TEHRAN - AFP

http://www.metimes.com/2K2/issue2002-45/women/iran_girls_forced.htm

Twenty young Iranian girls have been returned home "in a state of mental and physical trauma" after being forced to work as prostitutes in Pakistan, the Iran newspaper reported.

As part of the operation to break a sex-trafficking ring in northeastern Khorasan province, police were quoted as saying that 38 Pakistani nationals, including 17 women, were arrested.

The gang is accused of seeking out poor Iranian families in Iran's holiest city, Mashhad, offering to marry off young girls. The girls, some as young as 12-years-old, were then sent to work in Pakistan.

"Police managed to secure the return of 20 young girls, all of them in a state of mental and physical trauma," the police commander in Khorasan province, Eskandar Momeni was quoted as saying.

According to the report the girls ranged in age from 12 to 20.