Cooking and eating together eases trauma for trafficked women:
Kathijee Wood, HR Administrator at anti-trafficking charity City Hearts, is helping survivors of modern slavery increase their confidence by teaching cooking as a life skill.
Forty-seven-year-old mum-of-two Kathijee, who is originally from South Africa, lives in Sheffield with her husband and their twins.
Growing up in Durban, with a mum and sisters who loved cooking inspired her to develop her culinary skills at a young age. Now she shares these with women who have been rescued from exploitation.
Kathijee also saw at first hand the hardships women could face. “I saw a lot of physical and sexual violence growing up. My desire to help women was sparked at a young age, but I didn’t know exactly how I could help until later in my life.”
After finishing school, Kathijee headed for the bright lights of Johannesburg and worked as a hostess on Greyhound buses travelling
around South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Twenty-three years ago, Kathijee and her husband arrived in London after which the latter's job in insurance took them to Sheffield where they have remained ever since.
They joined Hope City Church 11 years ago where she heard about City Hearts and was appointed to their operations team, taking care of every element of the recruitment process as well as delivering training to new employees.
Soon after joining the team and seeing the difference City Hearts is making to trafficked women’s lives, Kathijee decided to volunteer using her culinary skills.
“I couldn’t see myself being a counsellor, but I wanted to give something to help others and what I can offer is my cooking, so I try to use that to make a difference. I thought of cooking because it brings an element of fun and takes their minds off their trauma for a few hours.
"I notice when I go in every second Friday, the atmosphere quickly changes. Often when I meet the women who are new clients to our service, they are understandably very hesitant.
"They look up as I come in, then carry on with what they are doing. I go into the kitchen and once the sounds and smells come out, someone always says, ‘Do you need help? What can we do?’ Next minute they are laying the table and putting out the tealights.
"Some of these women are malnourished when they join us, so I always provide a starter, main and dessert. It’s a proper dinner party once a fortnight.
"I chose Friday because people love going out to celebrate the weekend on Fridays. They miss their friends and their old lives. I see how I can help bring a bit of that excitement back. By the time we get to dessert, they are laughing and talking to each other. One young woman brought her baby to the table and asked me to come back the following week for baby’s birthday party.
“One Friday when I walked into the safe house, one woman had a blanket over her head, another said she wasn’t going to cook, but soon after I started, she came into the kitchen to help and asked to borrow my apron! Later as we prepared the food side by side, she said cooking reminded her of happy times with her mum who she hadn’t seen for about five years.
"People often ask us why the survivors can’t just go back to their home countries. Sadly, it’s not that easy as there is a risk they could potentially be re-trafficked - even by their own families. Some could be killed.”
Government funding initially covers these survivors to be in the safe house for six weeks, so they get three of her delicious meals before they move into other provision, including their own homes.
“It is wonderful to be able to combine my love of cooking with my passion for helping others. I have always seen food as a way of bringing people together. I see all the women from different backgrounds come together to cook.
“My granny was one of those who didn’t grow up with much but would always share whatever she had. When our family gathered, everyone would bring something and there was always loads! My mum learned these skills from my gran - now I’m teaching my 12-year-old twins to cook; they especially love making pancakes at the moment. They know in our family, food is how we show love!”
Visit https://cityhearts.co.uk/donate
ACCOMPANYING PICTURE: Kathijee Wood by Charlene Dacre, City Hearts
Modern Slavery Fact Box
City Hearts is currently helping safeguard over 600 women, men and children at our four centres around the UK - assisting them to recover from the evils of Modern Slavery. Over the past 14 years, we have helped around 4,250 people to go on to lead fulfilling independent lives.
Today slavery is less about people literally owning other people – although that still exists – but more about being exploited and completely controlled by someone else, without being able to leave.
Someone is in slavery if they are:
· forced to work – through coercion, or mental or physical threat;
· owned or controlled by an ’employer’, through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse;
· dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as ‘property’;
· physically constrained or have restrictions placed on their freedom of movement.
The numbers:
In 2016, at any given time, an estimated 40.3 million people worldwide were in modern slavery, including 24.9 million in forced labour and 15.4 million people in forced marriage. 70% of these were women and girls (https://www.unseenuk.org/modern-slavery/facts-and-figures)
In 2017, among potential adult victims, the most common reported exploitation type was labour exploitation (44%) followed by sexual exploitation (39%)
Among potential child victims, the most common reported exploitation type was also labour exploitation (48%), followed by sexual exploitation (27%). This pattern was broadly similar to 2015 and 2016
In 2017, the most common country of origin reported for adult potential victims was Albania (19%) and for those exploited as children was the UK (32%)
In 2017, over 5,000 people were referred to British authorities as potential victims of slavery - up one third from 2016
UK nationals make the biggest group of potential victims
2016 saw the first conviction and sentencing of a British businessman for human trafficking (https://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/slavery-uk/)