From the woman who paints your nails to the one cleaning your neighbour’s house, we investigate the terrifying world of trafficking that’s hidden in plain sight
Women and girls make up more than seven in 10 of the world’s modern slavery victims, with 30m female victims worldwide
HEARING the key turn in the lock, Victoria* was overwhelmed with dread.
Curled up on the floor of a darkened room, she had no idea how long she would be left there.
“Some mornings I’d wonder if today was the day I’d die,” admits the 36 year old from Ghana.
“I’d arrived in England thinking I was going to work in a restaurant, but ended up being kept as a prisoner and raped on a daily basis. There were no words to describe the hell I was living through.”
She may not have known what to call it, but Victoria was one of the growing number of women held in modern slavery in the UK. Government figures from 2017 estimate there are between 10,000 and 13,000 victims in the country.
They’re often trafficked from their place of birth (the most common countries include Albania, Vietnam, Nigeria, China and Romania) and forced to work for little or no money in sex, domestic or care work, as well as beauty salons, agriculture and construction.
According to the 2017 Global Estimates of Modern Slavery report, women and girls make up more than seven in 10 of the world’s modern slavery victims, with nearly 30million female victims worldwide.
These women could be working in your local nail bar, cleaning your offices or even sitting opposite you at a playgroup. Yet we barely notice them.
“It’s assumed slavery was abolished centuries ago, but it just looks very different today,” explains Rebecca Hurlock, coordinator for the National Anti-Trafficking and Modern Slavery Network. “People aren’t necessarily physically shackled. Instead, they’re subjected to coercive control methods – threats of violence against them or their families, the removal of their identity documents and withholding of pay. They’re essentially being kept in invisible handcuffs.”
Victoria arrived in the UK in 2010. “I was raised by my aunt who used to beat me,” she explains. “She said she’d kill me and I believed her.”
Finally, aged just 13 she ran away to escape the abuse and started selling vegetables at the market, sleeping rough for three years.
“One day a Ghanaian man approached me and asked if I wanted a job at a restaurant in the UK where I would be able to afford a roof over my head,” she remembers. “I couldn’t believe my luck. He came back a couple of days later and took photographs of me, adding that I wasn’t to tell anyone.”
Eventually, the man returned with a counterfeit passport, some new clothes and a different name for Victoria. “He never told me what to call him, but I didn’t care – I couldn’t wait to get out of there,” she admits.
I would rather have died than stay there
Victoria
Days later, Victoria boarded a plane to the UK, with her male companion doing all the talking. “I didn’t understand a word of what was said and he told me not to speak to anyone or I could get into trouble,” she remembers. “But he was friendly and chatted about the job waiting for me in England, explaining that I’d be helping in the restaurant.
“When we arrived in London after our journey, we got into a taxi and went to a house. But I had no idea where it was.”
After that Victoria didn’t see anyone for three days – apart from another woman in the house. “I didn’t know who she was, she just came and went,” says Victoria. “I kept asking about the restaurant and after a couple of days, he told me they’d found someone else. Then he announced I would be working as a prostitute instead. He said if I didn’t do it he would send me back home and tell everyone I was a prostitute anyway. I was terrified.”
Victoria was made to sleep on a floor in a freezing cold room. “He used to lock the door so I couldn’t get out,” she remembers.
Her trafficker started bringing two to three men to the house every day to rape her. “I would tell them to stop, but they would beat me,” she says. “I was afraid I was going to die or be left for dead. I cried all the time, frantically thinking of ways I could get out. In the end, I would rather have died than stay there.”
After weeks of torture, Victoria discovered her door had been left open. She begged the other woman in the house to let her outside to look at the snow, telling her she had never seen it before. Once outside, Victoria ran.
“I never looked back,” she remembers. “I couldn’t think about anything else but running.”
Until six months ago Rebecca worked as a investigator for , and as part of her job would often visit the houses, brothels, nail bars and factories where modern slaves are imprisoned. “What has always struck me are the appalling living conditions these people are kept in,” she explains. “They are absolutely squalid. Often there’ll be no carpets, holes in the floor, filthy mattresses everywhere and very limited access to bathroom facilities.”
But despite all this, there’s often very little outward indication of what’s happening behind closed doors. “They’re just houses on your average UK street in normal communities,” she says. “But inside, it’s horrendous to see other human beings kept in situations like that.”
I didn’t understand a word of what was said and he told me not to speak to anyone or I could get into trouble
Victoria
The impact on victims, Rebecca says, can be devastating. “The isolation somebody can feel when they don’t speak the language or don’t know the community can have a profound psychological effect. The traffickers instil a level of fear that you can’t comprehend unless you meet a survivor,” she says. “You can see it in their eyes.”
Tragically for Victoria, her escape was temporary. She spent the next few nights begging and sleeping rough, and then found herself back in the arms of another manipulator when she approached a Ghanaian man for help and he offered to take her into his own home.
