A businesswoman has revealed the harsh realities and awful conditions of how she was trafficked as a child - and believes that others in Britain could have suffered the same fate.
Natalie Silva was adopted by parents in Hartlepool as a three-year-old during the civil war in El Salvador, which took place between 1979 and 1992.
During the height of the conflict, Natalie’s mum was tricked by traffickers who befriended her under the guise of helping to feed her three children – only to never return them.
“My father was fighting in the civil war, meaning my mum was left to fend for herself in raising us with no money. We were impoverished,” said Natalie, 41, and founder of Thumbs Up Marketing.
“A woman befriended her and prayed on the fact she was struggling. She offered to help by feeding and taking care of us but on one occasion we never returned.
“It was widespread during the war.
"Some children were given up by parents due to poverty, but often they were snatched by soldiers or traffickers and adopted abroad.”
On the PRsonal podcast, the entrepreneur shared the story and revealed the dramatic tale about how decades later she managed to track down her birth dad – although, her birth mum had already died.
As she continues to search for her two siblings – a younger brother and an older sister – she’s also appealing for help in raising awareness of the issue, which resulted in an unknown number of children being adopted by families in both the US and Europe.
In Natalie’s case, she was brought to the UK in 1986 by adoptive parents who had been “moved by the brutality of the war”.
“They’d wanted to adopt a little girl as they had two boys and were compelled to make a difference because of how many children had been displaced,” she said.
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They travelled to an orphanage in the Central American country to adopt Natalie, paying money to “give another child love” – believing the process was legal.
“They thought they were doing the best, and if they’d known the truth then they’d have been horrified.”
Now Natalie has shared her story in the hope that someone can “dig into the full scale of the scandal” – and believes the problem may have been bigger than anybody has yet to realise.
“Although I believe this may have impacted other Salvadoran adoptees from this time, it is a global issue potentially affecting adoptees in North America, Europe and possibly beyond,” she added.
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