Czech police raid 400 brothels

Nearly 5,000 Czech police have stormed more than 400 brothels in the biggest strike against the sex slave trade in the central European country, officials say. Interior Minister Stanislav Gross said the raids across the country on Friday night were in response to growing criticism, both at home and abroad, that police were doing little to contain the illegal sex trade. "We decided to take this action because the slave trade is considered the third most profitable kind of international crime," Gross told a hastily arranged late-night news conference. He said foreign women detained in the raids would be given a chance to win residency permits if they co-operated with police. The country, which is due to join the European Union next year, has become the transit point and also destination for large numbers of sexual workers from other east European countries once belonging to the Soviet bloc. Drivers crossing the border from western neighbour Germany have become used to passing buildings dotted with flashing pink hearts and neon signs and women sporting short skirts and stilettos on road shoulders. Generally lower price levels in the Czech Republic lure visitors from wealthier countries west of the Czech border to shop in local stores and refuel their cars. The lower prices have also fuelled the sex trade. Prostitution is a grey area in the Czech Republic. Officially it is illegal but police have been accused of turning a blind eye to it. Many women from poorer ex-Communist east European states such as Ukraine, Russia, Bulgaria or Romania work illegally in the Czech sex industry. "These women must be separated from their pimps. If these women do co-operate, we can... even award them a long-term residency permit," Gross said.