Police sweep hundreds of brothels, arrest 21

Nearly 5,000 Czech police stormed more than 400 brothels on Friday night in the biggest strike against the sex slave trade in the country. They checked documents of over 4,000 people, nearly half of them foreigners and charged 21 people, mostly with pimping and trafficking women. Interior Minister Stanislav Gross said the raids across the country were in response to growing criticism, both at home and abroad, that police were doing little to contain the illegal sex trade. He said foreign women detained in the raids would be given a chance to win residency permits if they co-operated with police. The Czech Republic has become a transit point and also destination for large numbers of sexual workers from other east European former Communist countries. Most women checked in the raids came from the Balkans and from countries further to the east of Europe like Ukraine or Moldova.