‘It’s changed our life’: These modern slavery survivors are finding hope at Christmas through music

Seven women, each a survivor of modern slavery, stand together in front of giant glistening Christmas trees, wearing Santa hats with big smiles as they sing. This choir is one of few places they feel safe and hopeful that, one day, their voices will be heard. 

‘Dreams’ is a singing group for modern slavery survivors run by The Salvation Army, with the most recent performance at the charity’s headquarters in South London attended by Labour MP Jess Phillips, minister in the Home Office responsible for safeguarding and tackling violence against women and girls.

It is not the first time the group has performed for a famous face. They previously sang for the likes of Ed Sheeran and Idris Elba at a charity concert organised by Princess Eugenie, who is co-founder of the Anti-Slavery Collective and one of the group’s biggest supporters.

I met the choir at The Salvation Army Church in Hendon, at their last rehearsal a week before the performance. There was nervousness and laughter as they ran through some of their favourites – Jessie J’s Price Tag and Shallow from A Star is Born, as well as Christmas classics. There is so much joy as they sing and chuckle over little mistakes.

“It started in this room,” choir director Nigel Long tells me. He had just become a support worker at The Salvation Army and, when he saw the unused piano, he knew this could be a rehearsal space, so he decided to launch a choir.

“We set up a poster and no one came. Then eventually two people came. They were very quiet. Nobody said anything. But they came. That was amazing.”

Betuin, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, was one of those two people. “I was very scared. I was even scared of him,” she says and looks at Nigel, “especially as I didn’t have status here. I don’t know whom I trust. But when I came to this choir, the first thing I found was family, and someone who cared – and that is him.”

Around a year after the group formed, Wendy, whose name has also been changed, was asked if she wanted to join. There were other Filipinos in the group with similar experiences of modern slavery, and she had sung in a choir back home. 

“I was so nervous. I was shivering. I couldn’t express myself. Even saying my name was difficult. But when I saw how they sang, I was so inspired. I thought: ‘I’m going to love this,’” Wendy recalls. 

Betuin and Wendy kept their distance initially. “We felt estranged from each other, maybe because of our bad past,” Betuin says. “Can I trust this person? Should I share my secrets with this person?”

Wendy replies: “Same thing for me. It’s hard to just talk. We didn’t get on easily at first.”

Now, two years later, they are close friends and they check in on each other regularly, alongside the other choir members. They are connected by shared experiences. Both Wendy and Betuin are victims of modern slavery, forced into domestic servitude.

“I don’t feel like I was treated as a human being,” Betuin says as she remembers life working for a wealthy family in Abu Dhabi. “I think because of the race, because we are not like the locals, I feel like a very small person. 

“They told us they owned us. They bought us from an agency. They were told that we could do everything for them because they owned us. That was in their mind. They could shout for us. They can make us not sleep all night.”

Betuin says she would bow down to people, because she was made to feel inferior. She was called cruel names like ‘donkey’, ‘slave’ and ‘prostitute’. 

The family brought Betuin to London to do their domestic work 10 years ago, and after a couple of weeks, she escaped. “Something terrible happened to me,” Betuin says in tears, apologising for not being able to share what happened because it was so traumatic.

Betuin escaped, but there are an estimated 50 million more people worldwide trapped in modern slavery, including around 130,000 people in the UK. Domestic servitude is one form, but modern slavery encompasses many types of exploitation including human trafficking, forced labour and debt bondage. Victims may be enslaved working in factories, nail salons or picking our crops.

Phillips, who has worked on the frontline in the sector, tells me that stories of modern slavery are among the worst she has heard because of the sense of “torture” that the victims face.

Wendy finds it difficult to speak about her experiences too but says it helps her to share. She was a victim of domestic violence by her ex-husband and ran away from home. She went to Kuwait, because she thought it would be the simplest option.

“I thought things would get better but it’s totally the opposite. I was again violated and abused. I was looking after six kids and their parents, so it’s eight people. I’m not allowed to use phones. I’m not allowed my passport,” Wendy says.

“The payment or salary is not given to me unless I beg them. I’m not allowed to speak to my family back home. We wrote letters but it took one month to get back home, and one month back to me. It was a very tough life.”

The family asked her to come to London in 2012 and promised that she would be given her salary and she could have a day off. There was no washing machine so she had to do it all by hand. She slept in the laundry room, and there was a leak in the ceiling, letting in rain. She became sick and the family would not call a doctor.

