Back in Syria, the young women were told they would get well-paid jobs at restaurants and hotels in Lebanon. But when they arrived, their belongings and mobile phones were taken away, and the women were locked up in two hotels north of Beirut and forced into prostitution.

What followed was an ordeal of beatings, torture and abuse - until Lebanese security forces raided the hotels and dismantled the operation in late March.

The discovery of the sex trafficking ring and the rescue of the women deeply shocked Lebanon, a Mediterranean Arab nation already overwhelmed by the influx of more than a million Syrian refugees who have fled the civil war, and prompted calls for investigation.