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Human trafficking is a growing problem in today's world and it's happening right on our doorstep.

A Romanian woman has spoke out about her experience as a sex slave in harrowing detail in her new book.

The woman, who is known only as Anna, was 21, and living in London when she was kidnapped off the street.

She was taken to Ireland and was sold for €30,000 to a Romanian-run brothel near Salthill, in Galway.

Anna was kept captive, beaten, raped and deprived of food and sleep.

She was advertised on a legal escort website and was forced to have sex with thousands of men.

Now she has told her shocking story in a new book called Slave, written by Northern Ireland journalist and author Jason Johnson.

In an interview with Independent.ie, Anna recalls how she had moved to London to continue studying and to experience a different life.

She said: "I think every young person wants to get out and see what life has to offer and that’s how I felt moving to London,” she says.

“I was working and studying and was a self-sufficient person.

“I had made new friends and I had good references.

“I was ambitious. I had big plans to become a doctor or work in counselling. I loved reading and would read a lot and I was into my studies.

She believes she was targeted by Romanians who lived in the same building as her and knew she was vulnerable as she did not have any family in London.

Anna was taken straight to the airport by her captors who managed to get through security without anyone checking their details.

She was flown to Ireland where she was imprisoned and tortured for nine months.

"They were the toughest months of my life. I was kept locked up. If I asked for food I was beaten, if I tried to sleep I was beaten and raped.

(Image: Shutterstock)

“They beat you where people could not see, on the head because you have hair and on your body, but never on the face.

“Nobody cared about the bruises on your body.

“They beat you to break you and make you do things for them.

“I don’t think a person could be deprived of so much. I don’t know how I got through it.

“I just had to breathe and keep everything inside and develop a plan to get out of there.”

Anna revealed that the brothel keepers advertised her for sale online and men left "reviews" for her.

“The pimps in Galway knew my reviews were leading to more and more people coming to see me, that I was the girl of the moment, or at least one of them, in the city.

“Do you know that some of the girls who passed through there hated me because of that?

"That’s how strange this world is. It was popular to rape me, to use me all day and night like a battery hen for sex, and they thought I was having a more successful life than them ..."

Anna feared she would be murdered in Ireland or that she would be forced to kill herself in despair.

“Often when I sat in that one place on the sofa, staring at the top right-hand corner of the window at the little piece of glass, the little patch that showed if it was night or day or somewhere in the middle.

“I would sit on that seat and think I might soon be killed by someone, or be killed by my own hand.

(Image: Getty)

"I would think how my mother, my friends back in Romania, would never know what had become of Anna ...”

There was no way for the young woman to escape and she had no one to go to as she didn't know anyone in Ireland, other than her pimps.

Later Anna was taken to Belfast and kept in different houses and flats all over the city.

One day she was taken to a flat in the Cathedral Quarter where she was horrified to see five men waiting there.

The men ordered her to strip but were shocked when they saw bruises all over her body from the beatings.

One of the men present was a local criminal and drug dealer called Andy who had been thinking about setting up his own brothel.

However, when he saw that state Anna was in, he offered to help her.

When Anna had an opportunity to escape, she went to Andy who sheltered her.

After spending months in hiding, she finally found the courage to go to the police and report her traffickers.

In the meantime, a war broke out between her pimps and Andy's associates and the Romanian traffickers moved to Sweden temporarily where they continued their trade.

Anna then met a Belfast journalist named Tom, who put her in touch with the PSNI's Human Trafficking Team.

Anna's pimps were tracked down in Sweden and the lead members were jailed, before being extradited to Northern Ireland and jailed again.

Unfortunately, they received short sentences, serving less than eight months in jail and are now believed to be living openly in Belfast.

(Image: Shutterstock)

Meanwhile, seven years on from her ordeal, Anna still lives in fear.

The brave young woman said:“When I escaped there was no help for me.

"There was no medical help and I didn’t even have papers to travel so I couldn’t go anywhere. I was basically homeless and didn’t know where to to go.

“When I went to the police even they didn’t know how to help me and they were traumatised by my story.”

Anna knew she had to get her story out there in order to raise awareness about sex trafficking.

"I heard on the radio about new sex trafficking policy and I felt that the politicians were making decisions and they hadn’t been trafficked and didn’t know what it was like.

"I felt that I had to talk to these people.”

With the assistance of Tom, she met Lord Maurice McMorrow, who had proposed a new bill to clamp down on sex traffickers in 2012, and later with First Minister Peter Robinson.

“I told him I believed there was a lot of money in this business, that sex traffickers were making fortunes from selling women’s bodies to men.

"And I said, knowing the business as I did, there would be a fight", she explained.

The proposed law became known as "Anna's Law" and in 2014, Northern Ireland voted in support of changing the law to make it illegal to buy sex.

Anna is now trying to rebuild her life after the horrific ordeal.

She said: "I’ve started to cry now. I couldn’t cry before but now that I have good people who understand what I’ve been through, it is helping me.

"I still have an element of fear but I’ve started to paint and that helps, and listening to music, anything to take my mind off it.

“I am studying marketing online and volunteering with some charities.

“I hope the book will first and foremost raise awareness and bring to the attention of people that this could happen to anyone in the modern day.

"It is not a story that happened 100 years ago but just a few years ago.

“I also want justice for people and there are millions of people all over the world it is happening to and I want them to know that there is a way out.”