Slave Girl

by Sarah Forsyth

From the age of three, the very people who were meant to be looking after and protecting Sarah Forsyth were sexually abusing her. Somehow she managed to overcome the hurt and heartbreak of a horrific childhood, and build a new and happy life for herself as a nursery nurse.
Then, one day, Sarah spotted a newspaper advert for a job in a creche in Amsterdam. Thrilled by the prospect of a fresh start away from Newcastle and all the memories it held, she eagerly signed up. But within minutes of arriving in Amsterdam her life began to fall apart. There was no creche and no job: Sarah was a victim of sex-trafficking.
Fed cocaine and cannabis, and forced at gunpoint to work as a prostitute in the red light district of Amsterdam, Sarah was turned from a young innocent English girl into a desperate and terrified crack whore. Riddled with fear about what her pimps would do to her if they caught her trying to run away, it took Sarah almost a year to find the strength to fight back and escape.
But, unlike many of the girls that she was forced to live and work beside, she did get away. Sarah Forsyth is a survivor. This is her heartbreaking story.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, True Crime, Memoir, True Story, Audiobook, Crime

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 5, 2009

Reviews

[Sibel Hodge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last year I wrote Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave to try and raise awareness about trafficking, so after my research for it I was expecting a lot of the horrific ordeal that Sarah describes in her book, but many others will not be. This book is a must-read and is very well-written. You will cry while reading Sarah's heart-breaking story, and you will feel disgusted, sick, and angry, but it's a story that needs to be read. No one should have to go through this. Slave Girl addresses a lot of common misconceptions surrounding prostitution - mainly that these women must’ve got into it by choice. Society doesn’t pay attention to the reason prostitutes are doing what they’re doing. They don’t stop and think how they got into that situation - far better to ignore it than have to deal with the horrendous fact that trafficking is a huge global problem that makes a hell of a lot of money for those involved, from the bottom right up to the very top. That woman working on a street corner or in a sauna or massage parlour that you see every day could be trafficked. In the UK, it is not hidden from view, but blatantly in your face - street corners, massage parlours freely advertising in phone boxes, on the net, in newspapers, and yet very little is done to protect these women from trafficking. Another misconception is that victims can just escape - it’s not as simple as that. As Sarah says “ Not all prisons have bars and walls - some are in the mind.” Victims hardly ever speak out because they're subjected to unimaginable abuse and violence, or their families are threatened. They cannot escape because they are brainwashed into believing their captors and they don't know who to trust. In Sarah’s case, she was further bound to her captors after being fed drugs just to get through her living hell. An addiction she’s still struggling to deal with.


Sarah's previous history with abuse may have made her more vulnerable, but it could easily happen to you, or your daughter, or your sister, or your wife. She put her trust in the wrong person. A mistake that was a tragedy for her and could've cost her life. It did cost others mentioned in the book their lives. It proves that a normal person who accidentally slips up could be in the same situation. In fact, it's going on under your nose right now. Together, we can all do something to raise awareness. This is not someone else’s problem - it’s everyone’s problem.

I applaud Sarah for having the strength and courage to share her story, and break the common misconceptions that surround trafficking. She is one of the lucky ones who managed to escape, but she is far from healed. Everything that’s happened to her is an ongoing struggle to deal with. I really hope that one day she will heal the invisible psychological wounds.

[Eva-Marie Nevarez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this whole book to be very unbelievable to be brutally honest. It took me awhile to decide whether to be honest or not but in the end I have to be. Forsyth came across as lying to me. And I wouldn't say that without having very strong feelings. I could always be wrong but I pegged A Million Little Pieces from the first few pages, long before the truth came out, and The Angel at The Fence too. So maybe I have a nose for these things.
If anything comes out about this woman in the future I have a feeling it won't be about the truthfulness of this book and her experiences. I think it will be someone outing her. I'm not sure if Tate was taken in or if he's part of this but I think it's a fraud.
"Respectable sources", what exactly is that? My Mom is a respectable source to me but not to everyone else in the world. Why can't the reader know who this "respectable source" is? Then we're expected to believe this about the dogs? This womans abusers always used big ferocious dogs to scare her. When she was at home, in care, when she was kidnapped, in every country, all the time, dogs.
I could go on and on and on but I don't really feel like it. It didn't come off as true to me and I would bet actual real money that this is a fake. I think she knew some things, whether she traveled to Amsterdam to research this book or whether she went there to be a sex worker on her own or with a boyfriend, whatever the case, I doubt she was actually tricked. Too many unreal situations and it has nothing to do with (as she says) "people not wanting to believe these things can happen". I read dozens of mis-lit books and memoirs all the time and I'm very knowledgable about what horrors humans cause. I believe all she said is "possible", just not that it happened to her.
I'm only giving Slave Girl 2 stars because it's an easy read and parts were actually entertaining.

