Sex Slaves Win Cash Damages

In a groundbreaking decision, Britain has awarded four women smuggled from eastern Europe to the UK and subjected by their captors to "forced prostitution, multiple rapes and beatings" more than £140,000. The decision, the first to consider false imprisonment and forced prostitution as categories for awarding damages, will serve as a legal precedent, the Guardian reports.

With the number of sexually exploited illegal immigrants in the UK estimated between 4,000 and 10,000, thousands of other women could qualify for similar damages. Ever-younger girls from China and west Africa, trafficked by UK-based pedophile rings, enter Britain with forged travel documents from their smugglers. Police describe many UK small-town brothels as "sex prisons." (More prostitution stories.)