Inside the secret safe haven for victims of Britain's modern slave trade
telegraph.co.ukmodern slavery, a phrase that has become familiar since a landmark act was passed in 2015 cracking down on those who bring people to this country and force them to work as slaves in the sex industry, as domestics and – as in the case of Carmen – in factories.
Yet the heartbreaking first-hand stories of the devastated lives it describes are seldom heard – although Mo Farah’s recent revelations about how he ended up in the UK have begun to shatter that silence.Bakhita House is a refuge run for the past seven years by Caritas Westminster (part of the Catholic archdiocese of Westminster) for women like Carmen, regardless of creed.
And today some of them have agreed for the first time to talk openly, on condition that their identities and the location of their safe house are disguised: the traffickers who have exploited these women remain eager to find them and silence them.Carmen was recruited by a clothes factory in the East Midlands, for which she had done some freelance work from her home in Spain.
When she arrived, barely able to speak a few words of English but expecting the best due to her natural optimism, the factory owners forcibly took away her phone and her money.
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