LONDON, April 11 (UPI) -- A woman returned to Moldavia from the United Kingdom despite an alleged risk from sex traffickers has won a substantial judgment against the British government.
The "groundbreaking," but undisclosed settlement was awarded to the unnamed Moldovan woman on the eve of a hearing on her claim against the British Home Office for its alleged failure to protect her, sending her back to Moldova in the face of extensive grounds she was at risk from traffickers, The Guardian reported Monday.
Attorney Harriet Wistrich said her client was kidnapped when she was 14 years old, and was repeatedly beaten, raped, threatened with death and forcibly trafficked into prostitution in Britain, Italy, Turkey, Hungary and Romania until she was 21.
She was arrested in Britain 2003 but instead of rescuing the woman, police charged her with possessing false documents given to her by her traffickers, the British newspaper said.
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After three months in prison, she was sent back to Moldova where her trafficker allegedly bullied her back into prostitution and in 2007 she was arrested in Britain again.
Eventually the Justice Ministry referred her to the POPPY project, which provides support and accommodation for women coerced into prostitution or domestic service. They helped her get the ball rolling on a claim for asylum.
The judge who awarded the confidential settlement acknowledged the woman had been the repeated victim of sex trafficking over a long period of time, during which she had suffered severe sexual degradation resulting in psychiatric injury.
An anonymous spokeswoman for the POPPY project said she hoped the case would focus on the ongoing need to identify and protect victims, "especially as we are seeing an increasing number of trafficking victims detained and given removal directions."
