CeAnEx, a project of Black Country Women’s Aid, has found in an extensive, 3-year research project that Romanians form one of the single largest groups of women sex working in the West Midlands and throughout the UK, as well as being a group at risk of sexual exploitation. Their findings have been published in a new report, Understanding and tackling the trafficking of Romanian women and their sexual exploitation in the UK.*
Our specially trained community engagement workers have met hundreds of Romanian women involved in sex work since 2018 and interviewed 106. Romanian women with lived experience of sex work and sexual exploitation worked with CeAnEx as consultants to improve understanding and cultural competence, and a Romanian-speaking Engagement Officer enhanced our support for Romanian women.
This groundbreaking research project, funded by the UK Home Office’s Modern Slavery Fund and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, identified key drivers in which Romanian women were most at risk of being trafficked and how they are exploited once they reach the UK. The CeAnEx team listened and supported victims to collect and amplify their lived experience and produce a more accurate and evidence-based picture of this hidden but wide-reaching crime.
Key findings
Romanian women in the West Midlands and UK trade
Between 2022-2025, Romanians were the single largest group of women offering sexual services in the West Midlands. In some hotspots, such as Smethwick and Handsworth, they were the majority of sex workers.The majority of Romanian women are found in brothels in houses and apartments. They work in the indoor market and very few sell services on street. A small number of Romanian women work in the higher-priced sectors of the market, in clubs, escort agencies and in massage parlours. A few are independent sex workers operating at the elite level. Most, however, work at the lower end of the market in terms of the prices charged.
Poverty as a driver of the trade
Virtually all women in our study say they began sex work because of poverty. One woman, Rahela, who is now a mother of three, had her first baby at thirteen-years-old. She explained her entry into sex work this way: ‘I did it for a bottle of milk’. She and her teenage husband had no money to buy food and formula for their baby and so Rahela began to sex work.
A significant proportion of women in the West Midlands trade come from families where one or both parents were working outside Romania when they were children. They lived with grandparents or extended kin and, although this was satisfactory in many instances, it left some girls at increased risk from predators.
Roma women and structural racism
Most women we meet are from Roma communities. We estimate around 80% of Romanian women in the West Midlands trade are of Roma heritage. Women’s life stories emphasise poverty and lack of employment in their communities of origin, both of which can be linked to systemic inequalities in Romanian society and structural racism against Roma peoples.
Forced marriage and motherhood places girls and women at risk
Many women have children at home who are being looked after by their families. Women tell stories of marriage at thirteen, fourteen or fifteen years of age, sometimes to older men, but often to boys their own age. Marriage is soon followed by pregnancy and motherhood. When the relationship breaks down, or the young family struggles to feed the children, sex work is seen as a way to survive. There is therefore a close link between forced marriage, teenage parenthood, and entry into sex work/sexual exploitation.
The market in sexual services in Romania
Romania has a large and hidden trade in sexual services. Despite the extent of the trade, there appears to be little official knowledge about its structure and business models.
Many Romanian women who sell services in the UK began to sex work, or be exploited, in Romania. They tell us this happened on-street and indoors. Some narrate stories of grooming and being victims of CSE. Women speak of enduring a series of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) including substance misuse in the family, gambling, domestic violence and sexual abuse.
The lack of research on commercial sex in Romania is surprising because many girls and women are at risk of exploitation and need to be safeguarded; and Romania is the place where girls are groomed for the trade and recruited into a vast international market. The UK and Romanian trades are not separate but opposite ends of a supply chain. They cannot be studied in isolation.
Political sensitivities and the danger of increasing stigma
Even less research has been done on the migration or trafficking of Romanian Roma women for sex work and sexual exploitation. The silence surrounding this topic can be explained by a number of factors, not least the reluctance to increase stigma against an already discriminated-against minority. The identification of Roma women as sex workers carries potentially plays into historical, and damaging racist stereotypes of the hyper-sexualised Roma woman.
Gender-based violence and the international trade in women
Among European nations, Romania ranks second lowest in terms of gender equality (Robayo-Abril et al., 2023). Violence against women and girls is common. It affects all sections of society but impacts most damagingly on the poorest. Patriarchy is pronounced in Roma communities and girls’ and women’s lives are shaped by their roles as mothers and carriers of culture (Surdu and Surdu 2006). Gender inequality plays a significant role in issues such as early marriage and the channelling of girls and women into sexual exploitation.