[Aidan Cross · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ideally I would love to have been able to give this book five stars and commend the author for having the courage to share such a disturbing story and raise awareness of the all-too-real evils of human trafficking and sex slavery. However, there were numerous points of the story that seemed illogical, self-contradictory or just did not ring true, and after conducting a bit of background research on both Sarah Forsyth and her ghostwriter, journalist Tim Tate, I am inclined to question the truthfulness of this story and the intentions behind writing it.

Several of the numerous discrepancies and oddities in the story are:

1) The nature of Sarah's supposed abduction. She claims 'Sally' met her at Schipol Airport dressed blatantly like a prostitute while still under the pretence of being a nursery nurse, and that John Reece then held her at gunpoint in the car she was driven away in. While the two of them had apparently worked to deceive Sarah into thinking she was going to be working as a nurse, and had pulled off this stunt successfully so far by sounding friendly and professional on their phone calls, would they really have made the truth so blatant as soon as Sarah arrived at the airport, and thus given her a chance to escape - or risk being seen by someone who may have raised the alarm? Wouldn't it have made more sense for Sally to have worn normal clothing for the meeting and at the very least kept up the charade during the car journey before revealing the truth?

2) The nature of Sarah's escape - as well as seeming unlikely that the Yugoslav pimps upon fleeing Amsterdam would have simply left the way open for their girls to escape and expose their crimes, Sarah is very quick to seek out the help of the police, even after explaining through the whole book that the police in Amsterdam were in cahoots with the pimps and thus there was no use in seeking help from them. So why would she be so quick to run into a police station when previous experience would suggest they would just return her straight to the pimps? Would it not have made more sense to have gone to the British Embassy for help?

3) The fact that Sarah's family did not come looking for her, report her missing, nor even become suspicious the whole time she was in Amsterdam. The apparent reason is because Sarah's mother claims Sarah did call her several times after arriving in Amsterdam, and Sarah assumes this was an impostor due to the line being 'noisy'. Surely a mother will know her own daughter's voice no matter how noisy the line is? The Geordie accent is a difficult one to fake, and surely no impostor could have convinced her mother so firmly that she was Sarah without giving at least some clue that something was amiss. Likewise the calls can not have been that frequent, and surely Sarah's mother must have felt uneasy about having no address or phone number to contact her daughter on, or when her daughter spent more than a year abroad without ever offering to pop home for a visit, come home for Christmas etc? It is extremely tough to believe Sarah's family would not have twigged that something was wrong, and lends more credence to the idea that Sarah DID indeed call her mother from Amsterdam despite her claims otherwise, and that she and her mother knew full well what work Sarah was doing there before she went. (A post on the Fleshtrade blog claiming to be from Sarah's ex-boyfriend claims Sarah spoke to him several times on the phone from Amsterdam and that she is a compulsive liar.)

4) The fact that Sarah not only willingly re-establishes touch with her kidnapper Sally, but begins a relationship with her - and to add insult to injury, wilfully co-runs a brothel with her? This is the point where alarm bells really go off - Sarah at this point claims her and Sally always had some form of affection and chemistry between them and now was their chance to explore this, yet there is no indication of this earlier in the story; they bond briefly over the shared hopelessness of their situation but there is no hint of any real affection for one another and Sarah expresses nothing but resentment for her captor early on. It seems far more likely that Sarah is not being truthful of the exact nature of her initial acquaintance with Sally and casts doubt on the claim she was 'kidnapped'.

