Somaly Mam's Story.
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: September 24, 2008
World leaders are parading through New York this week for a United Nations General Assembly reviewing their (lack of) progress in fighting global poverty. That’s urgent and necessary, but what they aren’t talking enough about is one of the grimmest of all manifestations of poverty — sex trafficking.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Nicholas D. Kristof
Readers' Comments
"As long as women are few among world leaders, it will be hard to tackle a problem which men ... regard as a pleasant facility."
Barbara Reader, New York
·
This is widely acknowledged to be the 21st-century version of slavery, but governments accept it partly because it seems to defy solution. Prostitution is said to be the oldest profession. It exists in all countries, and if some teenage girls are imprisoned in brothels until they die of AIDS, that is seen as tragic but inevitable.
The perfect counterpoint to that fatalism is Somaly Mam, one of the bravest and boldest of those foreign visitors pouring into New York City this month. Somaly is a Cambodian who as a young teenager was sold to the brothels herself and now runs an organization that extricates girls from forced prostitution.
Now Somaly has published her inspiring memoir, “The Road of Lost Innocence,” in the United States, and it offers some lessons for tackling the broader problem.
In the past when I’ve seen Somaly and her team in Cambodia, I frankly didn’t figure that she would survive this long. Gangsters who run the brothels have held a gun to her head, and seeing that they could not intimidate Somaly with their threats, they found another way to hurt her: They kidnapped and brutalized her 14-year-old daughter.
Three years ago, I wrote from Cambodia about a raid Somaly organized on the Chai Hour II brothel where more than 200 girls had been imprisoned. Girls rescued from the brothel were taken to Somaly’s shelter, but the next day gangsters raided the shelter, kidnapped the girls and took them right back to the brothel.
Yet Somaly continued her fight, and, with the help of many others, she has registered real progress. Today, she says, the Chai Hour II brothel is shuttered. In large part, so is the Svay Pak brothel area where 12-year-old girls were openly for sale on my first visit.
“If you want to buy a virgin, it’s not easy now,” notes Somaly, speaking in English — her fifth language.
Somaly’s shelters — where the youngest girl rescued is 4 years old — provide an education and job skills. More important, Somaly applies public and international pressure to push the police to crack down on the worst brothels, and takes brothel owners to court. The idea is to undermine the sex-trafficking business model.
In her book, Somaly recounts how she grew up as an orphan and was “adopted” by a man who sold her to a brothel. Once when Somaly ran away, the police gang-raped her. Then her owner, on recovering his “property,” not only beat and humiliated her but tied her down naked and poured live maggots over her skin and in her mouth.
Yet even after that, Somaly occasionally defied him. Once two new girls, about 14 years old, were brought in to the brothel and left tied up. Somaly untied them and let them run away. For that, she was tortured with electric shocks.
As Cambodia opened up, Somaly began to get foreign clients, whom she vastly preferred because they didn’t beat her as well, and she began learning foreign languages. Eventually, a French aid worker named Pierre Legros and she got married, and together they started Afesip, a small organization to fight sex trafficking. They have since divorced, and Somaly works primarily through the Somaly Mam Foundation, set up by admiring Americans to finance her battle against trafficking in Cambodia. It’s a successful collaboration between American do-gooders with money and a Cambodian do-gooder with local street smarts.
The world’s worst trafficking is in Asia, but teenage runaways in the United States are also routinely brutalized by their pimps. If a white, middle-class blonde goes missing, the authorities issue an Amber Alert and cable TV goes berserk, but neither federal nor local authorities do nearly enough to go after pimps who savagely abuse troubled girls who don’t fit the “missing blonde” narrative. The system is broken.
A bill to strengthen federal anti-trafficking efforts within the U.S. was overwhelmingly passed by the House of Representatives, led by Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York. But crucial provisions to crack down on pimping are being blocked in the Senate in part by Senators Sam Brownback and Joe Biden, who consider the House provisions unnecessary and problematic. (Barack Obama gets it and says the right things about trafficking to the public, but apparently not to his running mate.)
With U.N. leaders this week focused on overcoming poverty, Somaly is a reminder that we needn’t acquiesce in the enslavement of girls, in this country or abroad. If we defeated slavery in the 19th century, we can beat it in the 21st century.
