Trafficking in human beings for sexual and other purposes - Polisen

3. Criminal Development17trators. The women were exploited for the purposesof prostitution in apartments, rented hotel rooms orin street prostitution. Sometimes pimps and traffickerswould also escort the women to the home of thesex-purchaser or to his hotel room to reduce the riskof detection and keep down the cost of premises, forexample. The women also very rarely dared to escapebecause of their indebtedness to the human traffickersand threats of violence to themselves or their relatives.3.1.4 Human trafficking from LithuaniaThe increase in Lithuanian women being sold forprostitution in Sweden in 2011 was particularlynoticeable in the Stockholm area where police identifiedfive different branches of Lithuanian human traffickingnetworks. These groups knew each other, butdid not appear to associate or cooperate. Somegroups also had offshoots in Norway, Denmark, theUK and Ireland.The Lithuanian women were aged between 20 and35 and were recruited from the same area, Siauliai, inLithuania. This area is characterised by high levels ofunemployment and poverty, especially for women.Several of the young women had dependent childrenwho had either been taken into care and placed inchildren’s homes, or who lived with grandparents.At the time of recruitment, they were promised halfthe earnings. They soon discovered that this diminishedbecause they had to pay all of the costs, both forthemselves and for the perpetrators. The perpetratorsimmediately looked after any earnings from prostitutionactivities and, if the women protested, the perpetratorsthreatened to spread rumours in their homecountry about what they were involved in. Thesewomen were sold through advertisements on theInternet but did not know how the advertisementshad been designed or what sexual services they wereexpected to perform. Furthermore, none of the womenspoke Swedish or English. This often led to misunderstandingsin their contacts with the men buyingsex. The women also said that the men often becameirritated and sometimes violent because they were notsupplied with the sexual services promised in theadvertisements. The women and the advertisementswere changed regularly but the perpetrators retainedthe same phone number to facilitate contact with themale sex-purchasers.The perpetrators booked rooms at cheap apartmenthotels for themselves and the women. Duringthe periods when the male sex-purchasers wereexploiting the women, the perpetrators would hide ona balcony or in a wardrobe. The perpetrators regularlymoved the women between different hotels to avoiddetection and occasionally also slept in their cars tosave money.In order to maximise revenue, perpetrators advertisedon several different websites simultaneously andused several different phone numbers for the samewoman. Occasionally, a number of sex-purchaserswould also be booked in for the same appointment sothat no revenue would be lost if any of them did notshow up. At times, the perpetrators also lowered pricesto retain the interest of the sex-purchasers. Duringpolice interrogation, the women told police that theyhad been subjected to repeated rapes and had alsobeen subjected to “strangle sex”.The perpetrators in charge in Sweden reported regularlyto their criminal bosses in Lithuania. Incomefrom prostitution activities was conveyed out of thecountry by the perpetrators who travelled by ferry toLithuania via Latvia, or was sent via Western Union.Some of the perpetrators also committed thefts inSweden and some could also be linked to drug crimesin Norway.While the number of convictions for sex traffickingdecreased, human trafficking from Lithuania to Swedenincreased in 2011. There may be a number of reasonsfor this. In 2003 two Lithuanian perpetratorswere each sentenced in Sweden to twelve years inprison for offences including kidnapping, aggravatedrape and aggravated procuring. The sentence was