5) There is a fair degree of blaming others despite blatant self-destructive behaviour, and wallowing in self-pity towards the story's end, that makes Sarah more difficult to sympathize with. It does not ring true how she blames the hospital doctors for getting her addicted to morphine instead of crack and thus lengthening her life as an addict; surely trained and experienced doctors would know better than this?

6) The nature of her relationships with other people constantly seems to change throughout the book depending upon how much pity Sarah wants directed at herself. As well as the aforementioned illogic regarding Sally, there's also Sarah's mother - one minute they're really close and share a loving family bond, the next she's claiming their relationship is awkward and they hardly see each other? And also her wife Tracy - what seems particularly unusual is how Sarah says even her own wife does not believe her about the more horrific and fantastical elements of her story. (She is also immediately condescending about anyone who dares question her story - if she has nothing to hide and it is all truthful, why would she need to be so aggressively defensive about her version of events?) She also admits to being violent with her partner, which does her no favours. (And as many other reviewers have mentioned, it's worth reading up on the case of Sarah spitting at a hospital nurse and potentially infecting her with Hepatitis C as has been reported in the news - she is clearly no angel.)

7) The fact that her description of the Red Light District in Amsterdam is actually highly inaccurate, and anyone who has been there should be able to verify the author has greatly distorted this for sensationalist purposes. I have been to the RLD as a tourist (naturally this book had me feeling ashamed at having done so, and while I question its accuracy I have no intention of going there again) and the girls in the windows appear perfectly healthy, fit, attractive and seemingly happy there. It is quite likely that the latter point is an act they have mastered in order to keep drawing punters in, but even so it is not an act that a hopeless junkie would be physically or mentally capable of pulling off convincingly. In short, there is no way that these women are simply 'living on a diet of drugs and m&ms' as Sarah claims; her description is more akin to the disease-ridden and drug-addicted prostitutes you are more likely to find walking the streets of any big city. Likewise Sarah is extremely demeaning of the punters who visit the girls and even the tourists who pass through the area, she basically says they are all evil and feelingless, knowingly raping the girls. While I do not deny there are many men of this nature who use prostitutes, it appeared to me that most punters and tourists in this particular area are quite ordinary people - either local businessmen, young lads on a stag do or nervous young men looking naively for a decadent thrill - not the kind of people who would in any sense wish any harm on the girls or disrespect their humanity, rather just normal people under the naive impression that there is no criminal element to the RLD and thinking the girls are content in their jobs. I do not deny for a minute that these criminal elements exist and that many of the girls are there against their will, there have been too many stories of this nature to refute it, but the nastier elements of Amsterdam's RLD present themselves in a far more subtle form than this book would have you believe.