Romanian society remain conservative and the power of the church is strong. This social conservatism means that public acknowledgement of the domestic sex trade is limited, and while large numbers of poor women from both Roma communities and the majority community enter sex work, sex education is largely absent in schools, no doubt contributing to the prevalence of teenage pregnancy we see among sex workers. The ‘whore stigma’ continues to be deep-seated and damaging. ‘Prostitutes’ are blamed for luring men into immorality and it is women rather than their clients who are seen as the problem.
In the case of Romania, the problem of sexual exploitation is supercharged by the country’s close proximity to wealthy countries that have a high demand for sexual services. Economic disparities within Romania, and between Romania and its neighbours, create a supply of poor women for an international market.
The Business Models
The current business models used by those facilitating the sex work of Romanian women, or exploiting them, are varied. All share some common characteristics, particularly in the informal nature of business relations.
1. Pimps and ‘lover boys’ form the most basic model. A man romances a girl or young woman, making her believe he is in love with her. When she falls in love with him, he emotionally manipulates her to sell sex.
2. Some groups are small, family-run businesses.
3. Local networks and linked brothels are a common business model. These usually comprise two or three brothels, or ‘casa de munca’ (work houses), in close proximity in a residential area.
4. Networks are linked to geographic areas in Romania. For example, in Sandwell and West Birmingham we see many women from the area around Craiova. This is an example of chain migration.
5. Romanian networks involved in sexual exploitation in the UK function as a loose social network of small and medium sized affiliated groups. They are not large, hierarchical, top-down, Mafia-style organised crime groups. 6. Romanian women are mobile in the UK. Female brothel managers tend to remain static and may operate in a single location for months or even years but most women move between brothels.
7. Carousel migration or circular migration is common. Most women travel back and forth to Romania. They go to see their children, for holidays and for medical treatment, for example, sexual health services.
8. Travel to the UK is usually by air. Most women we meet in the West Midlands have flown into the UK. However, some of the most vulnerable women have arrived by car, minibus or parcel delivery van.
9. Most women offer in-calls. Some also do outcalls, when the women visit the clients in hotels or private addresses. In-call bookings are usually for 15 or 30 minutes. A few offer services as ‘party girls.’ During these bookings, which maybe for several hours or overnight, the women join the client in taking drugs.
10. Profits from the business are divided. The common practice in the West Midlands has been for brothel managers to receive 50% of the client’s payment, the worker the other 50%. However, it is becoming increasingly common for brothels to rent out rooms at very high prices.
The management
‘Good agents’ and ‘bad traffickers’
Those who facilitate and profit from sex work have reputations as either ‘good agents’ or ‘bad traffickers’. Agents who keep their promises are trusted. Communities in which sex work is accepted as a survival mechanism have developed a kind of subculture that has unofficial but clear rules about the conduct of business. Good agents honour these arrangements and bad traffickers break the rules that govern the trade.
Breaking the rules. Women tell us stories about when things go wrong. Agreements are broken and sex work can quickly morph into exploitation. Common exploitative practices used by pimps and brothel management include:
•taking more than a 50% share of the client fee
•demanding all, or a share of, tips and fees for extra services
•forcing women to entertain more client than they would like
•denying women breaks and time off
•denying women the right to refuse clients or particular services
•insisting women offer a full repertoire of services within the standard flat fee
•withholding money paid by clients
•bullying and physical abuse
Perpetrators are usually Romanian men although women are usually front of house brothel managers. Behind these women are men who are the real operators of the trade and who benefit most financially. The patriarchal norms of Romania, and the gendered power dynamics of Roma societies, are reflected in the hierarchies of the sex trade.
Facilitators and intermediaries play an important role in the trade. Sex workers, for example, need advice on travel to the UK, finding a place to live and work, and help placing adverts on Adult Services Websites. The people who do this may be traffickers. On the other hand, they can be women who have, a few months or years earlier, trodden the same path and who are willing to offer informal assistance to new arrivals.
Albanian men are occasionally seen organising the exploitation of Romanian women and we see overlaps between Romanian and Albanian organised crime.
