Eastern European crime gangs are repeatedly forcing trafficked women into sexual exploitation and sham marriages, a BBC investigation found.
The programme, Humans for Sale, found one Slovakian girl who had been trafficked to Glasgow three times.
Many of the women were forced into sham marriages with men, mainly from Pakistan, who were seeking to apply for residency in the UK.
The women, who are EU citizens, are lured to the UK with false promises.
According to Angelika Molnar, who runs Europol’s human trafficking unit, the victims are encouraged to leave poverty and deprivation in countries such as Romania and Slovakia with the prospect of a well-paid job in Scotland.
“It’s only upon arrival that they are told there is no work available and they have to be engaged in marriages with Pakistani men,” she said.
Ms Molnar said the potential grooms wanted to stay in Scotland but needed marriage to an EU citizen to be able to apply for residency.
“After the marriage, the women are kept under control by the traffickers and are exploited as domestic service by the husband but also raped and sexually exploited by fellow nationals of the traffickers,” she said.
Ms Molnar said people were now the second most lucrative criminal commodity after drugs, with labour and sexual exploitation the most common reasons for trafficking to Scotland.
Jim Laird, former head of trafficking services at the charity Migrant Help, told the BBC there was a “clear link” between Eastern European crime gangs and Asian organised crime in Glasgow.
There were 150 people recorded as official victims of trafficking in Scotland last year, a figure Jim Laird said did not reflect the reality of the trade.
He said: “The victims run into millions.
“In Scotland alone you’d be talking thousands.
“There’s no prosecution because people are too frightened to be witnesses in trials, they’re worried about their own personal safety, but they’re also worried about their family’s safety back at home.”
He added: “Some of them quite frankly are embarrassed because they’ve been conned.
“They’ve been sold a dream, believed it and came here, and when they found out what has happened to them, they just want to disappear as quietly as possible and go back to their own country.”