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Veronique White and Antonio Carvelli, probably photographed around the time of their wedding, in Wellington, in January, 1910; The RMS Tainui, aboard which Lydia Harvey sailed back to New Zealand, in October, 1910, before soon disappearing again, to Australia. A photograph of Oamaru from about the time Lydia Harvey's family moved there from Dunedin in the early 1890s. PHOTOS: SUPPLIED

Oamaru teenager Lydia Harvey disappeared in early 1910, only to turn up months later as a key witness in a high-profile London sex-trafficking case. More than a century later, her life has much to say about pressing issues today, historian Julia Laite tells Bruce Munro.