Recruitment to the UK trade
Recruitment to the UK sex trade relies on a combination of economic circumstances, grooming strategies, word-of-mouth recommendations and, occasionally, advertising and social media. Most women come to the UK because the country has a good reputation: women say the police are good; clients are better than elsewhere; and they can make more money in the UK than in other countries. Most had already been sex working elsewhere in Europe and came to the UK with the assistance of an ‘friend’ or ‘agent’ whom they found thanks to personal recommendation. Many of the agents are a part of their communities and may be linked to their own families.
Some women came to the UK to work in standard occupations (for example, onion picking or working in a chicken processing factory) but then moved into sex work because it paid more. A handful of women were completely duped and forced into the trade after being offered an entirely different job; for example, in a restaurant. These cases, however, are unusual.
Locations and letting agents
The sexual services of Romanian women are sold in brothels in residential streets and apartments throughout the West Midlands. Typically, they are found in poor neighbourhoods where there is a diverse and transitory population. Invariably, the condition of the properties is poor and they are often unsafe. Landlords and property management companies specialise in offering substandard accommodation in the knowledge that the women, and the people who manage them, will find it difficult to rent properties from reputable agents.
Women with additional needs
Women with learning difficulties are among the most vulnerable to sexual exploitation. CeAnEx has encountered Romanian women with suspected additional support needs in brothels where they appear to be exploited not only by the management but sometimes by other women too. They have few personal possessions, poorer quality clothing and do the bidding of those higher in the brothel hierarchy.
Trans sex workers
A very small number of Romanian transwomen sell sexual services in the West Midlands. They say they have come to the UK to escape transphobia in Romania and describe how they adopt masculine clothing and behaviour when they return home to their villages because their families do not accept their transition. Most claim they have sold sex in Romania and in other European countries. In the West Midlands, these women live in very poor accommodation and are especially vulnerable to violence from clients.
Research Case Study: Craiova
Over the eight years in which Black Country Women’s Aid has worked with Romanian sex workers, we have consistently seen higher levels of exploitation in women from Craiova and its surrounding region in south-west Romania. This also applies to women from outside the region but who are linked to networks based in the region. Women demonstrate less agency, have less control over their sex work, and are exposed to higher levels of violence.
Poverty and Migration
South-West Oltenia is one of Romania’s poorest regions (INS 2025), with further differentiation within the region between the more economically vibrant city of Craiova, capital of Dolj County, and the surrounding rural areas that are blighted by underdevelopment and outmigration. Dolj County has one of Romania’s highest numbers of materially disadvantaged people (Niță 2020), many of whom come from the Roma population.
In the West Midlands we see a pattern of peoples migrating from Craiova and South-West Oltenia into West Birmingham and Sandwell. When we meet women in brothels in areas where there is high migration from Oltenia (especially in the Handsworth, Winson Green, Smethwick arc), they tell us they grew up in or near Craiova or in villages in the surrounding Dolj and Olt counties. There is also a strong correlation between our assessment of risk at a location and association with these counties.
Management of Oltenia-linked brothels and criminal networks
The networks running these linked brothels are rooted in family and ‘clan’ networks operating in Romania. Women describe the Craiova-linked networks as ‘very strong,’ and having a ‘lot of power’. They are portrayed as having a long reach. Women who disclose exploitation to us are fearful of speaking to police because they believe they and their families will not be protected from the network either in the UK or Romania.
Gender-based violence
Gender-based violence is common in Romania, with high levels of domestic abuse found in all communities (EIGE 2025, FES 2025). Although we are not aware of official statistics pointing to a higher prevalence of domestic abuse in South-West Oltenia, we can predict that rates will be higher in the region because poverty and social marginalisation lead to stressed families and communities, both exacerbating gender-based violence. Women from the region, and from outside Oltenia, tell us that men from the area are more abusive, more ‘jealous’, ‘dangerous’ and have more socially conservative attitudes to women than in other parts of Romania.
Normalisation of sex work
Women claim that sex work has long been practiced by some people in their communities but that it previously was hidden. In part this is because sex work was illegal in Romania. It also had a social stigma. A few women from Dolj and Olt counties claim this is no longer true. One woman from Craiova said, “In the old days people were embarrassed to do sex work. Now it’s not like that”. When we ask why this change has occurred, women respond by saying it is the product of social media and the promotion of ‘westernised society’. They cite TikTok as a major influence.
