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Sex TraffickingArchive 2008–2016

Sex Trafficking in Bearwood, Birmingham (2005)

A sex trafficking case from 2005 in Bearwood, Birmingham, United Kingdom.

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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?

What happened

Carl Pritchett owned Cuddles Massage Parlous in Bearwood, and ran the establishment with two associates: Susan Richards, who managed the brothel, and Nathan Langston, who worked maintenance. The victims were held at a nearby house during the day, and taken to Cuddles each evening. The massage parlor is located on Hagley Road, near the center of Birmingham. The victims had their passports and other travel documents taken from them. Cuddles had 12 rooms, an electric fence at the back of the building, and several of the windows were boarded.

Response and intervention

Pritchett was sentenced to two years in prison for running a brotherl. Richards was sentenced to 250 hours of community service, and Langston was sentenced to 180 hours of community service. Police raided the establishment on September 30, 2005 and rescued 19 women from 10 countries who had been forced to work there. The raid came after two months of investigation by West Midlands police called Operation Strikeout, which was targeting violent crime in the area.

Forced Criminality2023

United Kingdom (exact location unknown), United Kingdom, 2023

United Kingdom GB

Vietnamese migrants smuggled into the UK, many by small boat, often arrive owing large debts to smuggling gangs. An ITV News investigation found some working illegally in nail salons, while those with the largest debts are forced into cannabis farming: one man who borrowed £20,000 from loan sharks said he was locked inside a cannabis house for a year and never paid.

1 source
Child Labor2009

Cote d'Ivoire, United Kingdom, 2009

United Kingdom GB

An 11 year old Malian boy dreamed of buying a bicycle. When a man approached him and told him he could work on a cocoa farm and make enough money to buy a bicycle, a radio and more, the boy did not suspect the man of being a child trafficker. He went with the man to Cote d'Ivoire, where the man sold him to a cocoa farmer. He and other trafficked boys worked long hours doing back-breaking and dangerous work farming cocoa and bananas. The farmer gave them little to eat, beat them severely, and forbade them from leaving the farm. At last he realized he had become a slave.

Needs a sourceArchive 2008–2016
Sex Trafficking2005

Pitsmore, Sheffield, United Kingdom, 2005

United Kingdom GB

3 Eastern European men from Kosovo, Albania & Lithuania trafficked 2 girls (18 & 19 years old) from Lithuania to Sheffield (one girl was further trafficked to London – this case can also be viewed on Slavery Map). On arrival at Gatwick airport, their passports were taken and they were auctioned to a group of men in the ‘Costa’ coffee bar. They were then taken to a flat in Sheffield to begin ‘working’ under threat of torture or death. They were told that they would be kept in baths of ice or shot dead if they refused to sleep with who they were told. The traffickers also threatened that if they disobeyed, they would be sold onto traffickers in London, who would lock them up and give them no food. Both girls were never left unattended and all calls were monitored.

Needs a sourceArchive 2008–2016