London (AFP) – Four women who allege abuse by late Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed were confirmed as victims of human trafficking by the UK’s interior ministry, a group representing the survivors told AFP on Monday. The former business tycoon, who died in 2023 without facing any prosecution, has been accused by dozens of women of assault, rape, and human trafficking over a period of more than three decades. Many worked on the shop floor at Harrods in London or were hired as assistants at his various businesses, including the Ritz hotel in Paris.
Four women, who use the pseudonyms Isabella, Justine, Elizabeth, and Margo, and founded the “No One Above” advocacy group, have now been recognised as victims of human trafficking. Their experiences, dating from the 1990s to after 2010, include international and domestic trafficking, Isabella confirmed in emails to AFP. They were referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), Britain’s official framework to identify and support victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, by the Unseen UK charity. The four received “conclusive grounds” decisions that they were victims between May and July.
The BBC reported in April that a fifth woman, Rachael Louw, was confirmed as a victim of human trafficking after reporting being abused by Fayed and his brother Salah in the UK and France. Isabella, who worked in Fayed’s Harrods office in 2001, said she was recognised as a trafficking victim in May. “One thing that the public doesn’t understand is they think this was one bad man, but he couldn’t have done what he did without Harrods processing women to him and silencing them afterwards,” she told the Press Association news agency, which first reported the trafficking referral decisions.
– Police probes –
To date, 157 victims have reported allegations that they were sexually assaulted, raped, or trafficked by the former tycoon to London’s Metropolitan police. Dozens more who worked at his luxury department store have filed for compensation under a redress scheme set up after a 2024 BBC documentary revealed the scale of his alleged offences. The Met has so far questioned six people suspected of enabling Fayed’s offences, although it has not made any arrests yet. Some of them were questioned under suspicion of human trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Some victims, including Louw, have expressed frustrations that the Met is not focusing on the trafficking aspect of the alleged offences. Earlier this year, Louw told AFP she had instead turned to France, where a police investigation into Mohamed and Salah Fayed’s abuse is being handled by a human trafficking unit.
© 2024 AFP