Applicability of the Oltenia-West Midlands model to the rest of the UK
Migration from Romania into the rest of Europe follows clear patterns, with chain migration leading to flows from areas in Romania to specific areas in the rest of Europe and beyond. Migration for sex work, and trafficking for sexual exploitation, follows these same routes. In the case of the West Midlands, it appears that migration from Oltenia, particularly Dolj and Olt counties, has led to the importation of networks and gender dynamics that are conducive to sexual exploitation.
Migration from other underdeveloped regions of Romania is likely to result in a similar situation to the one we see in the West Midlands, particularly when high levels of poverty are combined with a significant population of marginalised peoples.
The limitations of official analysis
Migrant sex workers and the problem of consent Almost all the Romanian women we meet in the West Midlands say they are consenting sex workers and that they have come to the UK because they can earn more money here than in Romania or in other parts of Europe.
The notion of consent in these circumstances is problematic. Structural inequalities and lack of opportunity at home, combined with grooming that channels girls and women into the sex sector, mean that by the time we meet adult sex workers in the West Midlands, they will already have been in the trade for years. The women tell us they are consenting to what they do, even if they are not happy about it, but their room for real choice has been almost non-existent since childhood.
Engagement with authorities and missing data
Few women who have experienced exploitation wish to engage with any form of authority, either in the UK or Romania. We suggest several reasons for this, rooted in women’s experiences in Romania.
i. Police corruption. Women do not believe Romanian police will help them. In many cases they see the police as a problem to be avoided.
ii. Many women working in the UK have children in Romania who are living with their families. A common fear among women is that coming to the attention of the authorities in the UK will mean that knowledge of their sex work will be sent back to Romania and that Romanian social services will take their children into care.
iii. We also suggest reasons shaped by historical memory.
• Centuries of persecution against the Roma minority has generated negative attitudes to authority.
•Engagement with outsiders is seen as a threat to Roma communities. Outsiders can build knowledge about communities that can be used to undermine them.
•The communist era in Romania casts a long shadow. Fear of oppressive state control and dislike of institutional care, which were features of this period, hamper current efforts to assist victims of exploitation.
A mismatch exists between the number of Romanian women CeAnEx sees being sexually exploited in the West Midlands, and in the wider UK, and the number of women in the UK’s National Referral Mechanism, the government’s framework for identifying and supporting victims of Modern Slavery. Although many women we meet may be consenting migrant sex workers, a proportion will be sexually exploited. These women are not captured in any meaningful statistics either in the UK or in Romania. We suggest official data is incorrect and that an entire group of women is missing from the data. These women are from Romania’s Roma communities. This creates a skewed and inaccurate
picture of trafficking from Romania thereby undermining efforts to prevent and combat sexual exploitation.
Selected bibliography
European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) (2025) Gender Equality Index: Violence in Romania. Available at: https://eige.europa.eu/gender-equality-index/2025/domain/violence/RO (accessed 16 April 2026)
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (2025) Romania ranks among EU countries with the highest rates of intimate partner violence against women.
https://romania.fes.de/e/romania-ranks-among-eu-countries-with-the-highest-rates-of-intimate-partner-violence-against-women.html(accessed 16 April 2026)
National Institute of Statistics (INS) (2025) Poverty and social exclusion in Romania in 2024. Available at: https://insse.ro/cms/sites/default/files/com_presa/com_pdf/saracia_si_excluziunea_sociala_e2024.pdf (Accessed: 17 April 2026).
Niță, A.M. and Pârvu, M.C. (2020) ‘Vulnerability and resilience in marginalized rural communities. Case study: projects for reduction of risk exclusion in Dolj County’, Revista de Științe Politice. Revue des Sciences Politiques 63, pp 103-117. Robayo-Abril, Monica; Chilera, Chifundo Patience; Rude, Britta; Costache, Irina. 2023. Gender Equality in Romania: Where Do We Stand? – Romania Gender Assessment. World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/40666 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
Surdu, L. and Surdu, M. (2006) Broadening the Agenda: The Status of Romani Women in Romania, Budapest: Open Society Institute.
* The views expressed in this report are the views of CeAnEx/Black Country Women’s Aid and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders.
