Women freed after three decades in captivity

Three women are now free from captivity, the AP reports, after being held in a London home for 30 years.
Police announced Thursday that a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman were freed weeks ago after one of them contacted a charity, which got word out to authorities.

The women were “deeply traumatized,” said the head of the police’s human trafficking unit, and are in the care of a charity that works with severe trauma. The women were said to be treated “as slaves,” with the 30-year-old woman believed to have been a captive her entire life.

The announcement, the AP reports, comes after a man and a woman were arrested Thursday by London police as part of “an investigation into slavery and domestic servitude.”

Update 1:13 p.m. EST:

Freedom Charity, the group that called the police after receiving a call from one of the captive London women, tweeted on the news today:

Aneeta Prem would like to praise the outstanding work of the Freedom Charity team and partners in getting the women to a place of safety.

— Freedom (@FreedomCharity) November 21, 2013