The charity that aided the rescue of three women from a life of domestic slavery in a house in Lambeth has been flooded by calls asking for help.

Freedom Charity, which operates throughout England and Wales, received mass media attention last week when news of the three women’s rescue broke. Calls to the charity increased by five times their normal weekly rate in the space of just one day, meaning it needs to increase its resources to meet demand.

Aneeta Prem, founder of Freedom Charity, said: “We have seen an extraordinary rise in calls to our helpline since the rescue of the three women came into the public domain.

“We received five times as many calls in 24 hours as we normally do in one week and are needing to increase our resources to cope with this extra demand.”

'A totally new experience'

A spokeswoman for Freedom Charity, which describes itself as a charity that helps empower young people to feel they have the tools, confidence and support to deal with forced marriage and dishonour-based violence, told civilsociety.co.uk that handling the issue of ‘domestic slavery’ has been a “totally new experience".

However, she added: “It’s all along the lines of human rights abuses which Aneeta is strongly passionate about defending and making sure that everybody has their human rights.

“The circumstances are totally beyond anything that most people have come across, including the police, but obviously [Freedom Charity] is able to deal with it because it deals with human rights breaches all the time.”

Freedom Charity has been registered with the Charity Commission since January 2011. Its income last year was just £48,607.

There have been calls for the charity to receive emergency funding as it struggles to cope with the increased demand.

Sean O’Neill, crime editor at The Times, tweeted: “Maybe @MayorofLondon should think about giving the @FreedomCharity an emergency grant to cope with their increased workload? #slavery”.

The charity, who only has two full-time people answering calls to the helpline, responded by saying they “could do with some help”.

Commenting on the charity’s struggle, its spokeswoman said: “There is also a call centre which is separate but they have to take the calls and then deal with them and send them all off to the most appropriate people to deal with - be it the police or Freedom Charity etc.”

Parallels with Savile story

This is not the first time a police investigation has led to extra pressure being heaped upon charities. When the Jimmy Saville scandal received mass media attention last year, sexual abuse counselling charity Family Matters called upon the BBC to provide an open fund for charities coping with an increase in demand.

Prem has called for the three women’s privacy to be protected. The latest statement from the charity said: “The women are under added pressure as the appetite increases to find out who they are.

“We realise the public has a genuine interest and care for these women because we’ve had many emails and calls showing concern but it is important to understand what these women need more than anything is time to continue their recovery without being disturbed.”