Police free three slaves in London

[Sheilbh]

Three women 'held as slaves' in south London
The "highly traumatised" women are alleged to have been held against their will for 30 years - with one born in captivity
By Edward Malnick2:52PM GMT 21 Nov 2013

Two people have been arrested after police discovered three "traumatised" women, believed to have been imprisoned in a London home for more than 30 years.

Scotland Yard confirmed two people in their 60s were arrested at their home in south London earlier as part of an investigation into slavery and domestic servitude.

It followed a call to police last month from a charity, on behalf of one of the alleged captives, who said she had been held against her will for more than 30 years.

Police said the Freedom Charity, which aims to advise and support victims of forced marriages or honour-based violence, got in touch after they received a call following a television documentary on forced marriages.

Further enquiries by police revealed the location of the house and "with the help of sensitive negotiations" conducted by the charity the three women, a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman were all rescued, the Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

All three women were said to be highly traumatised and were taken to a place of safety where they remained on Thursday afternoon.

Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland, from the Met's Human Trafficking Unit, said he had never seen a human trafficking case of "this magnitude" before.

He said: "We applaud the actions of Freedom Charity and are working in partnership to support these victims who appear to have been held for over 30 years.

"We have launched an extensive investigation to establish the facts surrounding these very serious allegations."

He added: "A television documentary on forced marriages relating to the work of Freedom Charity was the catalyst that prompted one of the victims to call for help and led to their rescue."

Earlier this year the Forced Marriage Unit - a joint operation by the Home Office and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office - revealed it helped in 1,485 cases of possible forced marriage in 2012, involving 60 countries across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa and North America.

The statistics for last year show that of the 744 cases where the age was known, more than 600 involved people under the age of 26.

Aneeta Prem, Freedom Charity founder, said the alleged victims - who are believed to have suffered physical and mental harm - were able to walk out of the property after extensive calls with the charity.

She told Sky News: "We started in-depth to talks to them when they could, it had to be pre-arranged. They gave us set times when they were able to speak to us.

"It was planned that they would be able to walk out of the property. The police were on standby.

"They were able to leave the property, but it was done in such a way... it was a very, very excellent way it happened."

Ms Prem said the two people arrested were considered the "heads of the family", and that the women were "absolutely terrified" of them.

She added: "They felt they were in massive danger.

"I don't believe the neighbours knew anything about it at all. It was just an ordinary house in an ordinary street.

"They were very restricted on everything they could do. We are absolutely thrilled this has happened."

Asked about what help the women will be given, the charity founder said: "They are going to be afforded all the help and support that can be.

"I'm so grateful they saw the news. Now they will try to re-build their lives."

Christ

Video of the Met statement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2WWnCvWCb8

[mongers]

Shelf, you'd have gotten more interesting with this thread if you'd pitched it as Blighty doing human interest stories/events 'better' than the US, perhaps. 

Maybe, "American Slavers, You're Amateurs; Brits Once Again Trounce Colonials"   

[Eddie Teach]

Maybe he figures he'll leave the Mongers threads to you. 

[mongers]

Maybe he figures he'll leave the Mongers threads to you. 

I did nearly start a thread on this, but thought my take would be a bit tasteless. 

[Sheilbh]

Maoists. Didn't expect that:

London 'slavery' case: suspect was communist activist in 1970s
Aravindan Balakrishnan, aka Comrade Bala, ran separatist party-cum-commune from bookshop in Brixton, south London
Peter Walker
theguardian.com, Monday 25 November 2013 13.02 GMT

The 73-year-old man arrested on suspicion of holding three women captive in a south London flat for 30 years is a one-time Communist party activist who was well known within far-left circles in London during the mid- and late 1970s as the leader of a separatist party-cum-commune.

Aravindan Balakrishnan, known as Comrade Bala, had been a senior member of the Communist party of England (Marxist-Leninist) – a member of the party's central committee – but according to a history of the movement he split from the party in 1974.

His new organisation, described as "characterised by the ultra-left posturing and Mao worship", was called the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. But the group is not thought to have been active since the 1970s – before one of the women, now aged 30, was born.

Local sources said the woman arrested last week was his wife Chanda Balakrishnan, aged 67, a fellow activist.

