A coalition of Russian women's groups has launched an information campaign to fight women-trafficking.

According to the coalition, every year some 50,000 young women from the former Soviet republics are lured by traffickers with promises of highly-paid jobs abroad.

Once in a foreign country, they are often forced to work as prostitutes.

Activists in six Russian cities, including Moscow and St Petersburg, are to hand out tens of thousands of brochures and leaflets to young women and teenage girls on the streets and in schools, telling them about deceptive job ads that can lead to sex slavery.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service