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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Anonymous

My trafficker is behind bars, but if the UK’s new migration bill passes, my story would have ended very differently

Suella Braverman speaking in parliament during a statement on the illegal migration bill, London, 5 June 2023.
Suella Braverman speaking in parliament during a statement on the illegal migration bill, London, 5 June 2023. Photograph: Jessica Taylor/UK PARLIAMENT/AFP/Getty Images

I remember the day I decided I was finally ready to report my trafficker’s abuse after the false promise of a job turned into sexual exploitation. It was September 2018, and a woman from the organisation Women at the Well, which provides support to people affected by trafficking, came out to meet me at Starbucks with a notepad.

I told her going to the police was the last thing I wanted to do. I worried about what he would do if he found out, if his other victims would be OK, whether I had broken the law and would be deported. But mostly I just wondered if anyone would believe me. My ability to trust people was almost nil: after all, my trafficker had proven to me that I shouldn’t trust anyone.

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