CLEVELAND, Ohio — A 31-year-old woman reported to police that she was the victim of human trafficking and had been held captive in Kuwait for four years, according to police reports.

The woman, who is from Africa, reported to police on Oct. 15 that she escaped her captors and needed help, according to police reports.

Formal charges have not been filed in the case. The case is being investigated by the Cleveland police Intelligence Unit, according to police reports.

The woman called police about 11 p.m. and met officers on the corner of East 12th Street and Superior Avenue, according to police reports.

She told police she was scared and asked to leave the area, police reports say. She told the officers that she was sold four years ago to a family in Kuwait in order to take care of that family’s sick, elderly relative, according to police reports.

That family on Aug. 12 traveled to Cleveland so the elderly woman could get treatment at the Cleveland Clinic, according to police reports.

She told police that the family locked her in an apartment in Cleveland for two months. Cleveland’s law department redacted the address of the apartment and other information from police reports.

The woman told the officers she never had a chance to escape or call 911 until that day. She said the family was always around, and when they weren’t, they’d lock her in a bedroom in the apartment, according to police reports.

She also was forbidden from talking to anyone when they were in public, according to police reports.

On Oct. 15, she was able to find a phone and call a friend, who directed her to a victim advocate in Arizona, according to police reports. The advocate told her to leave where she was and that he’d notify authorities, according to police.

Officers contacted the victim advocate, who confirmed he spoke to the woman earlier in the day and that he reported the incident to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. Cleveland police contacted the hotline, and an employee at the hotline confirmed the report had been made, police reports say.

Cleveland police went to the apartment the woman said she was held and found nothing inside, but noted the apartment smelled of hookah, according to police reports.

The woman told police she feared for her life, and that she’d be killed if she was returned to the family from Kuwait or her family in Africa, according to police reports.

Cleveland police called the Rape Crisis Hotline and employees there found her a place to stay, according to police reports.

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