I invite you to visit my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground, and join me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/kristof.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 28, 2008
No Forgetting
Croatia: A Human Trafficking Victim Speaks With RFE/RL
June 15, 2006
By Ankica Barbir Mladinovic
A Moldovan newspaper ad offering employment to young women (RFE/RL)
ZAGREB, June 15, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation is becoming increasingly widespread in countries undergoing transition. Many young women seeking better jobs and better lives find themselves against their will in secret brothels of Western countries. Such is the warning of nongovernmental women’s unions in Croatia, where 45 victims of trafficking have been identified in the last four years. Unofficial numbers are many times greater.
"It happened abroad," says Martina, a 29-year-old trafficking victim from Zagreb. "I was sold for 3,500 euros [$4,400]. I was beaten, raped, forced against my will. They would put out cigarette butts on me and cut me with razors.
It was like a horror movie, she says. Martina was 19 years old at that time, trained as a cook. She lived in the suburbs of Zagreb and desired a better job and a better life. She met a young man who told her about his brother who had a restaurant in Italy, but who had a hard time finding good employees.
'It Sounded Rather Convincing'
“He told me that if I really wanted to work I could come with him, but that if I did not intend to pursue work there I could be back in Croatia in three days," Martina said. "It sounded rather convincing. Given that my life had been miserable since I was born -- my father was an alcoholic and my mother ill -- I went there without a second thought."
"As soon as I arrived and as soon as he brought me to his apartment, everything started. He told me there was no work and that I had crossed the border in order to work as a prostitute, that he had paid a ton of money for me and that he will come for me in three days, and that I had to be ready by then," she continued. "I told him to get his mother ready instead, and then he hit me on the head with his fist. Since we were in the kitchen I turned around and struck him with a pot. Naturally, I was no match for him physically. He beat and raped me constantly for three days, to the point where I was lying in blood and urine while tied to a bed. He then brought two of his friends who raped me, put out cigarette butts on me, and cut me with razors.”
Martina was locked in a Rome apartment for two months. Instead of working in a restaurant, she was beaten and raped daily until she was “broken” and had become a sexual slave. Then, she says, the man who bought her took her out to the street.
Four Passports
“That man was from Bosnia," she said. "We found in his apartment four passports and another girl from Croatia who was also a mother of three. That was a complete horror. They beat me endlessly. A girl of 16 from Albania almost bled to death in my arms because they had pushed a car antenna into her vagina. A girl from Bosnia was found dead. That is when I completely broke down.”
Two prostitutes appearing in a World Cup-related advertisement in Halle, Germany (epa)
She said she had been completely dulled, as if separated from her own body. Even when there was a chance of escape she remained a prostitute.
“There was no way for me to be freed from what had happened to me," Martina said. "I endured this for six years. I went to the street with prostitutes, not in order to work, but to see the people who come to them and who force them to do this. Then I would throw a bottle of gasoline on their car or puncture their tires. I didn’t care what would happen. I did one or three customers -- I didn't care. I didn’t look at those people.”
Martina was a typical, vulnerable young woman without steady employment or family support. Nobody wondered about her disappearance. After all, even her own father beat her from a very young age. Sadly, that experience prepared her for what she endured in Rome.
'That Is How I Distanced Myself'
“I rehearsed this since I was six," Martina said. "I recited 'The Pit,' a poem by Ivan Goran Kovacic, persistently to myself as my father beat me with roots from the vineyard or his military belt, as he would throw me against a wall or door, or kick me with his military boots. That was my defense. That is how I distanced myself. Although I would bleed, having been burnt all over with cigarette butts, I would distance myself from all that.”
Today, Martina is 29 years old. She lives in Zagreb and has a 7-year-old son. She is still undergoing therapy.
'A Cup Of Coffee Saved My Life'
“I started to work on a regular job in Zagreb," she said. "However, since I’m not psychologically strong I break down very easily. The owner once pinched me on my behind. I hit him with a frying pan and called his wife. I left. But one cup of coffee saved my life. I was already looking out the window and thinking about jumping.”
Martina was offered that cup of coffee by activists from the Center for Sexual Rights/Women’s Room and the Center for Women Victims of War (ROSA). For the first time in her life, she says, somebody approached her without scorn.
