KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia police confirmed to Bikyanews.com on Monday that a group of some 80 plus Indonesian women who had been forced into slave labor and the sex trade have been returned to their country following a raid in the country. The women were about to be shipped out to the Middle East when they were discovered and rescued. They were held in a large building and were allowed to leave only to clean clients' homes. Several reported having been abused by captors, the Jakarta Globe said Saturday. Police said the women were being held as indentured servants and their captors were ready to sell them off to clients across the Middle East and Africa. Some of the women had been forced to work in illegal vice dens in Malaysia, which in recent months has sparked outrage and anger among Malaysian women and activists. Women's rights advocates have repeatedly told Bikyanews.com over the past few months that police must do more to ensure that women are not being forced into the sex trade or illegal pornographic filming. “We have seen a number of Chinese women forced to make sex films and work as sex workers in the country because the demand continues to rise," social worker Usmanah Mahammad, who works with former sex workers in Kuala Lumpur, told Bikyanews.com. She said that the recent revelation of such “dens" in Ipoh and elsewhere are a sign that paying for sex is on the rise. Police have responded and over the weekend raided on of the dens in Ipoh, where they confirmed to Bikyanews.com scary details of what occurs inside. According to police reports, visitors are able to “choose a girl and have sex with her." BN
