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After seven months in the UK, Julia has not been able to pay off her debts to the traffickers or send any money to her daughter.
She tries to leave the hotel work, applying for other jobs, but is refused because she does not have any documents. She responds to an advert for a job that says no documents are required. It is for a brothel in Slough.
‘I was scared. The girls start talking to me, they start explaining about massage. They give me a cigarette and they ask me do I eat, I say no, they give me some food,’ Julia tells Annie Kelly, the editor of the Rights and Freedom project. ‘I think OK then, I will stay until the morning. I still just have two pounds left or something.’
In this four-part series, we hear from Julia on how she was taken from one life as a young mother in Ukraine and ended up in a very different one here in the UK – a life defined by exploitation and human trafficking. After five years trapped in debt bondage working in hotels and brothels, she was discovered by Surrey police in 2019. With the support of the anti-slavery charity Justice and Care, she took on her exploiters in court and won.
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In episode two, Julia tells us about the years she was shipped between brothels in the south of England and explains how gangs would control and exploit the women inside.
Composite: Guardian Design/PA/Getty Images
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