“He gave me a place to sleep – just a bed in a small storage room – and I finally felt safe,” she says.
“After a few days, he said his wife was infertile and he wanted me to give him children in exchange for food and a roof over my head. I was thousands of miles away from a homeland I hated, in a country where I couldn’t speak the language. Utterly trapped, the only thing I could do was agree.
“I was imprisoned in that house for nearly a decade and ended up having three children,” she explains.
“My duties were mainly to do the cooking and cleaning, but some days the husband would beat me if he felt I wasn’t being respectful. His wife was normally working away in the week, but when she came home I wasn’t allowed to speak to them.”
If Victoria ever left the house, her captor didn’t let her out of his sight.
“Even when I went to hospital to have my babies, he never left me alone and I felt too scared to tell anyone,” she remembers. “The only place he would let me go on my own was to the children’s centre; I don’t know why. There were other women there, but everyone spoke English and I didn’t understand a word. I was exhausted so would just sit there and watch my children play. No one talked to me.”
According to Rebecca, it isn’t unusual for trafficked women to be permitted to attend children’s centres.
“I have certainly dealt with female survivors who took children to school and playgroups,” she explains. “That’s why we need to raise more awareness – these are the kind of places where you might come into contact with women being held against their will.”
Even when I went to hospital to have my babies, he never left me alone and I felt too scared to tell anyone
Victoria
Victoria’s escape finally came in early 2016. The house she was living in was under investigation by the immigration department and all occupants were ordered to sign on at the local immigration centre every month. Even so, Victoria was too terrified to reveal the truth – until, during one visit, she broke down.
“I was pregnant again and told the woman behind the counter everything,” she says. “She took me into a room and told me she’d make sure I never returned to that house.”
Within days, Victoria was put in touch with domestic violence charity Refuge and has been living with her children in asylum seekers’ accommodation ever since.
- For support, call Refuge’s Modern Slavery Service on 0207 395 7722, email modernslavery@refuge.org.uk or visit
Delia came to the UK in May 2013. Originally from the Philippines, she had lived in Qatar for three years, working as maid for a wealthy Middle Eastern family to support her blind husband back home. When her employers’ son went to the UK to attend a college in Southampton, Delia was told to go with him to do his cooking and cleaning.
“Life as a maid was really hard in Qatar,” remembers Delia, 48. “I worked all hours and never got a day off. The son of the family had been abusive to me in the past, shouting and screaming over the slightest thing, so I really didn’t want to go to the UK with him, but I had to do what they told me.”
As soon as she arrived in the UK, the son confiscated her passport.
“I had a makeshift bed in the sitting room and would only be allowed a couple of hours’ sleep a night,” she remembers. “I was always exhausted, as he would come in at 2am, screaming at me to make him something to eat. Then I’d have to be up to go to the market at 4am to buy more food.”
Delia was never allowed days off, just like in Qatar, and was banned from going outside the property except to get shopping. She was also subjected to horrendous abuse.
“He’d get angry, kick walls and throw the remote control at my head,” she says. “Once he threatened to hurl me off the balcony. I was in fear of my life. But it never occurred to me to report him as I assumed the police would arrest me for being in the country illegally.”
After a month, Delia met a fellow Filipino woman at the market and told her about her terrible working conditions. The woman, who had known others in similar situations, gave her the contact details of the Filipino Domestic Workers Association (FDWA).
I was banned from going outside except to get shopping
Delia
The organisation coached Delia with advice over the phone, and that August she packed her small bag and took a coach to London Victoria.
“I was petrified the son would kill me,” she admits. “He’d told me so many times how easy it would be to get rid of me and nobody would even notice. I was sure he was capable of it.”
But Delia was desperate enough to take that risk. Members of the FDWA met her off the bus and ensured that she found safe accommodation.
“That night was life-changing,” she says. “I’ve since been granted a temporary visa and hope to start rebuilding my life here, so I can continue to support my husband. I would love to be with him, but work in the Philippines is so hard to come by. By staying here, I feel like we’ve been given a second chance.”
Victoria, meanwhile, is finally learning to live without the invisible shackles that restricted her for so long.
“Life is still incredibly hard,” she admits. “I have no money and worry I might be sent back to Ghana. But at least I have a support group I can speak to and my local food bank helps to feed my family. And I feel safe – something I haven’t felt for many years.”
According to Rebecca, we all have a part to play in helping women like Victoria and Delia.
“If you see someone who seems quiet, avoids eye contact and looks tired and withdrawn – or if it seems like there’s someone who might be controlling them – just say hello and ask them if they are OK,” she says.
“Of course it could be nothing, but it’s definitely worth starting that conversation.”
- For support, call Refuge’s Modern Slavery Service on 0207 395 7722, email modernslavery@refuge.org.uk or visit .
- *Names have been changed