Escaping slavery in modern Britain: Hadi's story
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2020
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Hadi took a trip to England, she only planned to stay for a couple of weeks. What eventuated was far more sinister: exploited by British traffickers, she was trapped as a domestic slave. This is the story of Hadi's escape.
The full digital story is here. This podcast was brought to you thanks to the support of readers of The Times and The Sunday Times. Subscribe today and get one month free at: thetimes.co.uk/storiesofourtimes.
Guests:
Hadi, chef.
Venetia Menzies, photographer journalist for The Times.
Host: David Aaronovitch.
This podcast was brought to you thanks to subscribers of The Times and The Sunday Times. To enjoy unlimited digital access to all our journalism subscribe here.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to an edition of Stories of Our Times. |
| 0:03.6 | Just a quick warning, this episode does contain some strong language. |
| 0:08.0 | When Hardy took a trip to England, she planned only to stay for a couple of weeks. |
| 0:15.0 | But it turned out she was visiting the wrong people. |
| 0:19.0 | The woman you met... |
| 0:21.0 | sold you to me, and I've paid a lot of money for you and now you're |
| 0:25.6 | going to show me that you're worth it. Instead of the Tower of London, a ticket to |
| 0:30.6 | Les Miz and a flight back home, Hardy ended up spending five years in Bedford in a family home, but not as an honored guest. |
| 0:40.0 | Things were very horrible. Some Sometimes I don't eat. It threatened me like I was the slave. |
| 0:47.0 | You're listening to stories of our times. I'm David Aromovich. Today, Hardy's story, slavery in modern Britain. I decided to ask Kadi to cook for me because when I first met her I could see that the moment that she really lit up was when she was speaking about her passion for cooking. |
| 1:25.0 | I love cooking. |
| 1:28.0 | I start to cooking again for people. |
| 1:30.0 | Start to being happy. |
| 1:31.0 | It's a passion Hardy learned from watching her grandfather. |
| 1:34.8 | I'm just sitting there and looking in him. |
| 1:37.2 | The way he's cooked is just amazing me. |
| 1:39.7 | It's so joy. |
| 1:49.0 | She's 32 now, so she's only a little bit older than myself. She was very calm and articulate and sweet and patient. She cooked me three Gambian dishes. |
| 1:56.0 | The first was some Gambian mackerel parcels, |
| 1:58.0 | which were almost like fried dumplings that were incredibly |
| 2:01.0 | delicious. |
| 2:02.0 | And the main event was a Gambian peanut stew called Dumada. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.