Two Russian beauty pageant contestants have been arrested at Moscow Airport for allegedly duping an 18-year-old female student.
It's believed they had agreed a huge fee with a buyer in a Middle Eastern country for her to be sold as a sex slave.
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The student had been tricked into believing she had a job as a nanny in the unnamed country. As the Sun reports, it's likely the teenager would have had her passport confiscated before being forced into prostitution.
The two women detained by police are Ksenia Starikova, 22, and Tatiana Petrova, 19. They have been charged with human trafficking and could face up to six years in jail.
Starikova, who runs a modelling agency, has been kept in custody while Petrova is under house arrest. The older women is a Mrs Russia finalist and mother of one.
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Videos show the two women hiding their faces as they are detained by police at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport. They were caught by police, who carried out a sting operation, posing as buyers for the 18-year-old student. They arrested them after Starikova received £19,000 ($26,000) at the airport.
Equality Now, a non-profit organisation which works 'for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls around the world' estimates the sex trafficking industry to be worth $99 billion (£71.5bn) a year, with about two million children exploited annually in the trade.
Ninety-six percent of those trafficked are women and girls while 54 percent of all trafficking victims are trafficked specifically for sexual exploitation.
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The US State Departments 2015 Trafficking in Persons report raised concerns over the sex trafficking of children and women from countries including Ukraine, Moldova, South East Asia (mostly Vietnam) and regions including Africa and Central Asia.
Russian authorities have expressed concern over the number of women being duped into foreign jobs and then trapped into sex slavery.
There has been a sharp rise in the number of trafficking cases recorded in the UK, though it's unclear whether this is due to a general rise in trafficking and modern slavery, or more concerted action against trafficking crimes.
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Petrova and Starikova were preparing to board a plane bound for Turkey when they were detained by Russian police, though it's not clear whether Turkey was their final destination.
The Sun reported that the two women found a buyer for the student on social media, brokering a deal after several weeks of negotiations. Petrova was due to fly with her as the 'sale' was finalised. The victim was a student of foreign languages in Moscow and originally from Serpukhov, 60 miles south of the Russian capital.
Featured Image Credit: East2West NewsTopics: World News, crime, Russia