In June 2006, the BBC reported that auctions of Eastern European women had been held at Stansted, Gatwick, and other London airports. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, the women were sold for £8,000 each (then approximately U.S. $15,000). The auctions of young women destined for sexual slavery in Britain occurred in open, highly policed locales. One auction even took place in front of a cafe at Gatwick Airport. Such appalling news reveals that slave markets are no longer history. Once immortalized in historical lithographs and paintings, slave auctions occurred right outside the city that is the global headquarters for human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Anti-Slavery.

If the auctioneers had been selling illicit drugs in such a public place, there would have been immediate arrests. Yet there was no such intervention to protect the young women. Ostensibly, the British police are not corrupt and had not been paid off. Why would such auctions be tolerated in a society that was an early advocate of the abolition of slavery? How can this occur in a country that values its contribution to the rule of law?