They were both arrested on suspicion of holding three woman captive in a cult-type arrangement at a series of addresses in south London, including most recently at Peckford Place.

The women have been described by police as a 69-year-old Malaysian, a 57-year-old Irishwoman and a 30-year-old Briton, believed to be the daughter of the Irishwoman and Aravindan Balakrishnan.

Based in a bookshop in Acre Lane, a road in the then hugely deprived south London area of Brixton, the organisation also ran as a commune, with women taking what was described as a leading role.

While some reports say the organisation was based as a squat, reports from the time say Balakrishnan's group took out a long lease on the building. The handful of business owners on the road who remember the squat say it was always busy, with large numbers of young people coming in and out of the large, three-storey Victorian corner property at all hours.

Balakrishnan's beliefs, niche even among the ultra-left groups of the time, styled his group as a direct component of Maoist China, calling on the Red army to come to south London to liberate working people. Members carried portraits of Mao.

The Acre Lane building, which opened in 1976, was also run in part as a shrine and memorial to the Chinese communist leader, who died that year.

A manifesto from the group, reproduced on the internet, described it as "a workers' centre, library and bookshop", adding: "Thousands of people, in particular the poorer working people in the area, began to visit and use the centre. Already two years before the centre was established our comrades had begun to boldly arouse the people of Brixton with the proletarian revolutionary line of beloved Chairman Mao."

The group's beliefs were regularly mocked in the diary column of the Times newspaper, bringing speculation that it became the part-model for the Tooting Popular Front, the ludicrous political movement set up by Robert Lindsay in Citizen Smith, a BBC sitcom that began broadcasting in 1977.

According to another history of far-left groups in the period, the Acre Lane community was broken up in March 1978 following a police raid. A total of 14 people were arrested, including six female commune members, according to reports from the time. Balakrishnan was among those held, along with his wife, referred to in reports only as Comrade Chanda.

The owner of a DIY shop adjoining the former Maoist centre – now an Algerian restaurant – said his father used to own the building in question, but sold it shortly before Balakrishnan's commune opened in 1976.

The shop owner, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was told Balakrishnan's group took out a long lease on the building, which would have cost a significant sum of money, and there was speculation as to how they raised the money.

The man said: "There was always lots of young people going in and out of the building, but they were never any trouble."

Rev Bob Nind, who was the vicar of St Matthews church in Brixton and a well-known community figure at the time, said he went to the Maoist group's centre once, and also knew of them by reputation.

"The place itself didn't see that remarkable. It mainly looked like a bookshop," he told the Guardian. "There were a lot of young people around, including a lot of women. There was a lot of literature connected to Mao."

Nind said that by reputation, Balkrishnan's group was known as the most far-left even among the many Marxist-linked groups in the area at the time.

"There were a lot of leftwing groups active. I remember very well that at the 1978 byelection after Marcus Lipton died there were 10 candidates and five were to the left of Labour. But even among these, the people from Acre Lane were known as being particularly doctrinaire, and quite centralist."

Nind said he never met Balakrishnan but knew of "Comrade Bala", and was told he was considered a "dominant force" within his organisation.

There is a cult-like quality to a lot of these extreme left parties. It reminds me of the stories of sexual abuse by Gerry Healy in the Workers' Revolutionary Party.

[jimmy olsen]

The perpetrators should be shot and their family charged the price of the bullet.

[mongers]

The details emerging don't seem to tally with the original headline story.

As Shelf has said, this seems much more like a cult situation, rather than slavery.  Especially as we know the woman had regular contact with others and the outside world. 

[Caliga]

The perpetrators should be shot and their family charged the price of the bullet.

Tim's close proximity to North Korea is clearly rubbing off on him.

[Ed Anger]

The perpetrators should be shot and their family charged the price of the bullet.

Tim's close proximity to North Korea is clearly rubbing off on him.

Tim was actually a bit clever that time. I got the joke at least.

[The Brain]

The perpetrators should be shot and their family charged the price of the bullet.

Tim's close proximity to North Korea is clearly rubbing off on him.

Tim was actually a bit clever that time. I got the joke at least.

Kentuckian.

[Ed Anger]