Abigail lived in a Nigerian suburb , making ends meet by selling pies to construction workers. One of her customers, who owned a nearby building firm, offered to help her get a job in the UK to follow her dream of becoming a nurse.
After six months of winning her friendship, he even paid for her plane ticket there. He wanted me to make money for him. He bundled her to a dingy London flat where women waited, terrified, in the kitchen for two bedrooms to become free so they could be forced to take turns sleeping with the men who had paid to have sex with them. Since her captor had threatened her children back in Nigeria through relatives, Abigail believed she or they could be killed if she tried to escape.
Abigail was trapped in this situation for years. Only last year was she freed when the brothel in central London where she was then working was targeted in an immigration raid. She was referred to Hestia, a charity whose services include support for victims of human trafficking.
They listened, they talked with her, and they helped. She threw herself into volunteering for a church to give her life a sense of purpose. Finally, she says, she is slowly beginning to put her life back together, day by day. Yet they do. We have already talked with many people who have found themselves just as trapped. Abigail is still afraid for her family and waiting on an asylum claim. But she knows that there are others whose situation is worse. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland, says there are up to 13, people in Britain trapped in modern slavery, many of them facing daily ordeals just like those Abigail had to endure.
Most of these cases go unnoticed. In , the National Referral Mechanism assessed 3, potential victims of modern slavery in the UK, more than double the figure from Many are trapped in cultures of abuse, in alien environments where they do not speak the language. But the victims are not only from abroad. Of the potential victims assessed last year, the third largest group by nationality was British.
