Author Zoe Patterson on her memoir Trafficked Girl,
Forced into sex slavery, author fights back and finds her voice
I felt like I needed to do something with what I’d been through — to get something positive out of it. Otherwise, it would all be pointless. I couldn’t live with that. It couldn’t be for nothing.
Trafficked Girl:
My Story of Fighting Back Zoe Patterson, with Jane Smith HarperCollins Canada
Zoe Patterson was 13 when she was placed in a residential care home in the English midlands.
She was hoping that finally she would find protection from the family abuse she had suffered throughout her childhood.
Instead, she had been at Denver House for only three weeks when an older resident named Abbie invited her to a party.
But there was no party. Instead, she was taken to a house where two men raped her.
When she tearfully told carehome officials what had happened, her social worker made a joke about it and arranged for her to take a morning-after pill.
Patterson tries to remain calm when talking about this incident. But her voice trembles when she’s asked how well she coped with reliving it during the writing of her explosive new book, Trafficked Girl.
“Oh, that was really difficult,” she says after a moment of silence. For years, she had remained quiet about the horrors of her early life. “But when working with my ghostwriter, I had to say things out loud.”
Sometimes, the pain was too much to put into speech. “It was sometimes easier for me to write it down for her because it was so difficult for me to talk about.”
Patterson doesn’t just feel anguish about her past. She also feels anger toward a system that let her down so atrociously. Social services had placed this 13-year-old child in a care home already known by authorities to be a target for prostitution rings.
And she quickly learned that the only way she could survive there was to keep going to the parties, drink the booze, smoke the weed and submit to unspeakable sexual abuse — often on a nightly basis. She was terrified of retribution from 15-yearold Abbie if she refused. So she allowed Abbie to continue selling her to men for sex.
She was being trafficked around the country while those responsible for her well-being looked the other way. When she sought help, no action was taken by home staff, social workers or even the police.
“These were all people who had the opportunity to do something — to show just a small amount of caring,” she says bitterly. “It would have made such a difference in my life — even if it was for only a day — and it didn’t happen. It was all so easily preventable. I can see that now, and that’s what makes me angry.”
She learned later that social services personnel were already aware of Denver House’s murky reputation before she was moved there — but did nothing.
“We were made to feel that we were less than human.”
Denver House is not the real name of the infamous care home that sanctioned sex trafficking. And “Zoe Patterson” is a pseudonym for the young woman chatting on the phone from an unidentified town in central England. There is no chance for a face-to-face interview with the author of this book, now published in Canada. And no identifiable author photograph will be provided either.
“But I’m not someone in hiding,” Patterson says. “The thing is — the book is not about me. It’s about the story. It’s about the importance of believing in yourself.”
At the same time, she stresses the essential contribution of her ghostwriter, Jane Smith, in making this harrowing memoir happen.
“I felt like I needed to do something with what I’d been through — to get something positive out of it. Otherwise, it would all be pointless. I couldn’t live with that. It couldn’t be for nothing.”
Patterson has successfully sued the local authorities responsible for the care home in question. However, her book also reveals that by the time she was placed in the home she was already emotionally damaged child.
When she was four, her mother who had disliked Zoe from birth, kicked her downstairs. Her father showed an unhealthy interest in her, and so did her grandfather, who started making her dress up in provocative clothing when she was little.
The physical and emotional abuse at her mother’s hands was the worst. There were days when she was forced to sit for hours in the middle of her bedroom floor, forbidden even to have even a toy. There was the denial of access to a toilet so that she would soil her clothing and then be punished for it. There were the outbursts of violence from a drunken mother who would beat her head against the floor — while her brothers and father looked on.
When Patterson started cutting herself, her mother urged her on, saying “I’ve sharpened a knife for you.” And by 12, she’d started drinking — the whisky being supplied to her by her own mom.
When a teacher at Patterson’s school saw bruises on her a body, the authorities were called in. It was then that she was placed in the care home that she pathetically imagined would provide a blessed release from her torment. Instead it spawned new horrors.
Even after she was older and living on her own, the emotional pain continued.
“I was very lonely for so many years,” she says. “It was such a painful place to be in because I kept reaching out. I was trying to help myself — but there was no help.”
At 30, she believes she is now rebuilding her life. She has dealt with her drinking problem and come to to terms with her sexuality — she’s gay. And she’s happy and secure in a career as a boxing coach and physical trainer.
“I always admired boxing and wanted to give it a go. Then, when I was 21 and finally started trying to build my self-esteem I found I was good at it.”
But there were times on her road to recovery when she wondered whether she would ever be able to heal. A decisive moment came when she gained access to her own social service records. She learned for the first time about the grandmother who — anxious to protect Patterson’s granddad from accusations of pedophilia — kept reiterating to authorities that this child was an inveterate liar. That was tough enough for her to read, but even worse was the revelation that the authorities had filed away notes she used to leave in her room with pathetic pleas for help and details of addresses and car registration numbers so they might know where to start looking for her if she didn’t return.
She burst into tears as she read these words from all those years ago “because I knew by then that the staff had read them too and still did nothing to help me.”
Nevertheless reading those files was like a dash of cold water. Shocking as they were, they marked her first step to recovery.
“I was struggling with alcohol addiction ... and other things,” she says.
“It was a nightmare. But looking at those files was like taking ownership of everything and deciding that I was a person, as good as anybody else — but that it was up to me to do something about it.”
I’m not someone in hiding. The thing is — the book is not about me. It’s about the story. It’s about the importance of believing in yourself.