BRITAIN'S -*OH,DEAR*- SLAVERY

Report on trafficking finds a sprawling practice that ensnares tens of thousands..........

Every Friday morning, as commuters arrived in London Victoria station, a teenage girl would board a train to Eastbourne, a coastal town about 60 miles inside the city.

Dressed in her sports uniform and carrying a shoulder bag covered in badges of pop icons, she tried to give the impression that she was on her to school.

But this teenager was already three hours into her workday.

Armed with a knife and carrying a large supply of  Class A drugs, the girl, who was 14, had been instructed to travel to Eastbourne and to sell crack and heroin.

If she failed to meet steadily demands set by her boss at the time, a 48-year-old gang leader, who lured her through a social media app. she was either beaten or sexually assaulted.

A report by a British government commission on slavery and human trafficking, released last month, described a sprawling practice that ensnares tens of thousands of people in Britain.

Many are immigrants. But the high number of victims from Britain was an unexpected shock  -cases involving  British citizens like the teenage girl were the  third-largest  grouping, after those involving Albanians or Vietnamese.

A majority of child-trafficking victims were also found in Britain.

From nail salons and carwashes to farms and construction sites, thousands of vulnerable adults and  children/students are being traded as commodities and are often subject to violence and abuse, the report found.

''We kind of let it slip that we have vulnerable people in our own communities,'' Kevin Hyland, Britain first independent antislavery commissioner, said in an interview.

''And they are vulnerable for a number of reasons, not just because they come from poverty. It may be that they have learning difficulties, educational issues or addiction.''

For months, no one noticed as the girl, whose identity is being concealed for her protection because her captors are still at large, sneaked out of her apartment before dawn, skipped school and came home late, once with bruises all over her body.

The World Students Society appreciates this research from the author, Ceylan Yeginsu.