WUNRN
By Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent
09 Dec 2008
Vietnam - According to the Thanh Nien newspaper 130 women were held as prisoners at the brothel and forced to work from nine in the morning until 3 a.m he following day. If they refused to perform sexual acts on customers they were severely punished by the owner, known as Tri, and his men.
"In nine months, I have seen more than 10 girls try to escape but they were captured, tortured by Tri and put in dog cages," said one of the rescued women.
The women, mostly from poor rural families, were kept as slaves in debt bondage. They said they were fed half a fish and a small bowl of soup at every meal, for which they were forced to pay £100 a month. Extra food cost an extra £2 per meal.
Tri and his men also held "birthday parties" every month and forced the women to give them "presents" of between £20 and £40. They also had to pay a "tuition fee" to learn sex acts, a fee of £600 to visit their families and £2000 to escape their jobs.
Interest on loans was charged at 10 per cent.
Police launched the raid after they received letters from the captive women. Seven men were reportedly arrested but the brothel owner, Tri, remains at large.
Guns and ammunition were also seized in the raid.
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