Indra and Divia in the uk

indra

Indra (not her real name), originally from Sri Lanka, worked in the UK as a domestic worker.

“I gave money to an agency and they sent me to work for a family in Kuwait. The family brought me with them to London.

"It was awful. We stayed in a hotel and there was no space to sleep. There was a very small kitchen where I slept on the floor. I had to cook, clean and iron for the whole family. They always had something for me to do.

"I would wake at 6am and they wouldn’t go to sleep until 2am. They had a party every night. Of course I couldn’t go to bed until they had gone to sleep. I often went out onto the stairs to sleep.

"I couldn’t leave because they kept my passport. When they prepared to return to Kuwait, I told them, ‘Take my salary but give me my passport’, but they refused. In the end they left me behind without paying me or returning my passport.

"When I eventually managed to return to Sri Lanka my daughter no longer recognised me. She said, ‘You are not my mummy.’”

Taken from Forgotten but not Gone: Slavery and Resistance 200 years after abolition, Pete Pattison, 2007, www.petepattison.com

divia

“I'm 28 and I have been living rough in Britain for the last seven years. I know your park benches very well. I live hand to mouth. I take a bed where I can find it. My best friend is my Bible.

"The trouble began when the Saudi family I was working for suggested I come to England to look after their son and his family. They lived in Bedford. He was 45 years old, but a student. So was his wife. They had a seven year old girl.
 
"The woman there told me I would sleep on the floor in the utility room. It was stone-cold in winter. I became sick. My eyesight started failing. I think it was from hunger as they wouldn't let me eat their food. I could cook it - but not eat it.

"I couldn't stand the shouting and the hitting. After six months I crept out in the middle of the night. I took nothing with me. I went to the police, but my English was poor. They couldn't understand. They told me to go away."