Wendy was told she could call her son on his birthday, and she hadn’t seen him in seven years, having left when he was just 11 months old, but the call did not go through and she was not allowed to use the phone again. Wendy realised she needed to escape.

She managed to find her passport and she left when the family were out. She had some pennies, and a stranger let her use her phone. Wendy called an old friend, who came to pick her up with her partner.

“I was so scared I couldn’t even get into the car. I knew the number plate that she told me. But I was so panicked. When they came, I couldn’t get in. So they came and carried me to get me inside the car. It was a successful escape,” Wendy says, but she is still struggling with the trauma. She is living with a kind couple who she met at Church, but she struggles to trust people and barely leaves the house.

• How can we tackle modern slavery if those on the frontline don’t know what it looks like?
• I was forced to work unpaid and never let out of the house. Modern slavery is all around us in the UK

Even after everything she has experienced, Wendy says that one of her “biggest challenges” came when she had her asylum claim rejected for a second time by the Home Office.

“It deteriorated my mental health,” she recalls. “I have all these traumas and phobias, but I was able to control it before. When I failed, in January 2024, that was it. I told Nigel: ‘I think I’m going to lose my life.’”

Wendy was tired of running. She was tired of hiding. She almost gave up on life.

“Don’t give up,” Betuin tells her emphatically. “I keep on singing because I hope one day the Home Office will listen to our voice and what we have been through. Nobody understands the hardship we have been through in the Middle East. We are a small person asking for a bit of help, and for them to listen to our voice.”

The choir have written their own song The Survivors’ Song – and it almost always moves people to tears. It becomes even more meaningful when I hear Wendy’s story. 

They are too emotional to read the song to me themselves, so Nigel asks if I will read some of the verse Wendy wrote, and I try to keep my voice steady as I say: “When life seems empty, no tomorrow, and I feel I’m drowning in my sorrow, then I remember I’m a survivor.”

“I’ve suffered so much,” Wendy says. “This group gives me a chance to process my emotions. I’m a very emotional person. I cry a lot and I’m scared to face new things in my life, so when I came to this group, it gave me courage and inspiration.”

Wendy hopes the group will go further and help more people with experience of modern slavery. She is studying for her GCSE English and doing a teaching assistant course, and she is going through therapy. She still hopes the Home Office will grant her asylum, and that one day she can see her son again.

Phillips is not in charge of asylum claims, but says: “The asylum system is in a mess. Nobody is pretending otherwise. It has been directionless. It has been chaotic. It will take time, but what we have got to do in government is build back a fair system that supports people who need it.”

The choir is funded by The Salvation Army’s modern slavery victim care contract, which it has with the Home Office. This funding has helped more than 18,000 survivors in England and Wales rebuild their lives over the last 11 years. 

“The reason we’re here to do it is that literally these women who have been enslaved get to have their voices heard. That’s a good day at the Home Office,” Phillips says.

“I want the UK to become world-leading on the stage of modern slavery again, and the new administration is rooted very much back into a system of safeguarding and a fair and compassionate system for people who have, for example, been forced to have sex with 50 men a day, or women hired as slaves by rich people in fancy houses probably not far from here. These are not people who should ever have been used as a political football,” Phillips adds.

People like Wendy and Betuin still haven’t been made to feel as though they can start a life here. “The most painful thing is I understand that not all luck will be given to you. But I’ve been trying to be a good person in all aspects. It’s really hard,” Wendy says.

When I finish talking with Wendy and Betuin, Nigel asks them if they want to sing for me. They gather round the piano, and the guitarist José picks up his guitar, and they sing ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon, as I fight the tears.

“We’re still coping. It doesn’t mean that we can’t sing. But inside of us we’re still coping. We can’t get away from our bad experience and that violence. We’re still moving on,” Betuin says.

“When you do music, you can express your feelings. I would like other people to be encouraged to join and feel the vibration of music in their hearts. I hope people hear our voices and do not get tired of helping us, because the help has a big impact on us. It has changed our life. If you can change the life of one person, it is like you have changed the world.”

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. This Christmas, you can make a lasting change on a vendor’s life. Buy a magazine from your local vendor in the street every week. If you can’t reach them, buy a Vendor Support Kit.