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.
Kateřina was trafficked into prostitution having tried to escape a situation of domestic violence in her home country the Czech Republic. She thought she would be working in a shop or a nail bar but ended up being forced to sleep with men in a city in the west of England.
I told her I had trouble with my dad. He said he wanted to kill me.
I went to Gloucester, I spent the night there. I met two other girls there and they said that they did the same work that I did, that I was going to do. I thought I’d be working in a shop or hairdressers. They told me to sleep with men.
I was seeing 4 or 5 clients every day. I thought about escaping many times. I was scared to go to the police because they said if I told anybody I would be in trouble.
Stefan used to say that he would take me back to the Czech Republic and my dad would kill me.
As told to Santa Marta Group