“If it weren’t for them, I don’t know how our life would have continued, the life of all of us who were tortured, mistreated, sold in different ways," she said. "We can reach a particular point on our own, and when we cannot go any further we all need a ferry, a crossing, a helping hand, somebody’s smile.”
Marina entered a program of psychological help and therapy provided by the nongovernmental women’s union. She works from time to time cleaning apartments for the elderly.
“Now I’m cleaning grannies’ apartments," she said. "I drink coffee with them and call them my well of wisdom. With their help, you can go back and remember some of the good roots of life. My life currently consists of women from the center and my son.”
Still, Martina cannot forget what she endured.
“Even today, when I see gestures by some people, certain motions that remind me of that life, I immediately break down and want to jump at them," she said. "With the help of women from the center, I learned to control myself pretty well.”
She claims the general public isn’t even aware of the extent of trafficking in women in Croatia and the extent to which that business is blossoming, couched in legitimate activities.
“This business has been developed in Croatia precisely and efficiently," Martina said. "A woman with a university degree can end up in a miniskirt on the street just like a woman from the country. It doesn’t matter whether it is a bar, a shop, an office, whatever. They keep their tentacled octopuses on every corner."
(translated by Naida Skrbic)
June 15, 2006
By Ankica Barbir Mladinovic
A Moldovan newspaper ad offering employment to young women (RFE/RL)
ZAGREB, June 15, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- Trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation is becoming increasingly widespread in countries undergoing transition. Many young women seeking better jobs and better lives find themselves against their will in secret brothels of Western countries. Such is the warning of nongovernmental women’s unions in Croatia, where 45 victims of trafficking have been identified in the last four years. Unofficial numbers are many times greater.
"It happened abroad," says Martina, a 29-year-old trafficking victim from Zagreb. "I was sold for 3,500 euros [$4,400]. I was beaten, raped, forced against my will. They would put out cigarette butts on me and cut me with razors.
It was like a horror movie, she says. Martina was 19 years old at that time, trained as a cook. She lived in the suburbs of Zagreb and desired a better job and a better life. She met a young man who told her about his brother who had a restaurant in Italy, but who had a hard time finding good employees.
'It Sounded Rather Convincing'
“He told me that if I really wanted to work I could come with him, but that if I did not intend to pursue work there I could be back in Croatia in three days," Martina said. "It sounded rather convincing. Given that my life had been miserable since I was born -- my father was an alcoholic and my mother ill -- I went there without a second thought."
"As soon as I arrived and as soon as he brought me to his apartment, everything started. He told me there was no work and that I had crossed the border in order to work as a prostitute, that he had paid a ton of money for me and that he will come for me in three days, and that I had to be ready by then," she continued. "I told him to get his mother ready instead, and then he hit me on the head with his fist. Since we were in the kitchen I turned around and struck him with a pot. Naturally, I was no match for him physically. He beat and raped me constantly for three days, to the point where I was lying in blood and urine while tied to a bed. He then brought two of his friends who raped me, put out cigarette butts on me, and cut me with razors.”
Martina was locked in a Rome apartment for two months. Instead of working in a restaurant, she was beaten and raped daily until she was “broken” and had become a sexual slave. Then, she says, the man who bought her took her out to the street.
Four Passports
“That man was from Bosnia," she said. "We found in his apartment four passports and another girl from Croatia who was also a mother of three. That was a complete horror. They beat me endlessly. A girl of 16 from Albania almost bled to death in my arms because they had pushed a car antenna into her vagina. A girl from Bosnia was found dead. That is when I completely broke down.”
Two prostitutes appearing in a World Cup-related advertisement in Halle, Germany (epa)
She said she had been completely dulled, as if separated from her own body. Even when there was a chance of escape she remained a prostitute.
“There was no way for me to be freed from what had happened to me," Martina said. "I endured this for six years. I went to the street with prostitutes, not in order to work, but to see the people who come to them and who force them to do this. Then I would throw a bottle of gasoline on their car or puncture their tires. I didn’t care what would happen. I did one or three customers -- I didn't care. I didn’t look at those people.”
