Prague – British TV station Bravo will broadcast the first part of a documentary series called World’s Toughest Towns. Prague is the first town which British investigative reporter Donal MacIntyre [pictured] explores.

Prague has undeniably become a destination number one for British tourists and MacIntyre attempts to expose the links between prostitution and the Russian Mafia.

“Prague is the only city in Central Europe that we chose,” says the Irish-born journalist. “It is not because it would be worse or better than the others but just because it is a popular destination for British tourists,” says MacIntyre.

MacIntyre wants to show British tourists who come to Prague that behind the scenes of the strip clubs and brothels of Prague, young women from former Soviet satellite states are being exploited, enslaved and traded by ruthless traffickers.

In the World’s Toughest Towns MacIntyre also explores South Africa’s Cape Town, Paris, Miami, Mexico City and Neapol.

“British tourists should start asking questions where the girls working in the strip clubs come from. Are they abused? Are they trafficked? says MacIntyre. “Trafficking women for prostitution is not the major thing we focused on [in the series] but on the other hand, it is something that British tourists encounter on voluntarily basis.”

The one-hour long report should reveal what kind of people work in Czech strip bars and clubs that British tourists love to visit for cheap alcohol and sex services.

MacIntyre spent three months in the country and talked to about a hundred people who know the Czech underworld well. During a one-week long stay in Prague MacIntyre met 25 people, among whom were journalists, former police officers, tourists and also underworld mafia and prostitutes.

One week before the Christmas 2008, MacIntyre was attacked in Prague. The incident happened in front of the strip bar Darling near the Wenceslas Square. “An English speaking man asked me to stop filming and then he attacked me without any warning,” said MacIntyre for Aktuálně.cz.

Then another three men knocked MacIntyre to the ground and kicked him a few times. He refused a hospital care and flew back to Britain.

MacIntyre has been attacked a few times before. In 2005 he was attacked while jogging in a park. He also received death threats for his undercover investigations about Balkan mafia smuggling weapons.