POLICE Scotland has announced a major shake-up as they continue to try and crack down on sex trafficking and underworld brothels.
The force has announced that they are bringing in Seconded Officers from Romania after the new year.
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The two officers will join the force in 2024 to help women who are being trafficked for sex work, according to The Times.
It comes after three people from Romania were convicted last month of running an off-street sex business in Motherwell.
Police Scotland has been investigating crimes in sex trafficking for years, but cops believe there is more exploitation to be exposed.
The national human trafficking unit has focused its efforts on investigating the gangsters from southeastern Europe who are behind a lot of the underworld brothels across Scotland.
And now they have managed to get funding from the UK Home Office to bring in the officers.
The force’s official quarterly performance update told the Scottish Police Authority that “Under-reporting of trafficking and sexual exploitation for prostitution of Romanian females is a particular problem.”
And it added that this problem was “resulting in a high number of potentially vulnerable females not engaging with police and other authorities”.
It is hoped that having Romanian officers will encourage women who are being exploited to open up about their ordeal.
It is also hoped that it will overcome the barrier of many of these women not trusting the force or interpreters.
They added that the victims may then go on to identify those behind the crimes and underworld brothels.
The plan was hatched after Romanian diplomats’ recent visit to Police Scotland’s crime campus, which is based in Gartcosh in Lanarkshire.
Detective Superintendent Steven Bertram told The Times: “Our approach to tackling prostitution is focused on the welfare of those involved and identifying either individual perpetrators or crime gangs who pose a threat.
“Support, health and wellbeing visits are a multi-agency response to off-street prostitution, and focus on welfare and mitigating further risk rather than enforcement.”
He added: “We actively target those who purchase sex and those who exploit others into prostitution and we work to bring those involved to justice.
“We work closely with partners in local authorities, health, education and other statutory organisations to eliminate the harm caused and to improve our intelligence picture.”