Women 'scared into prostitution'

Young women and girls were subjected to bizarre rituals to scare them into a life of prostitution, an Irish court has heard. Some were shoved into coffins and witnessed chicken slaughter before they were trafficked from Nigeria and coerced into a large and lucrative prostitution ring run by a married couple. Irish-born Thomas Carroll, 48, and his South African wife Shamiela Clark, 32, ran a complex and organised prostitution business in Ireland, which earned more than one million euros in one year, Cardiff Crown Court, in Wales, was told.

Clark, who went by the name of Carmen, ran a "call centre" where she co-ordinated the brothels and took calls from clients, organised accommodation and placed adverts in newspapers, the court heard. Robert Davies, prosecuting, said the business used foreign sex workers "so they would not have homes to go to at night".

Most of the young women and girls, one aged just 15, came from South America and Nigeria, with many not knowing they would have to work as prostitutes to pay off the huge debts they were told they owed their traffickers. Women from Nigeria underwent "terrifying and humiliating" rituals involving menstrual blood, killing chickens and being pushed into a coffin "to put the fear of death in them", Judge Neil Bidder was told.