With these concerns in mind, I conducted some background research online into the case. The episode of The Cook Report that featured Sarah is available to view online and would seem to corroborate the bare bones of her story, also featuring her diary entries that are quoted in the book, but certain sources - namely the aforementioned news article about her spitting at a nurse, as well as the refutations of the story by posters on fleshtrade.blogspot.com claiming to have known Sarah, and the online conduct of co-writer Tim Tate, cast huge doubts on the truthfulness of 90% of the details. While it does appear reasonably likely that John Reece did pimp her out and abuse her, and was convicted of such (though it is extremely curious that there is not one single news story about his conviction online), whether or not he and Sally actually 'kidnapped' her or forced her into the work she did is debatable, while it is quite likely there was more to her and Sally's (there is good evidence online that Sally's real name is Esther) relationship at the start than the book claims, and as for the more horrific and nightmarish elements of the story - namely the Yugoslav pimps Gregor and Pavlov, the dogs (Pavlov's dog anyone?) being fed human flesh, and the murder of the poor Thai girl in a snuff movie - there is no evidence that these things ever happened at all or that the aforementioned pimps even existed. I do not dispute that such things do happen, nor the fact that there are many unfortunate girls who are made to live through this kind of hell. I just see no evidence that Sarah Forsyth is one of them. The online conduct of Tim Tate, himself an investigative journalist and author, is also frequently questionable and unprofessional. Whilst he has previously been successfully sued for distorting truths in a publication ("Children For the Devil", in which his central claims, while not discredited, are based heavily on speculation and not hard evidence), he appears to scour the net looking for negative reviews of his work and posting aggressive personal attacks on anyone who dares voice a negative opinion or question him. Not the approach of a respectable journalist so much as a sensationalist who gladly distorts truths and embellishes details for the sake of causing a stir - which also explains why a lot of Slave Girl reads more like a badly-written Hollywood movie plot than a true-life account. While Sarah Forsyth herself may have a knack for compulsive lies and exaggerations, it seems this - along with whatever genuine suffering she has been through - is being exploited by Tate in an effort to line his own pockets; thus he is effectively pimping her out in his own way for his own financial gain. If I am wrong and Sarah's story is true, and Tate is indeed making a genuine effort to expose and overcome the all-too-real evil of human trafficking and slavery, then I wholeheartedly apologize. But the evidence suggests this particular story needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt, and Tate's unprofessional conduct certainly does no favours for himself, nor for the thousands of genuine victims of sex trafficking or the people who are genuinely working to overcome this cruel trade. In getting to the root of and combating the evils of human trafficking, there is only room for truth, and definitely not outright lies and exaggerations concocted for self-serving purposes.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this book is like nothing else i have read before, a first person account of being kidnapped, this book genuinly makes you see the seedy city of Amsterdam in a different light, I really think this book should be read to all teenagers at school to show how cruel the world can be and it shows what can happen to young people who travel abroad alone. before i read this book i did want to experiance Amsterdam, but now I would never set foot in such a cruel, false place.

[Shirley Visser-van der Schaaf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wat een vreselijk heftig verhaal. Leest goed weg, houdt je heel erg bezig. Soms betrapte ik mezelf op het gevoel ‘dit klinkt zo ongeloofwaardig’, waar ik me zelfs een beetje schuldig om voelde. Ik geef het drie sterren omdat ik het soms wat te plat vind geschreven en wat meer gevoel mis, alhoewel ik ook heel erg snap dat dat een stukje zelfbescherming is.

[Zsofia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ik heb haar eerste boek gelezen en die vond ik heel intrigerend. Uiteraard is het een verhaal waar je verbijsterd en niet happy van wordt. Ik had gehoopt dat het vervolg in dezelfde trend ging liggen maar dat was ´helaas´ niet het geval. Begrijp me niet verkeerd: heb redelijk wat bijgeleerd uit het boek. Jammergenoeg vond ik het heel repetitief en werden er zoveel cases neergeschreven die gelijkaardig verliepen. Historische feiten, cijfers, verslagen, het hield niet op en dit maakt van het boek eerder een naslagwerk. Ik voelde me als lezer ook aangevallen. Er werd veel met de vinger verwezen naar jou als lezer. Dat kwam heel beschuldigend en niet fijn over...

[De Rijdende Boekenwurm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ik vind het heel erg moeilijk om een review te schrijven over dit boek. Omdat het zo erg is wat Sarah heeft meegemaakt. Sarah wordt gedwongen om in de prostitutie te werken. Wat ze daar heeft moeten doorstaan mag helemaal niemand meemaken.