Martina was a typical, vulnerable young woman without steady employment or family support. Nobody wondered about her disappearance. After all, even her own father beat her from a very young age. Sadly, that experience prepared her for what she endured in Rome.
'That Is How I Distanced Myself'
“I rehearsed this since I was six," Martina said. "I recited 'The Pit,' a poem by Ivan Goran Kovacic, persistently to myself as my father beat me with roots from the vineyard or his military belt, as he would throw me against a wall or door, or kick me with his military boots. That was my defense. That is how I distanced myself. Although I would bleed, having been burnt all over with cigarette butts, I would distance myself from all that.”
Today, Martina is 29 years old. She lives in Zagreb and has a 7-year-old son. She is still undergoing therapy.
'A Cup Of Coffee Saved My Life'
“I started to work on a regular job in Zagreb," she said. "However, since I’m not psychologically strong I break down very easily. The owner once pinched me on my behind. I hit him with a frying pan and called his wife. I left. But one cup of coffee saved my life. I was already looking out the window and thinking about jumping.”
Martina was offered that cup of coffee by activists from the Center for Sexual Rights/Women’s Room and the Center for Women Victims of War (ROSA). For the first time in her life, she says, somebody approached her without scorn.
“If it weren’t for them, I don’t know how our life would have continued, the life of all of us who were tortured, mistreated, sold in different ways," she said. "We can reach a particular point on our own, and when we cannot go any further we all need a ferry, a crossing, a helping hand, somebody’s smile.”
Marina entered a program of psychological help and therapy provided by the nongovernmental women’s union. She works from time to time cleaning apartments for the elderly.
“Now I’m cleaning grannies’ apartments," she said. "I drink coffee with them and call them my well of wisdom. With their help, you can go back and remember some of the good roots of life. My life currently consists of women from the center and my son.”
Still, Martina cannot forget what she endured.
“Even today, when I see gestures by some people, certain motions that remind me of that life, I immediately break down and want to jump at them," she said. "With the help of women from the center, I learned to control myself pretty well.”
She claims the general public isn’t even aware of the extent of trafficking in women in Croatia and the extent to which that business is blossoming, couched in legitimate activities.
“This business has been developed in Croatia precisely and efficiently," Martina said. "A woman with a university degree can end up in a miniskirt on the street just like a woman from the country. It doesn’t matter whether it is a bar, a shop, an office, whatever. They keep their tentacled octopuses on every corner."
(translated by Naida Skrbic)
SEX SLAVE IN BOSNIA
SEX SLAVE IN BOSNIA RECOUNTS HER ORDEAL
By Nidzara Ahmetasevic, Sarajevo
March 18, 2003 – (IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT) The Moldovan woman is only 20, but she looks far older. "My boss paid a thousand euro for me," she told IWPR in excellent Bosnian. "It was just like buying a t-shirt - you turn it around, look it over and if you like it, you buy. That's how it was with me."
Elena, not her real name, she shows no emotion as she speaks - as if she has already accepted her fate.
Girls were sold for prices ranging from around 500 to 1,500 euro – the amount treated by their new pimps as a debt they then had to repay through forced, or willing, prostitution.
The hours were long. "I had to work every night, " she said. "The clients paid my boss 30 euro for an hour with me, or 128 euro for a whole night. On Fridays or Saturdays I had as many as 15 customers."
Elena is one of thousands who have experienced a similar fate. A little over a year ago, she went to the West in hope of earning money through prostitution but instead she was "sold" and then smuggled into Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she was forced to work in one of the country's numerous nightclubs.
She escaped, but then spent 20 days in detention for possession of false documents. Upon her release, she was handed over to the International Organisation for Migration, IOM. While waiting to return home to Moldova, Elena lives in one of the body's six safe houses scattered across the country.
Under IOM rules, she says, she cannot reveal her own name, or the names of the people she worked for. Nor can she leave her safe house unaccompanied.
According to non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and United Nations experts, human trafficking appeared in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, at the end of the war. Women and girls, mostly from Eastern Europe, but from Bosnia as well, were kidnapped or lured from home by the promise of well-paid work.
But then they were treated as little more than sex slaves until their supposed debts were paid off. Those who disobeyed the brothel owners were beaten or even tortured.
