After 30 years of being held captive as a domestic slave in a house in London, a 69-year-old Malaysian woman was finally rescued. Also rescued were a 57-year-old Irish woman and 30-year-old Briton who had been held at a property in Lambeth from childhood.
Scotland Yard said that the police were contacted in October by Freedom Charity after they received a call from a woman stating she had been held against her will in a house in London for over 30 years.
The captors – a 67-year-old man and woman – were arrested on Thursday and are under the investigation into slavery and domestic servitude. The three women, who were entirely traumatized, were taken to a safe place.
Founder of Freedom Charity, Aneeta Prem, said that the women were in kept in “domestic slavery” and felt that they were not allowed to leave the house because of their fear of their alleged captors. Fortunately, there were no sexual element to their alleged captivity.
“One of the key things that has come up is that these three ladies were absolutely terrified by these people,” Prem said. She added that the contact was done in secret because the women felt like they were in massive danger.
Prem told Sky News:
“I think all of them saw me on the news and made a decision because of the name of the charity and because they had seen me on TV – that gave them the courage to make that phone call.
“I can’t go in to too many details but they managed to get to a phone and make a call to us.
“We started to talk to them in depth when we could. It had to be pre-arranged when they were able to make calls to us and it had to be done very secretly because they felt they were in massive danger.
“It was planned that they would be able to walk out of the property. The police were on standby.”
Police said the British and Irish women left the house and met the police on an agreed location on October 25 to help the police track the address of the house. Once the found it, they managed to rescue the third woman on the same day.
Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland said that the victims are extremely traumatized by the incident. He also praised Aneeta Prem and the Freedom Charity for their efforts to help save the the three women who were held captive: “We applaud the actions of Freedom Charity and are working in partnership to support these victims who appear to have been held for over 30 years.”
A similar case took place earlier this year when three women escaped their captor, Ariel Castro, who had kidnapped all three women the same way, and abused them horrifically. Castro was sentenced to life in prison, but was later found dead in his cell.