[J.J. Rodeo · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book claims to try to raise awareness about sex trafficking, but I have some doubts about this.
First of all, this book cannot be considered a real reliable source. It is supposed to be a first-hand account of a British woman who was a victim of forced prostitution. But from the outset, it is clear that the words are not coming from her. They are a words of a journalist who is using Sarah's story to convey his view.
Second, the message is that the sex trafficking and prostitution is merely the fault of governments and crime gangs, and that the women are just mindless victims who had made some innocent mistakes and now have to suffer. This is just ridiculous and I believe that this is an insult to women to suppose that they have no role in their predicament. Few women are so gullible to be deceived so easily. I imagine that most of them are aware that there are some risks, and when they put their fate in the hands of the others, they are somehow a complicit in the crime. Not that they deserve the horrible fate of slavery, but many of them are not as innocent as this book presumes.
Third, I really doubt that the people involved in publishing this book merely wanted to convey a message. I can imagine that this book must have been very controversial and that it had sold a lot of copies. Therefore that publishers must have gained a lot of profit. And most of this profit is because of a detailed depiction of the rape and torture of a stupid British girl. I cannot see how this book is different from the snuff films that the book pretends to condemn.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult book to read. The very subject of it is so sensitive. Human trafficking, sex slavery. Things still so common even in modern societies but so much pushed aside and not really talked about, at least not as much as they should be. So it's great to have that book, it's great that Sarah was brave enough to fight her way back home and to the society. It's great that she was willing to relive her experiences again and again to show us that there are still people out there who are being trafficked, sold as slaves, pushed into prostitution and addiction, and not just in third world countries but in countries like England or Holland. People, who we fail to see, for many different reasons, people who so need our help, the help that we don't give and we should give. There is so much to be done to stop all that happening so thank you, Sarah, for showing us, for sharing your journey, and I do hope that more will be done to help girls and women, but also men, who suffered and will suffer as much as you did.

[♥ Marlene♥]

OMG. I believe that she was a raam prostituut here in Amsterdam but I also believe she did this out of her own free will, or because she needed drugs.

Yes I know there have been women who were abused and forced to sell themselves but Sarah is not one of those.

I know a girl who some days hired a room there where she then sold herself to get money for drugs. She still looked very pretty. She was only 20. (alas she also died of an accidental overdose that year)
That happened 10 years before this so called story happened but she was not forced into having a pimp and I do not think she earned 100 guilders for 10 minutes. Lol That alone could tell you it was fake.

to be continued

[Anouk Schouwink · Rating 2 out of 5]

Het onderwerp van dit boek trok mij meteen aan: hoe een Engels meisje die solliciteert op een baan bij een kindercrèche in Amsterdam en eindigt in de prostitutie.
Het boek begint meteen met de omschrijving van de heftige jeugd van Sarah. Nadat ze een advertentie ziet in een roddelblad van haar moeder was ze meteen verkocht. Weg uit het kleine dorpje in Engeland en voor een nieuwe frisse start naar Amsterdam. Meteen bij aankomst blijkt dit een grote fout.

In het boek word omschreven hoe Sarah is opgegroeid en hoe zij de tijd in de rosse buurt heeft overleefd en wat voor verschrikkelijke gebeurtenissen zij heeft meegemaakt maar ook hoe zij heeft weten te ontsnappen.

Waarom 2 ⭐️? Dit heeft er vooral mee te maken dat misschien het boek wat verouderd is om in deze tijd te lezen en omdat ik twijfel aan bepaalde situaties die omschreven zijn omdat ik niet wil/ kan geloven dat dit gebeurt/ is gebeurd. Verder is zij zeer negatief over alles wat er in Nederland heeft plaatsgevonden. Het lijkt door het boek net alsof heel de stad Amsterdam een corrupte boel vol met loverboys, pooiers en politie zit, die misbruikt maakt van hun positie en massaal prostituees verkrachten.

[Leni Crommelinck · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Mooi’ is hier het foute woord, maar toch. Zo schrijnende problematiek.

[Frankie Yates · Rating 2 out of 5]

* POSSIBLE SPOILERS *


I had wanted to read this for a long long time and am giving it 2 stars because it was a very interesting and gripping read, I really struggled to put it down and finished it in 2 days.

However, I am not convinced that the events that took place were true and have gone on to do some research. I don't disbelieve the abuse from her father, but the rest I'm unsure of.
I won't go into too much detail why I thought so because many other reviewers have the same opinions as myself, but will state a few points below:

- Wherever Sarah went, dogs were used as a threat towards her. I found this to be a strange coincidence.
- She apparently survived on only drugs and M & M's for the entire time (over a year).
- There was a journalist heavily involved in writing this book, which makes me think that the story has probably been heavily exaggerated if it were true anyway. Tate goes around finding bad reviews and comment on on them trying to start an argument.
- Sarah says she went on to date Sally for a while and assist her in running a brothel. Do I even need to explain this one?!?!
- She also says she escaped from a detention centre, went to the police and explained she didn't want to be there and they were fine with it and sent her somewhere else. That doesn't sound right to me at all.
- There was also a 'sequel' written, which makes me think this is more about money and publicity than anything else.
- Also there's a guy called Pavlov who has dogs. That just sounds like it was made to be a joke. Pavlov's dogs, really?

