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When they assessed her case, British immigration officials knew that Katya, a vulnerable year-old from Moldova, had been trafficked and forced into prostitution, but ruled that she would face no real danger if she was sent back. Days after her removal from the UK, her traffickers tracked her down to the Moldovan village where she had grown up. She was gang-raped, strung up by a rope from a tree, and forced to dig her own grave. One of her front teeth was pulled out with a pair of pliers. Shortly afterwards she was re-trafficked, first to Israel and later back to the UK. The Home Office decision last week to pay her substantial damages has raised serious questions about the way Britain treats trafficked women. The Moldovan woman was first kidnapped by traffickers when she was 14, repeatedly sold on to pimps and other traffickers, and forced to work as a prostitute for seven years in Italy, Turkey, Hungary, Romania, Israel and the UK.

Every year more than 6, children aged between 12 and 16 are smuggled into western Europe to work as prostitutes and drug traffickers or to beg, the children's charity Terre des Hommes said. Around 2 million juveniles worldwide fall victim to people-smugglers every year, it said. Researchers have identified north-eastern Italy as a key sorting centre for girls from eastern Europe who are either sold by their parents, kidnapped by organised crime gangs, or lured abroad by the mirage of a better life. Last year girls managed to escape from their exploiters and seek assistance from the Italian state.

Moldova is a small country surrounded by Romania and Ukraine. This former Soviet republic was known for its agricultural production, as the breadbasket of the USSR. Today, Moldova is regarded as the poorest country in Europe. Moldova is primarily a source country for victims of human trafficking, who are frequently forced to become sex workers in the Middle East. The region that is currently the Republic of Moldova has had a tumultuous history.