers. Worse, victims who reach the police are often charged for being an illegal immigrant.
The authors identify more than 1,000 cases, including British girls trafficked for sex exploitation and one girl who said she had been raped 90 times over a weekend, the Daily Mail reports. Other victims are forced to commit crimes including drug cultivation, pickpocketing, and fraud. "Our research has uncovered a shocking underworld in which children and adults, many of them UK citizens, have been forced into lives of utter degradation," reads the report. Among its recommendations: Create an anti-slavery commissioner and force big companies to disclose their anti-slavery practices. (Sex slavery happens in America, too: Read about about one in midtown Manhattan and the shocking child-sex trade in Ohio.)
