Slave Girl (25 page)
Authors: Sarah Forsyth
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Personal Memoirs, #True Crime, #General
Mr Maxwell would find – should he make that trip up to Gateshead – a still young and very damaged woman. Sarah is not an easy person to work with. To this day she remains utterly terrified of men. She is also – as she herself readily admits – living with the constant fear of falling off the wagon of sobriety and a drug-free life. She can be infuriating and frustrating in equal and impressive measure; she can – and does – disappear from view when her circumstances become too hard to handle. But she has never forgotten what Helène, the Dutch police officer, told her and her mother in the safe house: ‘However terrible the things Sarah has been through, it is important that you and she both hold on to the fact that she is one of the lucky ones. There are other girls like her who haven’t survived, and even more who are still there.’
And the feeling of gratitude that she did escape has driven Sarah – even in the darkest moments of the past few years – to be determined that she must speak out and tell her story on behalf of the countless girls, whatever country they come from, whatever nationality they may be, who weren’t quite so lucky. As she put it when we sat down to discuss the writing of this book: ‘My life was saved, and for those girls whose lives weren’t, I can only pray for them now and let them know that I’m thinking about them and still surviving now. Because you have to survive, and maybe if someone listens to me that may one day help them too.’
18
Contrary to widespread popular belief the law didn’t outlaw slavery itself – that would have to wait another 26 years before Parliament passed a second law – but rather the trade in cargos of human flesh and blood
19
Living off immoral earnings is a common law offence – i.e. one that has grown up by custom and case law and never actually been passed by Parliament.
20
In 2007 the Home Office announced it was reviewing this policy and would henceforth deal with trafficked women rescued from brothels on a case-by-case basis.
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ePub ISBN 978 1 84358 796 5
Mobi ISBN 978 1 84358 802 3
PDF ISBN 978 1 84358 808 5
First published in paperback in 2009
ISBN: 978–1–84454–685–5
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© Text copyright Sarah Forsyth and Tim Tate 2009
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