Lebanese police rescue 75 Syrian women from sex traffickers

Lebanon's security forces have dismantled the country's largest known sex trafficking ring and freed 75 mainly Syrian women in the seaside resort city of Jounieh north of Beirut.

The women had been raped and beaten, while some showed signs of "mutilation", Lebanese police said.

"Through close monitoring, Mount Lebanon's investigative unit uncovered and arrested the most dangerous human trafficking network in Lebanon in the city of Jounieh," a statement from the Internal Security Forces said.

"Police raided the nightclubs and flats used to house the women rescued 75 women, most of them Syrian nationals who had been subjected to beatings and psychological and physical torture," it said.

The statement added that the women had been forced to perform sexual acts under the threat of having nude images of them distributed and "other methods".

Ten men and eight women guarding the flats where the victims were kept have been arrested, two other suspects remain at large.

"This is the largest sex trafficking ring we've uncovered since the outbreak of the Syrian war," a Lebanese security source said, adding that "an eight-month-old baby, likely the child of one of the rescued women, was also found".

Even before the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011, Syrian women had been pushed into the illicit sex trade in neighbouring Lebanon.

A US State Department report on sex trafficking in Lebanon said Syrian refugee women and children who fled to Lebanon are at an increased risk of being forced into prostitution due to their vulnerable financial situation.

Underage Syrian girls are reportedly brought to Lebanon for the purpose of prostitution, including through the guise of early marriage, according to the report.

"However, as with any war, conflict has made Syrian women and children even more vulnerable. They pay the highest price." the source said.