FOREIGN prostitutes, builders and drug workers have been reluctant to identify themselves as victims of human trafficking because they are living better-paid lives than they had been, according to crime fighters.
Some have developed an emotional and economic bond with their traffickers, or may be reluctant to come forward out of fear of intimidation or deportation, a human trafficking summit at Holyrood heard.
While some may be earning more money than they have before, some are working for "slave labour wages", crime agency officials said.
Police Scotland has dealt with 73 potential human trafficking cases since April 1, 2014, but only 17 crimes were identified and just six were reported to the Crown Office, Police Scotland Deputy Chief Constable Iain Livingstone told the summit.
National Crime Agency deputy director of organised crime Caroline Young said Romanians trafficked for sex is a particular problem in Scotland.
Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland said the failure of victims to recognise that they are victims is one of the obstacles to prosecution.
Mr Livingstone told the story of a Romanian woman engaged in off-street prostitution in a flat.
He said: "The first responders attended and quite clearly she was being facilitated through a trafficker, a man who was making the arrangements to support that individual," he said. "The female herself was actually, in her eyes, living - relative to where she had been - a decent life.
"She had money, she didn't wish necessarily to have legal support, she didn't define herself as a victim - but she was a victim, and was treated as such."
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