Luminata was born and raised in Moldova. At the age of 25, she was living and working (entirely lawfully) at a restaurant in Italy. She began dating a frequent customer. After a few months, they got engaged. She met his family. He met hers. He travelled frequently to the United Kingdom for work and told her that he had a business in Glasgow: a restaurant that he wanted her to help him run. They flew to Scotland. Soon after arriving, Luminata became a prisoner in a brothel. After a few weeks of brutal grooming (by her ‘fiance’ and others), she was forced to have sex with fifteen men a day. She escaped by assaulting one of the clients (injuring him quite badly), stealing his wallet and sneaking out late at night. She took a train to Aberdeen and lived in a hotel room, using the stolen money. She was caught shoplifting and eventually disclosed her story to the police.

Luminata has many months of legal battles ahead of her. She may be prosecuted for assault and shoplifting. If her trafficker is investigated, and she is willing to cooperate, she will probably be the key witness in the case against him. She may seek compensation from her trafficker. She may seek asylum in the United Kingdom. She may need social support in Scotland, which will be linked to her residence status (or lack of residence status) and her asylum claim.

Luminata's situation places her at the centre of five geographically concentric legal orders: Scottish law, UK law, European Union (EU) law, Council of Europe law and United Nations (UN) law. All of these legal orders have introduced norms designed to protect her and punish her traffickers; some of these legal orders also pose obstacles to those goals.

Scottish criminal law (and perhaps also Italian criminal law) will apply to the investigation and prosecution of the trafficker (see, for example, the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2002); it will also apply to the decision on whether to prosecute Luminata for assault. EU asylum law, as transposed into UK law, will, to some extent, determine whether Luminata can stay in the United Kingdom.