By the age of 20 Emily Vaughn was raped more than 1,500 times. The figure is utterly shocking to most, unaware of the extent and sick reality of human trafficking in Wales. For Emily though, and thousands of other victims like her, it's "a normal amount".
Emily - who uses a pseudonym to protect her identity - explained how she was transported from Wales to Telford where she was sexually abused on a regular basis for six months.
Read more: Inquiry finds disturbing evidence of organised networks and gangs abusing children in Swansea
More than a thousand children in Telford were sexually exploited over decades amid the failure of authorities to investigate “emboldened offenders”, an independent inquiry into the scandal concluded this week.
Despite giving evidence at the inquiry, Emily said her experience in Telford was just a drop in the ocean compared to the full magnitude of abuse she faced across the UK. She said the inquiry lacked detailed experiences of girls who were trafficked into the Shropshire town from elsewhere.
Emily - who is now in her mid 30s - said she was a "happy and normal" little girl until she turned 11. It was then that her neighbour and best friend's new stepfather took them across the county lines. The three-year ordeal triggered a harrowing chain of events which saw her fear for her life more times than she can remember.
Speaking to WalesOnline, she said: "It started because I had a neighbour who had just come out of prison for drug dealing. I was already friends with [his step-children] before he moved in. I would go over his house and they would come over mine. He was just dating their mum - nobody knew about his past. He used to take me and his step-kids - who were around the same age or a little younger - around Wales. It would be around my estate and then 10 miles up the road and then it would be to England. It was all around."
The abuse at this point was not sexual, but Emily still described a number of disturbing tasks she was made to do at her young age. She said: "We would knock on the door and we would hand over [drugs]. Other times we would sit in the car and have [drugs] down our tops to hide it on us. It could be in our shoes or a hair scrunchie. Your scrunchie would be cut open and they would hide wraps in your scrunchie, then they'd sew it up and you'd hand over your bobble."
However terrifying this may sound, Emily said she was subtly groomed into compliance rather than threatened and physically forced. She would be enticed with fags and viewed it as a normal way of life. Having previously felt like an outsider at school, the man made her feel confident and liked.
"It was almost normal back then [in the 1990s and early 2000s]," she said. "It wasn't how it is now. It didn't have the name exploitation back them it was totally normal. I'd see kids delivering drugs and wouldn't think twice. We could walk down the street with a Smirnoff Ice and nobody would bat an eyelid."
After Emily was expelled from school and home-taught for a few years, she started attending a college at the age of 14. She explained how many learners there had also been kicked out of their schools for bad behaviour. There, she met a friend who she calls Andrea to protect her identity.
"We started meeting who she'd call 'her friends'," Emily said. "One of which she had reported for rape." The first time Emily went to Andrea's house after class she said they went to the promenade where all the teenagers hung out. While they were there, a car pulled up with a number of their 'friends'.
"They gang raped me at the promenade - it was three of them," she said. Although Emily did not consent to the traumatic experience, it was downplayed and normalised as being "just sex" by her friend. It had been her first sexual experience and she was left questioning whether or not she was raped.
Emily said sexual abuse became her norm. She said she became part of a group of girls who were driven to run-down flats in various locations across the UK where they would meet men wanting sex. Sometimes they would turn up to a group of men and would each be allocated a partner, other times they would be raped by multiple men who could range in age anywhere from their 20s to 50s, she said.
"It was really organised and really linked. Everyone seemed to know each other," she said. "We'd usually go to a really [horrible] house. Flats with ripped carpets and a mattress on the floor, quite dumpy. They were what you might describe as a trap house now.
"They would just be sitting there and we would walk in. They would be smoking or drinking, or there would be nobody there yet and we would be sitting there waiting. We would be told where to go or: 'You go with him'. Sometimes we would go in the evenings, but sometimes I would be there in the day and come home to have my dinner in the evening.
"I'd tell my mum I'm going out to stay with friends. My mum would be so excited for me to be going out with friends. The worst thing for me would be the guilt I felt afterwards. I was doing all this and my mum would have no idea."
