They promised me I'd work in an apple orchard. Instead, they took me to a club.

This is the story of a male victim of the sex trade. He is currently 48 years old, and from the age of 37 to 41 he was a sex worker in Amsterdam.

"I came from Senegal in 2002. A man brought me here. He saw my condition. I was suffering. He said he would help. He said he could help me get abroad. I could get on a plane and get a job, I could be a better man. I agreed, so they took me with them.

They promised me I'd work in an apple orchard. Instead, they took me to a club. People came to me. I wondered why there were only men, not women. The men started to touch me. "What?" I said. "I'm not doing this!?" They told me I had to. I didn't know anyone, I was scared, so I followed their orders. I did this in Amsterdam for four years. Sometimes I get (still) terrible dreams; people chasing me, and demons...

I intend to go to my country as spokesman. If I'm threatened, I can come back here. In Africa they don't have courts and the middlemen have money. They pay the judge, they pay the police, they pay all those people with authority and you get no protection. But if I have my documents, I can go back and then I'll tell them everything. If they threaten me, I'll go back. If I go without documentation, I have a very big problem.

The problem arises because of the poverty there. Because whatever you tell the poor people there, they're tempted. The traders will come. You always see them with a different car, you see how they spend money and you want to live a life like that. All I want to do is help those poor people in Africa. Their eyes are blind and they close their ears. Human traffickers and anyone who helps them should be prosecuted. ‘

With many thanks to artist-activist Jimini Hignett for making her photos available to us from one of her ongoing projects with survivors of the sex industry. These self-portraits, painted on paper bags, show how they see themselves.