Antislavery Usable Past

Anna B

2013 (Narrative date)

The UK National Crime Agency estimates 3,309 potential victims of human trafficking came into contact with the State or an NGO in 2014. The latest government statistics derived from the UK National Referral Mechanism in 2014 reveal 2,340 potential victims of trafficking from 96 countries of origin, of whom 61 percent were female and 29 percent were children. Of those identified through the NRM, the majority were adults classified as victims of sexual exploitation followed by adults exploited in the domestic service sector and other types of labour exploitation. The largest proportion of victims was from Albania, followed by Nigeria, Vietnam, Romania and Slovakia.

Anna was out with friends in Hungary when she was offered a job at a restaurant in Northern Ireland. Ready for a fresh start Anna travelled to Belfast where she was taken to a flat. However, after a few days Anna’s passport was taken and she was forced to work as a prostitute. Moved every couple of weeks Anna was afraid to escape as her trafficker had threatened the lives of her family if she did.

My name is Anna. I am 19 and I am from Hungary. I met a man on one night when I was out with some friends. He told us he was running a restaurant in Ireland and was making lots of money. He said he could get us good jobs working for him if we were interested. It seemed like the perfect situation for me. I was ready for a fresh start and he told me he would take care of my flights and accommodation. When we arrived in Belfast we were picked up and driven to a nice apartment in the middle of the city. There were several men there and at first they were nice to us and give us some food. Not long after, the men turned on us and forced us to drink a lot of alcohol. Then they raped us. They took our passports and told us we would be working as prostitutes. Every couple of weeks we were moved to a different location. A different house, a different hotel. I still don’t know the names of any of the towns I was in.

Escaping was a scary option. They knew where my family lived back in Hungary. From what I had already seen, the threats they were making on their lives would be real if I didn’t do as they said. How did this happen to me?

Courtesy of Freedom Acts

Country

Theme

Sexual exploitation

Type

Narrative

Tags

Sexual exploitation

sexual violence

VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: rightslab@nottingham.ac.uk. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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