Discovering she was adopted was hard enough, but finding out her own mother had been the one to pluck her from her cot in the middle of the night and sell her to strangers for £250 was a truth too appalling to contemplate.

“I was two when my real mother sold me on without a kiss or hug goodbye,” says Marina, now 34.

But her sad tale doesn’t end there.

Earlier this month it was revealed that her Italian mother, Caterina Annarumma, had shamelessly admitted to selling 12 children born from an illicit long-term affair she had with a married man.

The children were sold via a middle woman known as ‘La Tata’ (The Nanny).

But this is not a tale of desperate parents in a developing country forced into handing their children over to ruthless traffickers.

Marina was born in one of the most affluent regions of southern Italy near the Amalfi coast, known as a playground for the rich and famous.

Yet despite this, many of its inhabitants live in poverty, including Marina’s mother.

Caterina (left), now 70, has never worked and sold her first child, a boy, in 1961, for 500,000 lire – which was a small fortune then, worth the equivalent of about £250.

She was 23 and having an affair with a married man, Nicola Stanzione, now 74.

The couple went on to have 12 more children, between then and 1979.

They kept just one, their last, a boy named Gerardo who still lives nearby, and used much of the money they made from selling their children to pay off their mounting debts.

They married in 1988.

Marina was six when she discovered she was adopted, but it was only last year, after coming out of an eight-year relationship, that she decided to find her birth mother.

Using information provided by her adoptive family, Marina, a psychologist, tracked down her birth parents in January.

“When she opened the door it was like looking in a mirror.

"We stared at each other in silence, until I blurted out: ‘Hello, I think I’m your daughter.’

“We both burst into tears and went inside.

"As we talked, she admitted she had sold me and my 11 brothers and sisters over a period of nearly 20 years.

"She said it was out of love for us, that she wanted us to have a better future than the one she or my father could offer us.

“He was there too and kept telling me to call Caterina ‘Mamma’.

"How can a mother sell her child then 32 years later expect to be called ‘Mamma’?”

Since that day, Marina, who is single and has no children of her own, has tracked down most of her siblings.

“I grew up thinking I was an only child and missed out on all the things brothers and sisters do with each other,” she says.

“I want us to have a family reunion, but some of them aren’t interested and have asked me not to contact them again.

"I understand – why would they want to see the mother who sold them?”

Meanwhile, Caterina, with whom Marina intends to keep in touch, has tried to justify her actions, saying: “We lived in a hovel then and all I wanted was to give my children a better life.

"What was I supposed to do? Kill the babies?”

Italian police say that because the offences happened more than 20 years ago, it’s unlikely Caterina will now be charged with child trafficking.

Marina and her adoptive mother have discussed what happened.

Marina explains: “She said she bought me because they couldn’t have children of their own.

"I don’t begrudge them that – they’re the most wonderful people in the world.”

Have you discovered a secret in your family? What would you have done if you were in Marina's position? Do you sympathise with her mother at all? If you were adopted, would you want to find out about your birth parents?

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Photography: Nick Cornish, Tano Press