Raising Awareness of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery through Fiction
Girl Out of Sight by psychological suspense author, Helen Matthews, is published this week by Darkstroke Books. Helen is an ambassador for the British anti-slavery charity, Unseen UK and has written about modern slavery and human trafficking in her fiction. She explains why she’s passionate about raising awareness of slavery-related crimes and why fiction has a role in building empathy for victims and survivors.
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When you listen to news of wars, conflict and climate disaster impacting people around the world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. How can one individual author do anything to alleviate the sheer scale of human suffering?
I’ve decided to focus on a single area where I can try to make a small difference and chose to raise awareness and funds for victims of human trafficking and modern slavery because I’ve researched this for two of my novels.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) trafficking is second only to the drug business in scale and the amount of profit ($150 billion a year) it generates for criminals. It isn’t only vulnerable women from impoverished parts of the world, who are affected but also men, boys and UK and US citizens. Slavery is hidden in plain sight in our towns, cities and rural areas and maybe on your street or mine.
My novel Girl Out of Sight published this week by Darkstroke Books, is a suspense thriller with a theme of human trafficking. The story opens in Albania where seventeen-year-old Odeta has left school and is working in her father’s shop in a remote area. Her life isn’t especially grim but it’s colourless and she thinks nothing interesting will ever happen to her again. Then an enigmatic stranger from the capital, Tirana walks into the shop and tells her about the dazzling career she could have if she travelled with him to London. Odeta’s dream of an exciting new life is about to turn into a nightmare.
But let’s rewind and talk about trafficking generally in context of the bigger picture.
In the UK we see shocking scenes on TV News of flimsy inflatable boats, packed with people in orange life jackets crossing the English Channel from France to Kent.
You might be surprised to know that this isn’t human trafficking according to the strict definition. The unfortunate people on those boats are migrants or refugees, who have paid for their passage and that specific crime is ‘people smuggling’. It’s an immigration crime – a crime against the state. Human trafficking is a crime against the individual. But people smuggling can easily turn into modern slavery because passengers have put themselves at the mercy of criminals, who don’t care if they live or drown.
Let’s imagine a man called Mahmood, who has paid $3,000 to cross from France to Britain in one of those small boats. Mahmood has made himself vulnerable by relying on a callous criminal to arrange his passage. When he reaches the UK, the smuggler might say, ‘Mahmood, you’ve paid me $3,000 for your journey but that’s not enough. You should have paid $6,000 or $10,000 or whatever. So now you’re in debt and you’ll have to work for me until this debt is paid off.’
This is known as ‘debt bondage’ – another form of modern slavery. My fictional example shows just one of the ways a man like Mahmood might become trapped into forced labour. On arrival in the UK, he could find himself working in a real job, say, in agriculture or a chicken factory, but his earnings would go into the smuggler’s bank account. Mahmood would be told he has to work for free to pay off the mythical debt for his travel and accommodation.
So why doesn’t Mahmood tell someone? His employer? The police? Every case is different. It might be that he’s suffered actual violence or been threatened with abuse. The people smuggler might be someone from his own village in Africa, who’ll threaten his elderly parents or wife back home if he doesn’t do as he’s ordered. Mahmood might speak poor English. He’s here illegally, though the criminals might have arranged a fake work permit, so he knows if he goes to the authorities he’ll be deported. Perhaps he comes from a country where people don’t trust the police and would never think of complaining to them. And so on.
Turning from Mahmood’s story back to my novel Girl Out of Sight, the founder of anti-slavery charity Unseen UK, Kate Garbers wrote:
Do not be fooled into thinking that the novel you are about to read is based on an isolated occurrence, that Odeta is simply an unfortunate woman. Her story is a very real one for many women today.
I’m proud to have raised over £3,000 for the charity by donating a percentage of my royalties and all my author talk fees. People can read my books as gripping page-turners but if they also discover dark contemporary story lines and learn more about the plight of the dispossessed and vulnerable in our society, I feel I’ve made a small difference.
Girl Out of Sight, published by Darkstroke Books, is out on 4 October in eBook from Amazon. A paperback will follow at a later date.
GIRL OUT OF SIGHT
How well do you know your neighbours?
Odeta’s life has shrunk to a daily round of drudgery, running her father’s grocery store in a remote Albanian village. One day, an enigmatic stranger from Tirana turns up, promising her an exciting career in London. Odeta’s life is about to change, but not in the way she expected.
Kate, a journalist, lives on a quiet London street, but her seemingly perfect life is filled with anxiety for her son, Ben. The boy is obsessed with online gaming but struggles to make friends. Kate sets out to create a simpler life for her family, disconnects them from the internet, and tries to build a community on her street.
On a visit to her home village in Wales, Kate is forced to confront a secret from her past. But even greater danger lies where she lives. Perhaps her neighbours are not the friendly community they seem at first glance…
BUY HERE
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Helen Matthews writes page-turning psychological suspense novels and is fascinated by the darker side of human nature and how a life can change in an instant. Suspense thriller Girl Out of Sight, a second edition of Winchester prize-winning novel After Leaving the Village comes out this October from Darkstroke Books. Recent novels published by Darkstroke Books are The Girl in the Van, finalist in the 2022 Pageturner Book Award, and Façade (family noir). Her other books include Lies Behind the Ruin and a collection of short stories Brief Encounters.
Born in Cardiff, Helen read English at the University of Liverpool and worked in international development, consultancy, human resources and pensions management. She fled corporate life to work freelance while studying for a Creative Writing MA at Oxford Brookes University. Her stories and flash fiction have been shortlisted and published by Flash 500, 1000K Story, Reflex Press, Artificium and Love Sunday magazine.
She is a keen cyclist, covering long distances if there aren’t any hills, sings in a choir and once appeared on stage at Carnegie Hall, New York in a multi-choir performance. She loves spending time in France. Helen is an Ambassador for the charity, Unseen, which works towards a world without slavery and donates her author talk fees, and a percentage of royalties, to the charity.
Find out more at:
https://www.helenmatthewswriter.com
https://www.twitter.com/HelenMK7
https://www.Instagram.com/helen.matthews7
https://Facebook.com/HelenMK7Writer
Category: On Writing
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