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The British government outlawed slavery in the 19th century, but the trade in human beings continues underground.  

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Thousands of girls from Eastern Europe end up in British brothels every day, bought and sold like commodities.  

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Chris Rogers of Britain's ITN has the story.

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This girl is for sale for good?  

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Take away?  

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And she has ID papers?

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You are witnessing the purchase of a Romanian sex slave.

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We're posing as British brothel owners.  

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We're offered Monica, pimped by older prostitutes on the streets.

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To avoid suspicion, I have to behave like the men who force girls into prostitution through fear or exploitation.  

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We've teamed up with a charity that saves the most vulnerable victims, like Monica, before they're sold abroad.

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We took a five-minute drive around the block, saw a trafficker,  

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and within five minutes we've been offered this girl for just a few hundred euros.

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Her owner is called in to authorize her sale.

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800 euros.

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OK. 800 euros to take her away for good.

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Yes, take her away for good, says her pimp.  

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This is normal.  

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A sex slave, believed to be just 14 years old, sold for 500 pounds.

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As far as she's concerned, she's being taken away by another gang of traffickers to go to another country.  

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What's more, she's being told, she seems quite relaxed,  

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but at this stage, she's living her life.  

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This is all she knows.

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Like a pet dog with a new owner, Monica doesn't struggle as we lead her from the taxi to our van.  

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What she doesn't realize is that in 12 hours, we'll arrive at a safe house for trafficking victims.  

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As we start our journey, 

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Monica offers us sex to prove her loyalty, so a charity worker decides it's time to tell her the truth.

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After telling Monica what's going to happen to her, that we're going to take her to [Reaching Out] rescue center, she is now in shock.  

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She started crying. She's shaking all over now.  

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I'm doing my best to calm her down.

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Hours later, Monica reveals the story behind her tears.  

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She claims her parents gave her to the local trafficker when she was nine.

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"I ran away twice to government safe houses but I was abused so I returned to what I knew best," she tells me.

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It's hardly surprising Monica is reluctant to trust what this new day offers her,  

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but in time girls like her do make the Reaching Out Romania safe house their home.  

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Its location is secret to protect all the rescued girls here from the traffickers from whom they escaped.

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Iana Matei's project offers a future away from the sex industry.  

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Now Monica has a chance to experience something she's never known -- trust, love, and understanding. But it's a fragile process.

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She's in this situation since she was nine years old.  

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She doesn't know any other kind of life, and she's afraid.  

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I talked to her, and she told me that she's afraid that she's not able to live a normal life because this is what she's used [to].  

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She doesn't trust anyone.  

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No one [Anyone] whoever promised help didn't help her.  

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Why should she trust you or why should she trust me?

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Unable to cope with her new life, Monica left the safe house two months later.  

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She had just been diagnosed of [with] syphilis.  

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If untreated, she could die.  

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She left without her medication.