Times Online Police have closed down a circus in southern Italy after a terrified 19-year-old woman was forced to swim in a tank full of piranha fish while her younger sister endured the company of snakes and tarantulas. Three men have been arrested and charged with holding the Bulgarian women in slavery and breaching international human rights conventions.

The trio, who are accused of running a “circus of horrors”, were named as Enrico Raffaele Ingrassia, 57, the owner; his son William Ingrassia, 33; and his son-in-law, Gaetano Belfiore, 25. Mr Ingrassia’s daughter, who was not named, told police that a Bulgarian couple and their two daughters, aged 19 and 16, had been held as slaves “in a state of fear” since January. They were forced to work 15 to 20 hours a day for €100 (£78) a week instead of the promised €480, with €380 deducted as “expenses for their upkeep”.

An appalled spectator tipped off the police after seeing the show, in which Giusi, the 19-year-old, tried to escape from the piranha tank “trembling with terror”. Her head was held down by Mr Ingrassia. Her sister, Olga, 16, was bitten by snakes that she was forced to drape on her body, and she had injuries to her stomach where the snakes had wound themselves too tightly around her. The circus owners had rubbed ointment on snake bites on her legs but had refused to take her to a doctor. Police said that the Bulgarian family had lived in the back of a cockroach-infested lorry used for animal transport. Reports said Giusi had a tumour on her ear for which she had twice been operated in Bulgaria. Doctors had told her never to get water in her ears, especially cold water. However the water tank in which she was forced to swim with eight piranhas was kept at a temperature just above zero in order to make the piranhas lethargic.
It seems the reports of human slavery in the 21st century are on the increase. Perhaps its always been this way, and we are just hearing about it more often.