Salima SY came to France at 17 to study in Paris but instead her mother's friend who was hosting her forced her to work at her house near Saint Germain en Laye seven days a week,

almost fifteen hours a day, without holidays or pay, in unacceptable conditions that flout the labor code and French legislation.

For four years and eight months, she slept on an old sofa bed in the children's room with two drawers for storing her things.

She lived in isolation, fear, despair, without direct contact with her family, without money, without papers because these had been confiscated from her by her landlady upon her arrival in France and no steps were taken. to extend their initial residence permit.

Thanks to the intervention of a social worker and a couple of journalists, she was able to escape and lodge a complaint before the Court of Saint Germain en Laye but without result, her landlady having returned to Dakar and left French territory.

To turn the page and thinking of all the other girls who have experienced the same situation as her, Salima had the courage to write her story and publish it.

“I wanted to send a strong message to citizens who know nothing about domestic slavery. I want them to know that girls like me are abused or kidnapped... For me it's a nice revenge. I mourned like this.

Salima SY became a member of the association, she lent us her face photographed in the studios of France-Télévision and she is an ardent militant of the cause supported by SOS-ESCLAVES; it is she who appears on our posters and all the documents of the association.

"Nobody wanted to believe me" Collection Testimonials I read n°8909

Hubert GASNOS