Marek isn’t
exactly sure at what point he realised his liberty had been lost, but he thinks
it was probably when the expressionless van driver pushed them into the filthy
storage room and he heard the key turn. He remembers the look of fear on
Pavel’s face and was suddenly certain that they had been duped.
It had
started promisingly. Marek is naturally outgoing, but he tells his story with
restrained earnestness, occasionally looking towards the door as if fearing his
captors might burst in at any moment to return him to the storage room prison. Marek
is from a small town in the Czech Republic where he lived in a cramped flat
with his girlfriend. Apart from occasional
work on building sites he has been mostly unemployed over the last three years and
when a neighbour offered to link him with people in the UK who could find him well
paid work with accommodation, Marek responded enthusiastically. He was encouraged
to bring a friend, so contacted 63 year-old Pavel who had family problems he
was eager to leave behind.
As promised,
the flight tickets arrived, delivered by hand to his address by a helpful
stranger and, on arrival at Luton airport, a van was waiting for them. The men
couldn’t believe their good fortune. Here in the UK there was an opportunity of
earning a wage of a size inconceivable in comparison with the paltry sums on
offer in the Czech Republic.
It was at this
point, Marek explained, that the first niggles of doubt arose. The back windows
of the van were blacked out and the driver cursorily waved away questions about
their destination. Hours later, they
were bundled from the van and shoved into the storage room which had no toilet,
water or heating - just two dirty mattresses. It was to be there sleeping
quarters for many months.
Marek
composes himself with care before detailing the horrors that followed. The men had been trafficked against their will
for an unscrupulous gang-master and were put to work in various car washes.
They worked a relentless 15-hour day without pay and were given portions of food
rationed so that they were just about able to sustain themselves. A lack of
protective clothing meant they suffered permanent burns on their hands and legs
from the chemicals used to wash the cars. Each evening they were transported
back to the filthy storage room. Early on, provoked beyond endurance, they confronted
their captors and demanded to be freed. The response was a brutal beating which
had a damaging impact on Pavel’s health.
But the day
came when, as Marek was being transported between jobs, he was momentarily left
unattended. Seizing the opportunity he
escaped and over two days walked and hitched to London where, traumatised and
disorientated, he went to the police and from there was directed to the Czech Embassy, connected to Thames Reach and booked into a safe house.
There then
followed a painstaking exercise to locate the notorious storage room, with the
objective of springing Pavel from his prison. Marek knew that they had been driven
to the south coast and the name of the town included the word ‘sea’. Poring
over a map of the south coast, he was eventually able to identify the name of
the town. Marek knew that he had been
held close to a railway station and opposite a Chinese restaurant. On Google
maps, he painstakingly viewed pictures of all the Chinese restaurants in the
town until, finally, the restaurant and adjacent storage room were identified.
Armed with this information, the police broke into the storage room and rescued
Pavel and he too was taken to a safe house for victims of trafficking. Both men are now being supported at home in
the Czech Republic, though the mental and physical damage wrought by their
experience will take many years to recover from.
This is the
extraordinary reality facing a group of vulnerable men prepared to take risks
in the face of devastating levels of unemployment in their own countries and
the lure of comparative riches in the UK. Thames Reach has helped 81 men escape
forced labour situations, working closely with partners including the Salvation
Army, the UK Human Trafficking Centre and the Human Trafficking Foundation. We
fear that there are thousands of people being trafficked into forced labour
situations and that most traffickers remain undetected.
Disturbingly,
in the case of those people contacted and ensnared by traffickers within the
UK, particularly fertile recruiting environments include homeless day centres
and soup runs. In a case last year with which we were closely involved, the
Hungarian man who was trafficked met his exploiters at a soup run in
Westminster. Apparently the standard
spiel is...’it doesn’t have to be like this, queuing up in the rain for soup,
come with me and earn good money’. Thankfully there are day centres such as the
Passage in Victoria which assertively protects their users from the white van
waiting around outside, the one which squeals away when approached by staff.
On the 18th
October organisations supporting people escaping from forced labour captivity are
raising awareness by marking the day as Anti-Slavery Day. Slavery! Can this really be happening here, by
the seaside? But Marek’s is a true story
and we need to be shaken out of our somnolence because, to steal from Johnny
Rotten, there is no future in England’s dreaming.
Because of a continuing police investigation, the names of the trafficked men have been changed to protect their identity and the seaside town where they were held captive cannot be divulged.
This blog was first published in Inside Housing on 6th September 2013
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Man And Van In London