A British woman has revealed that she worked as a sex slave and prostitute for six years in Greece after going on holiday to the country with her mother as a teen.
Megan Stephens (not her actual name), 25, went on a getaway with her mum when she was just 14 years old.
While staying in the resort, the teen fell for an Albanian guy called Jak, and thought he felt the same. But he was actually grooming her to sell to a sex trafficker.
After her mother let Megan stay on in Athens with Jak while she flew back home, Jak sold her to a trafficker called Leon and Megan was ordered to work in brothels and on the streets.
She recalls how she was once forced to have sex with 110 men in 22 hours.
Megan escaped in 2009 when she was hospitalised and sectioned after a suicide attempt.
She’s now settled in the UK with her partner and a baby on the way.
In a memoir of her harrowing experience, Bought & Sold, the survivor says she lives in fear of the trafficking ring discovering where she lives and trying to hurt her or her family.
Like many victims, Megan blames herself, she told MailOnline: ‘I used to put myself down about how stupid I’d been. If I could go back and tell myself what to do, I’d say to myself to get up and run and do something more to stop what was happening.’
‘When I look back on that time I feel angry with myself and incredibly sad. When you truly believe that you’re nothing, you don’t even consider the possibility that you have a choice about anything.’
Megan also explained that due to her parents splitting up in her childhood, she was ‘desperate to be loved’, which could have made her an easy target for Jak.
Megan managed to persuade her mum, who’d also fallen for a man during their holiday, to allow her to prolong their stay.
Within days Jak started playing on Megan’s conscience with a story about his mum having cancer.
He persuaded Megan, who was only 14 at the time, to take a job in a topless bar to earn money to help pay for his mother’s treatment and convinced her she was a hero for saving his mum’s life.
Two weeks after her mum left, Megan moved into an Athens flat with Jak. He took her into a local burger bar to meet a man called Leon. They exchanged money and spoke in Greek. She thought nothing of it at the time.
She later realised Leon had bought her to force her into sex work.
Metro.uk
A British woman has revealed that she worked as a sex slave and prostitute for six years in Greece after going on holiday to the country with her mother as a teen.
Megan Stephens (not her actual name), 25, went on a getaway with her mum when she was just 14 years old.
While staying in the resort, the teen fell for an Albanian guy called Jak, and thought he felt the same. But he was actually grooming her to sell to a sex trafficker.
After her mother let Megan stay on in Athens with Jak while she flew back home, Jak sold her to a trafficker called Leon and Megan was ordered to work in brothels and on the streets.
She recalls how she was once forced to have sex with 110 men in 22 hours.
Megan escaped in 2009 when she was hospitalised and sectioned after a suicide attempt.
She’s now settled in the UK with her partner and a baby on the way.
In a memoir of her harrowing experience, Bought & Sold, the survivor says she lives in fear of the trafficking ring discovering where she lives and trying to hurt her or her family.
Like many victims, Megan blames herself, she told MailOnline: ‘I used to put myself down about how stupid I’d been. If I could go back and tell myself what to do, I’d say to myself to get up and run and do something more to stop what was happening.’
‘When I look back on that time I feel angry with myself and incredibly sad. When you truly believe that you’re nothing, you don’t even consider the possibility that you have a choice about anything.’
Megan also explained that due to her parents splitting up in her childhood, she was ‘desperate to be loved’, which could have made her an easy target for Jak.
Megan managed to persuade her mum, who’d also fallen for a man during their holiday, to allow her to prolong their stay.
Within days Jak started playing on Megan’s conscience with a story about his mum having cancer.
He persuaded Megan, who was only 14 at the time, to take a job in a topless bar to earn money to help pay for his mother’s treatment and convinced her she was a hero for saving his mum’s life.
Two weeks after her mum left, Megan moved into an Athens flat with Jak. He took her into a local burger bar to meet a man called Leon. They exchanged money and spoke in Greek. She thought nothing of it at the time.
She later realised Leon had bought her to force her into sex work.
Metro.uk
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