In quiet suburbs and off busy high streets, Britain has a modest trade in rape. Most prostitution, which is legal, is consensual. But worries about abuse are rising. Performed behind closed curtains and often by people who fear to seek help, prostitu-tion has always been a job in which exploitation is possible. Now, like most unappealing, low-paid occupations, it is increasingly carried out by immigrants: eight out of ten London prostitutes are foreigners, police think. Isolated, lacking knowledge of English or the law and sometimes trafficked by criminal gangs, the new arrivals are especially vulnerable. In the past two years police have rescued 251 women whom they believe were trafficked to Britain for sexual slavery.
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