‘If there’s a house on your street where lots of people come and go, but they don’t appear to live there, that is an indication that something might be happening. ‘A lot of modern slavery goes on hidden and under the radar,’ she says. Lauren advises that we all become more suspicious about what we see around us. They may present as very weak or vulnerable or seem very underdeveloped for their age.’ ‘Someone may experience flashbacks for a really long period of time afterwards, poor mental health, suicidal ideation and/or self harm. ‘Exploitation can lead to physical injuries and massive emotional effects,’ says Lauren. Lauren Sanders has worked with victims as young as six years old (Picture: Supplied) I find things really tough and I get mad at life because so much was taken away from me. I missed my education, which is so important. ‘Two decades on, I still struggle because of all I have lost. I still don’t feel like it’s going to be fine. That you can move on and that everything is going to be fine. ‘After you escape, people around you say that you are free. You never know who might be a member of that organisation and that fear stops you from getting help. ‘The traffickers made me believe that they worked with the police, with doctors, with lawyers. And I couldn’t share how I was feeling because I couldn’t trust anyone. I showed a happy face, but inside, I wasn’t fine. ‘ When I escaped, I couldn’t tell people what my situation was,’ she says. It wasn’t until the pain forced her into Accident and Emergency that she got help. She suffered from splitting headaches and endless nights of insomnia and suicidal thoughts. Too terrified to seek help from the authorities, Tracy recalls how she ended up sleeping rough, in churches and mosques. These children and young people should be treated equally, with the same regard, and not as somehow less deserving than any other child.’ ‘Imagine if your own child went missing – imagine the fears that would conjure up. According to Dr Patricia Hynes, professor of social justice at Sheffield Hallam University, cases such as this are looked at by the authorities as an immigration problem, rather than a child protection one. It has been reported that the Home Office ignored warnings over the risks facing young asylum seekers who arrive here alone. The traffickers turned us against each other. ‘I was the youngest among them all, and even if I was able to ask for help, I couldn’t, because the girls I worked with would snitch on you. You want to ask for help but you don’t know how. ‘When I was first trafficked, I was in a country where I don’t speak the language. You didn’t know what was going to happen in the next second. Remembering her enslavement, she says: ‘Every moment you were terrified. Tracy says that she feels for the children being abducted soon after seeking solace on UK shores, who will be scared and lonely in a foreign land. The terror she speaks of is something that possibly hundreds of refugee children are now feeling, having been taken from the shores they risked their life to get to in search of a better life. ‘So when you run, you are risking your life.’ If they catch you, and there is a chance they will catch you, re-traffic you, shoot you or stab you to death,’ Tracey says, her voice breaking. Running through the unknown city streets, she was petrified. It wasn’t until she was taken to London for more ‘work’ that she was able to break free from her captor at King’s Cross. She was taken to Italy and then Spain, where she was forced into sex work on city streets, suffering untold violence and abuse. Now in her thirties, she was just nine when a relative sold her from Nigeria into a trafficking gang. I was desperate for her help.’īut the official missed her cry for help, and Tracy was forced to risk her life and flee. I wanted her to ask who was travelling with me. ‘I just wanted someone to say, “Are you all right? Are you okay?”,’ she says. Desperate for someone to step in and rescue her, she raised her glasses and with tears in her eyes, silently mouthed ‘help me’ to an airport official. It was the second flight she had ever taken and she was terrified. Her trafficker made Tracy wear sunglasses, so no-one could see her eyes, she also recalls. When she was 15, she remembers being forced through the airport from Spain to England. The fear is many of these vulnerable children are preyed upon by child trafficking gangs, who know that once taken, they will be hard to trace.īeing taken from your family as a child, only to be sold for sex work, is something that Tracy* is tragically all too familiar with.
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