Bulgaria is the third-biggest exporter of prostitutes for Western Europe, a survey has found out in a grim side-effect of the former communist country’s entry into the European Union and the start of visa-free travel in 2007.

A survey by Tempep, an EU-funded network of sex industry health agencies, found that one in eight foreign prostitutes in Europe was Romanian, replacing Russians as the main nationality since the previous assessment in 2006.

The report assessed that about two fifths of Britain’s estimated 80,000 prostitutes were migrants, most commonly from Lithuania, Thailand and Poland. The proportion of foreign prostitutes was highest in London at 70-80 %. Few British women had worked as prostitutes abroad - about 5 % - with the most common destinations given as Spain, Ireland and Australia.

Bulgaria, which ranked at number four in 2006, the year before its accession to the European Union, now accounts for eight percent of the migrants total.

The top ten of the list also features Ukraine, Nigeria, Brazil, Belarus, Moldova, Poland, Hungary and Thailand.

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