I do believe she was pimped out by John Reese, but not so sure that he kidnapped her. She may have even gone over to Amsterdam by choice, possibly for research to write this book. I cannot find any information at all on John Reese or his conviction.

On fleshtrade.blogspot there are many comments from people who claim to know Sarah personally and someone claiming to be Sally, saying that Sarah is a compulsive liar. There are comments from someone who claims to have been at the care home with her and says she ruined the workers lives by falsely accusing them of abuse, 'Sally' also says that Sarah returned to England with her before running back to Amsterdam on her own to continue prostituting herself.
Sarah also intentionally tried to give a nurse hepatitis C by spitting into her mouth (just google it).
As much as I wouldn't wish this to happen to anyone, I really hope someone wouldn't go to this extent to lie about such things.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dit is echt een boek wat je in één ruk uit leest, en ook wilt lezen.
Ik wilde het boek gewoon niet weg leggen omdat ik met eigen ogen wilde lezen dat het goed af zou lopen met Sarah.

Het is zeker geen literair hoogstandje, maar wel een erg heftig verhaal om te lezen.
Haar jeugd begint al erg heftig door het misbruik door haar bloedeigen vader.
Dan denk je gered te zijn om door naar een kindertehuis te gaan; moet je diezelfde ellende ondergaan door de mensen die daar zijn om jou te beschermen en niet nog meer leed aan te doen dan je al geleden hebt.
Het gedeelte wat zich afspeelt in Amsterdam was voor mij nog een tikkie heftiger om te lezen.
Dat dit zich afspeelde in een land als Nederland is gewoon onvoorstelbaar.
In ons Nederland, waar ik als ik voor mezelf spreek mijzelf altijd veilig en beschermd voel.
Het is zo bizar dat dit zich praktisch onder je neus zich afspeelt.
Het boek liet ook weinig aan de verbeelding over. De details werden gewoon omschreven zoals ze waren, en vooral niet "vriendelijker" omschreven.
Dat bezorgde zeker af en toe wel een kippenvel / gruwelmoment. Dat mensen dit elkaar aandoen.. onbegrijpelijk.

Het enige minpunt van dit boek vond ik dat de hoofdstukken af en toe voor mijn gevoel "afgeraffeld" werden.
Van Amsterdam naar het einde van het verhaal ging voor mijn gevoel best snel.

Totaal is mijn eindcijfer ook wel een 4/5

Zeker een aanrader om dit boek eens te lezen!

[Sabrina Rutter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been searching for many years for just this book. I was always curious to read a first person account of someone who has been forced into the sex industry.From other things I have read and documentaries I have watched on this subject this woman's story rings true to me. She is honest about things she doesn't even have to bring to light.
From the age of three Sarah Forsyth was sexually abused by her father, around the age of eleven she was removed from her abusive father and placed in a care home only to find the same abuse awaited her there.
After surviving her nightmare childhood she follows her dream to care for children and goes to school to become a nursery nurse. Everything was going great for Sarah for the first time in her life until her relationship fell apart and she ended up moving back home to her mother.
While dreaming of a fresh start Sarah comes across an add that seems to be to good to be true. The sad thing is it really was to good to be true.
If your interested in reading about a real survivor of human trafficking then you wont want to miss this book.

[Jordin Ley · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly surprised at all the bad reviews, and thinking it’s fake? this book was a HARD read.
even if all of the specific events weren’t exactly accurate, people need to realize that this stuff actually happened, to someone, and continues to happen.
insane read.
highly recommend, but it is a tough one.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing.
The contents add very little to the preceding novel and were repetitive to the point that it felt like a long lecture. A shame, really, because this topic is very important and generally glossed over.

