Wayne’s story
“I got a job, and that’s where I was befriended by a guy. At the time I thought he was just a friend.”
Katherine’s story
Katherine suffered years of constant abuse at the hands of her exploiter before finally finding freedom
Although she didn’t realise it, Katherine* has been a victim of trafficking and slavery for most of her adult life. It’s only now that she is safe living at Unseen’s Safehouse, now that she has learned to trust again, that she’s able to grasp the complexity of her situation – and, crucially, understand the constant abuse she suffered wasn’t normal.
Broken promises
Growing up in Eastern Europe, Katherine used alcohol and drugs to cope with the stresses of her life. Having narrowly escaped the clutches of a man who tried to force her to work as a prostitute, she was living rough on the streets. Katherine then met a kind Asian man.
“He offered me a place to sleep and to look after me. He said he had a spare room and that he could give me £100 a week to live on. I trusted him,” she says.
But as soon as she moved in, he took her phone and psychologically manipulated her, using alcohol and drugs to control her. It later transpired he’d probably been watching Katherine for weeks, knowing she was vulnerable and that providing alcohol would win her trust. Traffickers will find any weakness and worm their way into their victim’s life, twisting and turning, so the person is often not aware they’re being manipulated.
“I had no house, no money, and I was dependent on him. He took me places I didn’t want to go. He would call the police on me a lot and say that I was using him for alcohol and things. One time he called the police. I was drunk. I had a knife in my hand. I went to prison,” says Katherine.
Her trafficker said he’d paid her bail – again creating a sense of indebtedness – and, in order to escape deportation, Katherine felt her only option was to marry him because he had a British passport.
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Forced into slavery
“After we married, I had to cook and clean for him and his friend. Every time he wanted, I had to go with him to bed. I couldn’t say no because he was an abusive person. He would take pictures and videos of me naked and in the shower. I didn’t know what he was doing with them.
“I had no right to work, no right to go to the shops, I had to wear a black thing that covered me apart from my eyes, no rights, the doors were locked. I told the police a few times that he was locking the doors, but I had a bad record, so they didn’t listen. He stopped me from being able to live. Even when I managed to escape, he tracked me down. I couldn’t hide. He was linked to Albanian mafia.”
This went on for years. Katherine couldn’t return home because people would be waiting for her and knew her family.
When Katherine’s trafficker decided he didn’t want her any longer, he called the police for the final time. Because of the lies he told, she was taken to a detention centre before being deported. While waiting there, an officer listened to Katherine’s story and finally recognised her as a victim of modern slavery.
“I thought I was going to be deported, but instead, I got a phone call. I was told I had a safe place to go: Unseen’s Women’s Safehouse.
“If I didn’t get that phone call and was deported again, things would be different. I wasn’t deported because of the laws here. People like me should talk to the police. It’s what got me help, and it helps bring traffickers to justice.
“I’m volunteering now. I want to help and to get a job one day and to find my family. I haven’t seen them in years, and it would make me so happy. I am a different person now.
“But I’m worried about the people like me, people who wouldn’t be allowed support, who don’t talk, the people who still have no choices in life. The people that have different choices to make – not the choice of whether to come to the UK legally, but simply the choice between life or death. We must make a choice to be alive. We have to.”
Moving on
She calls herself ‘Katherine’ because, she says, “this is the name I give myself sometimes when I imagine what my life would be like if it were different.”
Now Katherine is safe. Now she is beginning to dream of what she can achieve with her life.
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