Brazil hotline, soap opera help bust prostitution ring in Spain

BRASILIA (REUTERS) - A call home from an anguished daughter in Spain and images from a soap opera about human trafficking for sexual exploitation led a Brazilian mother to realise her daughter was in trouble.

So she called a sexual abuse hotline set up by Brazil's Ministry of Women's Affairs, prompting an international police operation that led authorities to break up a prostitution ring in the Spanish university town of Salamanca last week.

Spanish police raided a nightclub in Salamanca and freed the Brazilian and five other women who were forced to have sex with customers for US$20 (S$24), Brazilian authorities said on Friday.

Tipped off by a call to the Brazilian hotline last June, Spanish police raided a brothel in Ibiza and discovered 28 women of different nationalities who were forced to provide sexual services 24 hours a day. They lived confined to overcrowded rooms and were monitored with television cameras.