LONDON – Four women who say they were abused by the late Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed have been formally recognised as victims of human trafficking by Britain’s interior ministry, a survivors’ group confirmed on Monday.

Many of the women worked at Harrods in London or were employed as assistants at his various businesses, including the Ritz hotel in Paris.

The former business tycoon, who died at the age of 94 in 2023 without facing prosecution, has been accused by dozens of women of assault, rape and human trafficking spanning more than three decades. Al-Fayed was the father of Dodi Al-Fayed, who died alongside Princess Diana in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Victims confirmed under national framework

The four women, using the pseudonyms Isabella, Justine, Elizabeth and Margo, founded the advocacy group No One Above. They have now been confirmed as trafficking victims under Britain’s National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the country’s official framework for identifying and supporting victims of human trafficking and modern slavery.

Their experiences date from the 1990s to after 2010 and include both international and domestic trafficking, Isabella confirmed.

The four were referred to the NRM by the charity Unseen UK and received conclusive grounds decisions confirming their victim status between May and July this year.

A fifth woman, Rachael Louw, was confirmed as a trafficking victim in April after reporting abuse by Fayed and his brother Salah in the UK and France.

Isabella, who worked in Fayed’s Harrods office in 2001, was recognised as a trafficking victim in May. “One thing that the public doesn’t understand is they think this was one bad man, but he couldn’t have done what he did without Harrods processing women to him and silencing them afterwards,” she said.

157 victims report allegations to police

To date, 157 victims have reported allegations of sexual assault, rape or trafficking by Fayed to London’s Metropolitan police. Dozens more who worked at his luxury department store have filed for compensation under a redress scheme set up after a 2024 BBC documentary revealed the scale of the alleged offences.

The Met has questioned six people suspected of enabling Fayed’s offences, though no arrests have been made. Some were questioned under suspicion of human trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Frustrations over trafficking focus

Some victims, including Louw, have expressed frustration that the Met is not focusing on the trafficking aspect of the alleged crimes. Louw told AFP earlier this year that she had turned to France, where a police investigation into Mohamed and Salah Fayed’s abuse is being handled by a human trafficking unit.

ALSO READ: French prosecutors probe Al-Fayeds over sex trafficking