Antislavery Usable Past

Agnes

2020 (Narrative date)

The Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that there are approximately 129,000 people living in conditions of modern slavery in France. France is a destination, transit and, to a lesser extent, source country for the exploitation of men, women and children in forced labour and sex trafficking. Labour traffickers exploit women and children in domestic servitude. Families often exploit relatives brought from Africa to work in their households. Domestic servitude makes up approximately eight percent of all trafficking in France.

Agnes was trafficked into domestic servitude from Ivory Coast to France at the age of 18. She arrived as an orphan to study but was forced to work long hours without pay or a contract.

I arrived in France through a lady. My brother introduced me to her. My brother said she would help me. I had lost my parents. My brother was still young and going to school, so he couldn't take care of me. The lady’s daughter came for a holiday and the lady introduced us. She said, ‘This is my daughter. She will take you with her. You’ll take care of her children and she’ll send you to school.’ I had just turned 18. All the time I was with her, I took care of her children, but she never kept her promise [about school]. I took care of the children, I bathed them, I cooked, I cleaned—everything... I never went out because I wasn’t allowed to. I couldn’t talk to people, even the neighbors. She didn’t pay me. One day, she said to me, ‘Get your things together, we’re going back to Abidjan.’ I didn’t want to go because she hadn’t helped me. Sending me back to Abidjan… There was no one there for me. For three years, I worked, took care of her children… And for three years, she did nothing. It’s really painful. Now I feel better, even though it’s hard, but I prefer this... I prefer this than to stay in such a situation.

Agnes managed to escape with the help of neighbors but does not wish to conceal her identity for security reasons.

Narrative source Youth Underground, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing human trafficking through youth education, awareness-raising and advocacy.

The original narrative can be found here https://www.facebook.com/YouthUnderground.CH/posts/2715928151775976

Country

Theme

Domestic slavery

Tags

VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: rightslab@nottingham.ac.uk. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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