A Central African woman trafficked for domestic servitude Anna was trafficked to the UK from Central Africa and held in domestic servitude. She phoned her mother on a regular basis to tell her of the abuse that she was being subjected to at the hands of her “employer”. The trafficker’s promise of sending her to school in the UK had been broken and she was desperate to return home. She told her mother that she was being subjected to physical and psychological abuse, that the working conditions were brutal, and that she was told to sleep in the closet under the stairs “like a dog”. However, her mother told her to remain with her employer and she obediently complied, remaining in a position of enforced servitude. She was referred to the Helen Bamber Foundation by police who were concerned that she kept on saying that she was “guilty” even though they had all the evidence required to prosecute her trafficker. It took Anna several months of treatment before she began to see that there was anything wrong with her mother’s behaviour. It was later discovered that her “guilt” was born out of a sense that she must have done something to displease her mother. Otherwise why would her mother have sent her to this terrible place? She believed it must be because she deserved to be punished.53 Human Trafficking Handbook: Recognizing Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery in the UK, 73

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