[Chaeyenne · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Mijn leven in de hel” is zonder twijfel een van de meest aangrijpende boeken die ik heb gelezen. De schrijfstijl is ontzettend meeslepend en indringend. Het is een ontzettend heftig verhaal. Zeker een aanrader.

[George Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A raw and harrowing read that stayed with me.

I finished Slave Girl in just three days — not because it was easy, but because I couldn’t put it down. Sarah Forsyth’s account of being trafficked from England to Amsterdam and forced into the sex trade is a deeply disturbing chapter in a life already marked by abuse and hardship.

My partner recommended the book when I mentioned wanting to read more, and though I had never heard of Sarah’s story, I was gripped from the very beginning.

Reading it in 2025, I wasn’t shocked by the events — not because they weren’t horrific, but because sadly, these kinds of stories are all too familiar. That in itself is heartbreaking. Sarah’s journey evoked a complex mix of emotions: disbelief, sadness, anger, hopelessness, and disgust — not just at what happened to her, but at the world that allows these things to continue.

What stands out most is Sarah’s strength in retelling her trauma — again and again — to the police, her loved ones, publishers, and now, readers. There’s a misconception that sharing trauma makes it easier to bear. In truth, for many survivors, every retelling is a re-living. Sarah’s bravery in doing so is undeniable.

Having visited Amsterdam years ago and seen the Red Light District briefly, I never believed that all sex workers there were happy or truly consenting — but this book reaffirmed the unsettling reality behind the façade. Legal doesn’t always mean ethical, and what’s seen as a “normal” tourist experience can hide a world of abuse. Sarah’s story reminds us that not everything is as it seems, and that ignorance — willful or not — only helps injustice thrive.

Reading other reviews, I saw some people questioning the truth of her story. To those doubters: unless you were there, unless you’ve lived through something similar, who are you to judge? Trauma can affect memory, storytelling, and behavior. Dismissing someone’s lived experience because it doesn’t fit your expectations is part of the problem — and exactly what Sarah warns about in her book.

In the end, Slave Girl is a painful but powerful read. Sarah holds herself accountable for more than she should, which only makes her story more human. Whether or not you believe every detail, her courage in telling it deserves respect.

[Courtney McGhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was heavy. This book really put things in perspective for someone. I have never just sat and been so thankful for my life as I did after reading this book. It’s scary to see how easy it is for girls to end up in the sex industry and not be able to get out. I know I’m never going to Amsterdam that’s for sure. Not only do they have the red light district but they have a police system that is corrupt and not willing to help. It’s absolutely terrifying that this is the reality for hundreds of women and it’s just not fair or okay.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've based my score purely on the writing and not the story.
Sarah was very brave to write what she did and survive what she did. I know there is a lot of people that don't believe her and I don't think that's right. I do believe it and even if I didn't, who am I to say anything, as if someone had to go through what she did, it makes it all the worse not to be believed

[Delia Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening. Never thought things like that happened I hope they found and imprisoned the pims.

Very eye opening never thought that things like that happened hope they found all the the pond and imprisoned them for a very long time

[Joanne Rolston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I visited the red light area of Amsterdam one night back in 1980 as a tourist and now wish I hadn't stared at the women in the windows. I didn't know about trafficking. The book is a real eye opener.
I recommend it. I hope it serves as a warning to vulnerable young women like Sarah.

[Kasia Krajewska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bardzo smutna historia. Ciekawa jestem czy nadal tak sie dzieje w Amsterdamie. Patrzymy na dziewczyny "za szybami" i zastanawiamy sie jaka jest ich historia. A co tak naprawde sie dzieje "za zaslonami" to tylko wiedza one...

[Denise Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book from start to finish, pulls at the heart strings

[Lindsay Paterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing read told with no self pity warts and all

[Esther · Rating 3 out of 5]

Het boek was oke. Het verhaal indrukwekkend.

[Jeddy B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another tough read but another important one, might treat myself to something feel good next though

[Maud Koershuis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zoveel pijn en leed waar we geen weet van hebben....

[Mascha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heel heftig maar goed geschreven