‘The trauma lasts for life’: Author and psychologist visits Hackney charity to launch novel about child trafficking

Angela Karanja (right) launches her new book at AFRUCA. Photograph: courtesy Angela Karanja

Author and adolescent psychologist Angela Karanja officially launched her new book in Hackney last week.

Smuggled follows the story of Tuliana, a young woman transported from a village in Kenya to be illegally adopted by a family in the UK, and the teenagers who notice something isn’t right and sound the alarm.

Karanja discussed the book at last week’s launch event, organised by AFRUCA, a charity that works in Black and ethnic minority communities to protect and safeguard children from abuse, modern slavery and exploitation.

“The issues in the book are so prevalent and it’s important we talk about them,” she said.

The book looks at how modern slavery can happen right under people’s noses, with victims often not being aware that they are victims and onlookers not seeing the full extent of the power dynamics at play.

“Child trafficking, exploitation, and modern-day child slavery is a painfully huge global concern,” Karanja explained. “More surprising is how this menacing crime easily happens right next door to us, under our noses.

“When something like this happens to a kid, can you imagine the trauma? And the trauma lasts for life.

“This is why I stepped out to write something like this. I want people to have the courage to say ‘This isn’t right, and I’m going to report it’.”

Asked about how young people can protect each other from trafficking, Karanja responded: “What I would say to them is to look out – you will be surprised what you notice about other children. They tend to know other kids’ situations and what I want them to do is native to other kids’ situations.”

Karanja was born in Kenya and now lives in Oxfordshire. After studying at the University of Bedfordshire, she founded the organisation Raising Remarkable Teenagers, where she is lead psychologist.

Smuggled is the product of her work with teenagers, which led her to learn about the child trafficking industry.

“The book is presented in such imagery, it’s so real, it’s so palpable,” she said. “If it weren’t for the people I worked with I wouldn’t have this language, I wouldn’t know their thoughts, I wouldn’t know their feelings.”

Smuggled was published on 19 August and hit the top of the Amazon bestseller list in three categories, both in the UK and in the US.

Karanja has received swathes of positive feedback on her book, and described how she doesn’t let critics get her down.

She said: “I think of my critics as crickets. Crickets come out when the moon comes out – when the moon is shining, crickets come out.

“Has the moon ever said it won’t come out just because there are crickets?”