Survivor testimonies (En)

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Sign up to the VictimFocus Charter to get free VictimFocus Membership and to end victim blaming

Sign up to the VictimFocus Charter to get free VictimFocus Membership and to end victim blaming

Sign up to the VictimFocus Charter to get free VictimFocus Membership and to end victim blaming

A few days ago we published a new Share Your Story page. We asked you to help us gather real experiences of the sex trade, to help put the record straight, to counteract the “Happy Hooker” myths and explain the truth, to say #MeToo, and #TimesUp for the sex industry. The responses have been overwhelming…

Wendy Barnes Two excerpts from Wendy Barnes’ brilliant book “And Life Continues: Sex Trafficking and My Journey to Freedom”, in which she tells the story of how she became a victim of human trafficking, why she was unable to leave the man who enslaved her for fifteen years, and the obstacles she overcame to heal…

Here are some more #MeToo stories that survivors of the sex trade have sent us on social media or through our Share Your Story page. Thank you to every one of you who shared these powerful words. “I was beaten, set on fire, cut, bitten, choked, robbed and raped, sometimes by men who were high up in…

Here are some more #MeToo stories that survivors of the sex trade have sent through our Share Your Story page. Thank you to every one who shared these powerful words. “It hurts me when I read on twitter about how happy [prostitution] is and about choice and it’s empowering. Those people have never been in…

This is a new selection of #MeToo stories we’ve received through our Share Your Story page, where women can enter their experiences of the sex trade anonymously. Each story is important, moving and powerful, and reveals yet again the awful truth about prostitution – that it has no place in a society that aspires to…

Here are some more of the #MeToo stories of the sex trade that we’ve received through our Share Your Story page. “If sex work is work, then why does our value as women who may work in the flesh trade go DOWN over time? Why are there no increased rates and certain employment securities for…

This is another selection of the #MeToo stories of the sex trade that we’ve received through our Share Your Story page. Profound thanks to everyone who has shared their story. Every single one is powerful, moving and courageous, and shines a much-needed light on what the sex trade is really like.

“I was sold as a debt. I wished I was dead,” says Sara*, an Albanian woman in her twenties. “When I came here it was a relief, but I’m terrified to go back. I’m scared I’ll go through the same thing.”

Prostitution and paedophilia are inseparable Jewell Baraka is interviewed by Francine Sporenda Jewell is a survivor, abolitionist, and writer, who speaks her story to #ChangetheStory of exploitation in our culture. She was exploited for three years in prostitution and three years in porn, from age 11 to 17, in Portland, Oregon (USA). Now she fights…

The time for pleasantries has passed by centuries so I’m just going to get straight in to it: I was nine years old the first time a grown man told me he wanted to take me to bed. I was ten, the first…

Being homeless means being vulnerable.