TEHRAN, Aug 24: Iranian authorities busted a ring based in the northeastern city of Mashhad responsible for trafficking dozens of young women to Pakistan where they were forced into prostitution.

Police in Mashhad uncovered the ring after a young women named Fariba called her mother from Karachi in Pakistan to tell her she had been forced into prostitution, the daily Iran newspaper reported on Saturday.

Her mother then alerted the authorities.

The ring included two Afghans, and 30 men and women from the southern Sistan-Balochistan province.

They had tracked down dozens of young women in the impoverished province and convinced their families to marry them off to seemingly wealthy men.

The women were then transferred to Pakistan, notably Karachi, where they were sold for 400 to 1,200 dollars to mostly Afghan-run prostitution rings, according to witnesses cited in the report.

Iran’s mounting economic woes have led to an explosion of street prostitution in recent years, despite the threat of strict punishment by the Islamic regime, including public lashings. —AFP