Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. True stories
  3. Heartbreaking stories

Read and listen for free for 42 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
4.2(78)

Trafficked Girl : Abused. Abandoned. Exploited. This Is My Story of Fighting Back.

When Zoe was taken into care at the age of 13, she thought she was finally going to escape from the cruel abuse she had suffered throughout her childhood. Then social services placed her in a residential unit known to be 'a target for prostitution', and suddenly Zoe's life was worse than it had ever been before.

Abused and ostracized by her mother, humiliated by her father’s sexual innuendos, physically assaulted and bullied by her eldest brother, even as a young child Zoe thought she deserved the desperately unhappy life she was living.

‘I’ve sharpened a knife for you,’ her mother told her the first time she noticed angry red wounds on her daughter’s arms. And when Zoe didn’t kill herself, her mother gave her whisky, which she drank in the hope that it would dull the miserable, aching loneliness of her life.

One day at school Zoe showed her teacher the livid bruises that were the result of her mother’s latest physical assault and within days she was taken into care.

Zoe had been at Denver House for just three weeks when an older girl asked if she’d like to go to a party, then took her to a house where there were just three men. Zoe was a virgin until that night, when two of the men raped her. Having returned to the residential unit in the early hours of the morning, when she told a member of staff what had happened to her, her social worker made a joke about it, then took her to get the morning-after pill.

For Zoe, the indifference of the staff at the residential unit seemed like further confirmation of what her mother had always told her – she was worthless. Before long, she realised that the only way to survive in the unit was to go to the ‘parties’ the older girls were paid to take her to, drink the drinks, smoke the cannabis and try to blank out what was done to her when she was abused, controlled and trafficked around the country.

No action was taken by the unit's staff or social workers when Zoe asked for their help, and without anyone to support or protect her, the horrific abuse continued for the next few years, even after she left the unit. But in her heart Zoe was always a fighter. This is the harrowing, yet uplifting story, of how she finally broke free of the abuse and neglect that destroyed her childhood and obtained justice for her years of suffering.


Authors:

  • Zoe Patterson
  • Jane Smith

Narrator:

  • Una Byrne

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 7 h 3 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • True stories
  • Heartbreaking stories

4.2

78 ratings

Anna

27/06/2023

Touching, terrifying, heartfelt story of an incredible survivor.

To write a review you need to download the app


Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. Enslaved : My True Story of Survival

    Emily Vaughn

    audiobook
  2. Nowhere to Hide : Trapped, abused and sold for sex

    Hannah Morgan

    audiobook
  3. Violated : A shocking and harrowing survival story from the notorious Rotherham abuse scandal

    Sarah Wilson

    audiobook
  4. Wounds of the Father

    Elizabeth Garrison

    audiobook
  5. Just a Girl : A shocking true story of child abuse

    Scarlett Jones

    audiobook
  6. Against My Will : Groomed, trapped and abused. This is my true story of survival.

    Sophie Crockett, Douglas Wight

    audiobook
  7. If You Love Me : True love. True terror. True story.

    Alice Keale

    audiobook
  8. Becky : The Heartbreaking Story of Becky Watts by Her Father Darren Galsworthy

    Darren Galsworthy

    audiobook
  9. Never a Hero To Me: An innocent girl. A father's sins. And the men who closed ranks against her

    Tracy Black

    book
  10. Not a Proper Child

    Elizabeth Sheppard, Nicky Nicholls

    audiobook
  11. Who Are You? : With one click she found her perfect man. And he found his perfect victim. A true story of the ultimate deception.

    Megan Henley, Linda Watson Brown

    audiobook
  12. I Survived : I married a charming man. Then he tried to kill me. A true story.

    Victoria Cilliers

    audiobook

  • 1 book

    Zoe Patterson

    Zoe Patterson is 29 and a qualified personal trainer. Having discovered that she has a natural talent for boxing, Zoe is about to start training as a boxing coach in the hope of being able to help other women who have been disadvantaged in some way to improve their self-esteem and create positive futures for themselves.

    Read more

  • 3 books

    Jane Smith

    Jane Smith is a ghostwriter and author of more than 30 published books, including numerous Sunday Times top ten bestsellers.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5