Emily said this could happen anywhere from a few times a week to every day and that "you would never run out of men". Although the abuse lasted until her 20s, she said there was not one moment during that time where she recognised herself as a victim of exploitation.
She said: "It felt normal at the time, but I did start self-harming when I was 15. I think that was my way of saying something was wrong, but I just didn't realise it. We didn't question it and the police didn't question it.
"For example one time me and my friend were drinking in town and we were with two older men. They asked us why we were drinking and they confiscated our booze but they didn't ask where we got it from or why we were with these two grown men. It was just so normal. Nothing was ever questioned."
Emily said Telford "was just part" of what she experienced. Over the roughly six years she was sex trafficked, she spent six months travelling to Telford to be raped. While she was there, she overheard men discussing how much money it would be for full intercourse or oral. "We were going there three or four times a week for six months," she said. "To me, it was just a place. It was no different to a place down the road. It's frustrating because noting has really been said in the inquiry about people who were trafficked in."
On one occasion, Emily said she was threatened with a knife, but police refused to help her because she was Welsh. She said: "I rang the police one day in Telford when I was threatened with a knife when I was 14 or 15. They heard my Welsh accent and they said I needed to contact my local police. I said: 'But I'm in Telford.'"
Around the age of 17, Emily said she started sex work on the side which helped her gain some control over her life. By her early 20s she met someone, moved away and fell pregnant with her daughter. Gradually she fell out of the abuse cycle. However, it wasn't until five years ago that Emily said she realised the extent of what happened to her. She said: "I was getting really bad anxiety and panic attacks. Things were coming back to me and it wasn't making sense. I wondered what happened to me."
Emily was referred to the National Referral Mechanism ( NRM ) - a framework to identify potential victims of modern slavery to ensure they receive the appropriate support. Suspected victims are referred by selected agencies known as "first responders". The list includes police forces, Border Force, the Salvation Army and Bawso (An organisation in Wales which supports black minority ethnic and migrant victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence, human trafficking).
Emily - who is white British - said she was successful in being identified as a victim through the NRM, but that her support has been unsatisfactory. She said: "The only help offered in Wales is Bawso, but they deal with immigration asylum and foreign victims, which doesn't meet my needs. My support instead is up in Birmingham and I've never met my support worker." Suffering from PTSD and anxiety, Emily said the support simply isn't enough to help her.
The most recent data published by the UK government on modern slavery between January to March 2022 shows that 89% NRM referrals were sent to police forces in England, while just 4% were sent to Welsh police forces and 4% to Scottish forces.
Emily said the data did not reflect the true prevalence of modern slavery in society - something she called "an epidemic".
She said: "The referrals in Wales at just 4% isn't adding up. It just says that victims aren't being referred. There should be an inquiry in Wales. I know for a fact this is still happening all over and it is never going to go away.
"We were criminalised for everything. and were never the victims. I was arrested so many times and went to [youth offender institutions]. I was a victim - I wasn't the criminal they thought I was. Every single police force needs an anti-slavery lead who knows how to fill in the NRM and knows the protocol, the signs and indicators [of a victim]."
Emily urged everyone be alert as to what is happing in their communities. She said: "Be alert to what's going on and don't think that it can't happen in Wales. Anybody could be a victim and every child is vulnerable. It doesn't matter if you're from a good family, if you're in care, if you've got trauma or if you're rich or poor."
Still to this day, nobody has been convicted for the abuse Emily suffered. She wrote an in-depth account of her experience in her book, Enslaved, which was published last year.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The UK has led the world in protecting victims of modern slavery with stringent safeguards in place to protect and promote the welfare of child victims of trafficking regardless of nationality. Since 2015 the number of live police operations into these crimes has increased from under 200 in 2016 to over 4500 this year and we have rolled out Independent Child Trafficking Guardians to two thirds of local authorities in England and Wales to provide increased support to child victims.”
West Mercia Police apologised "unequivocally" for its handling of modern slavery. As did Telford and Wrekin Council. Police said the force now had dedicated teams for preventing and tackling child exploitation. It promised to work better with other organisations to safeguard children. The council said it is supporting victims and implementing many of the inquiry's recommendations.
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