Three “highly traumatized” women have been rescued from a London house after being held as slaves for as long as 30 years, police say.
Police have arrested a 67-year-old man and a 67-year-old woman at the south London residence in relation to the allegations.
The alarm was raised by the Freedom Charity in October after a woman phoned it saying she had been held against her will for as long as three decades. Reports said the house concerned was in the Lambeth borough area of south London.
A Malaysian woman, 69, an Irish woman, 57, and a British woman, 30, were rescued from the home, police said.
“Police were contacted in October by Freedom Charity after they had received a call from a woman stating she had been held against her will in a house in London for more than 30 years,” Scotland Yard said in a statement.
“Further inquiries by police revealed the location of the house and with the help of sensitive negotiations conducted by the charity the three women, a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman were all rescued.
“All three women, who were highly traumatized, were taken to a place of safety where they remain.”
Detective Inspector Kevin Hyland, from the Met police’s Human Trafficking Unit added: “We applaud the actions of Freedom Charity and are working in partnership to support these victims who appear to have been held for over 30 years. We have launched an extensive investigation to establish the facts surrounding these very serious allegations.”
“A television documentary on forced marriages relating to the work of Freedom Charity was the catalyst that prompted one of the victims to call for help and led to their rescue.”
Police said they believed the 30-year-old woman who was rescued had lived in the house her entire life against her will and had no contact with outside world that most would consider normal.
Freedom Charity is an organization that works on issues including forced marriage.
Aneeta Prem of the Freedom Charity told Sky News that the women had to make calls to the charity in secret and at set times because “they felt like they were in massive danger.”
“The ladies were absolutely terrified of these people,” she said. “They did have rooms that they could use but they were very restricted on everything they could do.”
“I don’t believe the neighbors knew anything about it at all,” Prem said. “I think you would describe it as just an ordinary house in an ordinary street that wouldn’t raise any concerns with any neighbors or anyone else.”
“I just can’t believe that human beings can treat each other that way. It’s something that’s so barbaric and so out of everyone’s imagination that anybody could treat anybody in such a way that people feel that they are slaves,” she said.
Prem said they were worried that they would not in the end want to leave.
“Obviously 30 years, being held in a very difficult situation, you become very institutionalized to a very bad way of living, so we had to ensure that when they were going to come out they didn’t then decide they were going to go back in”.
The allegations were reminiscent of a series of high-profile cases in which women have escaped after extended periods of captivity.
Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry, and Michelle Knight, were rescued earlier this year from a home in Cleveland. They were kidnapped and forced to live in a custom-made dungeon. Ariel Castro was found guilty of their kidnappings and scores of other crimes. He was later found dead in his jail cell.
Jaycee Lee Dugard turned up 18 years after she was kidnapped at the age of 11 in California. She had been kept in a hidden backyard behind the house of her captor, Phillip Garrido, and had two children with him.
Austrian Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil, who held her captive in a cellar for eight years before she managed to escape in 2006. He threw himself under a train the night she got away.
Elizabeth Smart was 14 when she was taken from the bedroom of her home in June 2002 and repeatedly raped by a self-styled prophet during nine months of captivity.
Smart was rescued in March 2003 less than 30km from her home. Her abductor, Brian David Mitchell, was jailed for life in 2011.
Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter for 24 years and fathered seven of her children. The case came to light in 2008 when Fritzl’s daughter Elisabeth and three children were freed from the dungeon Fritzl built beneath his house. Fritzl is serving a life sentence for his crimes.
This article originally appeared on News.com.au.