Six held for torturing Nigerian women into prostitution

Spanish police have busted a ring involved in smuggling of women from Nigeria and forcing them into street prostitution by burning them with irons and using voodoo rituals.

Six people, including one woman believed to be the ringleader, were arrested after one of the women alerted authorities, Daily Mail reported. The gang used to torture the women and scare them with curses to force them on to the streets.

"The control exercised over women was total, involving verbal threats as well as physical violence and various voodoo ceremonies to terrorise them," a police statement said.

"The ring caused them serious injury through bites or by using an iron to cause second-degree burns."

The ring allegedly recruited women in Benin City, a run-down Nigerian port, reported Sky News.

Most of the women were vulnerable struggling to raise children because their husbands or fathers had died. The gang transported the women over land to Morocco. They were further smuggled on to small wooden boats and taken into Spain.

They were forced to work as street prostitutes in Spanish cities of Barcelona and Malaga.