Sent into modern slavery by her grandmother[font=Lucida Sans Unicode][/font]
In 2009, the Home Office set up a system to identify modern slavery and human trafficking, in recognition of the fact that -despite slavery being outlawed across British-controlled territories nearly 200 years ago - there are at any given time more than 40 million people in modern slavery around the world, according to the International Labour Organisation.

The UK-based Voice of Freedom (VoF) project aims to tell the stories of trafficking and torture survivors, using the medium of photography to help them document what has happened to them.

One of the survivors VoF has been working with, 20-year-old Nigerian Tessy Gold, was trafficked to Italy on the promise of a better education.

This is her story.

https://news.sky.com/story/raped-trafficked-mutilated-six-stories-on-international-womens-day-11658158

Tessy Gold. Pic: Tessy Gold, courtesy of Voice of Freedom

My parents were rich when they were alive. I lived in a beautiful house, fenced around, and there was a gate. Then I lost them and everything was messed up.

Both my parents died in a motor accident when I was 13. My uncle came to the city to claim the house because, in Nigeria, women do not have any power in buying property like land or a house.

Then it was just me and my junior brother. He was too small to react over the house. I couldn’t do anything because I’m a girl.

They took us back to the village to stay with grandmum, and I couldn’t further my education any more

My auntie came and she said she wanted to take me to the city to live with her. My grandmum told me to go and I was still crying.

I went to live with my auntie. She maltreated me. I used to feel sad and think about my parents. I was really okay with them, they do everything to make me happy, but my auntie... she always beats and torments me.

Back then, in the city, she woke me up by 5 o’clock to clean the house, to cook, look after her kid – everything. She treated me like a slave, because she is not my biological mum.

One day, she threw out my bags and told me to leave the house.

When I got home, things were worse. We hardly eat. My grandmum, she was stressed out. She would be crying, thinking, ‘where can I get food for you people?’



In an exhibition of her photos, organised by Voice of Freedom to bring the voices of enslaved women to a wider public, Tessy says this image reminds her of how she used to live with her parents as one family

We planted things on the farm. That is how we survived. The neighbourhood people would pay me to pluck coconut. At times I used to go on the street hawking oranges.

My grandmum came up with this idea, that there is a lady in France that is our family member, but I didn’t grow up to meet the lady. The lady said she wanted to come and take me from Nigeria to Europe so she can help me further my education. Hearing that, I was happy because I would be able to take care of my junior brother – he is the only family I have left.

So I told my grandmum, 'okay'. She told me to get ready, then took me to a park where we got on a bus. And that's how I got to Benin.

From there, a man took me with some other people that were going to Italy. From the bus, the man put us on a truck, and that’s how I got to Libya.



Tessy was trafficked from Nigeria to Benin to Libya to Italy

I spent a long time in Libya. They put me in a house. The house was fenced around. The ladies there were not allowed to come out.

They put 140 people on the boat and it was risky, everywhere was tight.

Everywhere was bright, and in this water you cannot… see the end. You are not seeing anything. We were somehow scared, someone like me. I was ‘oh God please don’t let me die.’ I was just crying.

People were praying, they were crying. The water was very big. I've never seen water like that before. The boat would be jumping up and down, so if the person that is driving is not that strong, the boat might capsize.

I was the only lady on the boat, it was filled with guys. We left Libya by 11pm and got to Italy the following day at 6am, when the rescue ship came.

My language is Ibibio and not many people speak it here in Italy. A lot of people go through hell but I just want them to know that things turn around. They should not look down on themselves, they should not give up.



Tessy Gold. Pic: Tessy Gold, courtesy of Voice of Freedom

My dream is to become an actress, and you need to be creative for that. The photography course really helped me because now I am more creative than before.

If somebody should go to anybody in Africa, and say, 'I want to take you to Italy so that I can change your life', you have to really study the person, and the kind of work she is doing in Europe. You have to really ask questions. Who is this person? Where are they taking you to?

Don't allow even your mum or your dad to push you into this because you are the one that will face the consequences, not your family. My advice is, be careful with your life, and be contented with what you have.

Women should be more fateful

The way some people forget themselves when they hear obodo oyibo

please can anyone summarize this for me?

too much to read