By Ingrid Bazinet
London - Jane was 14 when she was ordered to drink blood in a room where women's heads hung down from above. Terrified by child traffickers, she was destined, via Britain, for the European prostitution market.
Now 17, Jane - not her real name - is somewhere in Britain in a safe accommodation maintained exclusively for child victims of traffickers.
"Traffickers use terror, often voodoo, to bind them," said Lynne Chitcy, a doctor assigned to the safe house.
According to a report released earlier this week by End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT UK), Britain has become a hub of a growing trade in children.
They come mainly from west Africa, Nigeria in Jane's case, but increasingly from eastern and central Europe too.
Their destinations are anywhere there is a demand for child prostitutes - Britain and Italy, to name but two.
"Some of the girls know they're going to be prostitutes. Some have no idea and think they're going to be a hairdresser or work in a shop."
Anti-Slavery International, which interviewed Jane, said she told them how she had been taken to a secret club in Benin City, Nigeria.
"She describes walking into one of the rooms, and there being women's heads hanging from the ceiling.
"She was forced to take part in a number of rituals which involved drinking blood." Then she was warned that if she told anyone, she would die.
Jane was smuggled to Britain on a false passport. Fortunately for her, she was soon detained by authorities.
Mike Kaye, of Anti-Slavery International, said ECPAT's research had merely uncovered "the tip of the iceberg".
Patricia, another Nigerian, was 17 when she flown to Britain, then smuggled to Belgium and finally sold to a brothel in Italy for $21 000 - $27 000.
She escaped, contacted Italian authorities, and is now also living in safe accommodation in Britain.
Others are not so lucky.
In West Sussex, which covers Gatwick airport south of London, local social authorities say that since 1995, a total of 66 children believed to have been trafficked into the country, 18 of them boys, have disappeared.
In some cases they are met at the airport by a bogus "relative" or someone who claims they have been asked to pick them up.
In others they are left to get through immigration checks themselves, with strict orders from the smugglers to use the contact telephone number they were given before they left.
Kaye complained that there was no specific law aimed at child traffickers, who often escape with sentences of less than two years.
Also, the confusion, fear and often contradictory testimony of the children mean they are seen as "unreliable witnesses," said Chitcy.
"They would be torn to pieces. And because there are no witnesses, there's no case."
That was exactly what happened three years ago after two men were arrested in a police anti-trafficking operation codenamed Newbridge.
The case was thrown out by prosecutors, said Chitcy. "They said it was all circumstantial evidence, and that was the end of it.
"It was dreadful. I'd been working on it for two years." One of the two men was "the big chief", but he escaped.
Chitcy called for children to be allowed permanent, rather than temporary, residency in Britain so that, knowing they will not be repatriated, they feel safe to testify in court.
"I think it would be reasonable to conclude you are looking at hundreds of children at the absolute minimum who have been trafficked into this country," said Kaye.
- Sapa-AFP