With its porous frontier and poorly-regulated administration, police and judiciary, Bosnia-Herzegovina became a safe haven for human traffickers and pimps, whose customers included local police, foreign peacekeeping troops and members of international organisations.
Tighter surveillance, increasingly frequent raids on bars and nightclubs, strengthened border controls, and a vigorous campaign against trafficking have combined to reduce the number of brothels in the past six months. Even so, few traffickers have been convicted.
"Local corruption and the complicity of international officials in Bosnia have allowed a trafficking network to flourish," the organisation Human Rights Watch, HRW, claimed in a recent report on the problem.
Elena's story confirms the report's conclusion. She arrived in Bosnia on April 4, 2002, to escape a life of poverty in her home country. "A girlfriend had been to Bosnia and when she returned to Moldova she told me she had worked as a waitress and that you could earn good money there," she told IWPR.
She and her two younger sisters had suffered abject misery in their homeland, as their mother was unemployed and their father alcoholic.
With only primary education qualifications, Elena had struggled to find a job to support at least her sisters. Finally, she was introduced to some people who promised to get her into Bosnia.
With fake Romanian papers, an ID card and a passport, Elena traveled first to Romania, where she was held in a house with three other girls. A few days later she was transported by boat to Belgrade, where she was bought by a local criminal called Dragan.
"I was with several other girls in a house in Belgrade. Various people came to inspect us. On some days, six or seven people came," she recalled.
"We presented ourselves in front of them with very few clothes on. They would sit there and the five of us would stand in front of them. When you went out there, you had to show what your breasts, waist and hips looked like.
"You had to convince them you would attract customers for them. They didn't take you if you had short hair. They watched out for scars, bad teeth or evidence of slashed wrists, because some girls do that. The new boss and the seller would then agree on a price."
Elena says she accepted her fate from the start. "All that time I thought this had to happen," she said. "I had left home for the first time and had tried to reach a place I didn't know. I badly needed money."
Elena was then dispatched to Bosnia, smuggled across the river by boat. The brothel-owner who had bought her from Dragan took her documents and gave her a Bosnian ID card.
"I then shared a house with 15 girls from different countries, including Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova. One was from Hungary," she said. " Some were younger and some older than me, and some had no documents at all. The house had four rooms, and the bar where we worked was a little further away. The boss kept his eye on us all the time."
Elena says all sorts of customers patronised her bar, including locals, soldiers from the NATO-led Stabilisation Force, SFOR, and even local policemen.
"The police would come to the bar, pay and take us to a room. The foreigners were just the same. Our boss always found out if any of the girls had asked them for anything. It was a vicious circle, because how could I ask people for help when they had paid my boss to have sex with me?"
After almost a year Elena escaped, and she was eventually taken to an IOM shelter. "The bar where we worked has closed," she said. "I don't know what happened to the boss and the girls. I want to go home now."
But going home is not going to be easy. After they heard of her fate, her family would not take her back. "When I called my mother, I could not lie and I admitted I was a prostitute. She told me I couldn't go back home." When she talks of her mother, Elena's stony facade finally begins to crack.
Elena now plans to stay at a friend's place when she returns home but is still worried about her future. "I'm scared of what will happen to me when I get back," she said.
"First I have to obtain regular papers so I don't have problems with the police. I want a husband and children. But I can never tell my children what happened to me, as I don't want them to know what their mother was like."
She holds herself partly to blame for her experience. "I did try to leave and do things differently and that's why it all happened," she said. "People in Moldova are very poor, and it's difficult to find a job and make ends meet there.
"I wanted to tell IWPR this because I feel better talking about it. Some girls will never discuss it, but I think you only end up crying more if you try to bottle it up and not tell anyone."
Nidzara Ahmetasevic is a freelance journalist from Bosnia.
By Nidzara Ahmetasevic, Sarajevo
March 18, 2003 – (IWPR'S BALKAN CRISIS REPORT) The Moldovan woman is only 20, but she looks far older. "My boss paid a thousand euro for me," she told IWPR in excellent Bosnian. "It was just like buying a t-shirt - you turn it around, look it over and if you like it, you buy. That's how it was with me."
Elena, not her real name, she shows no emotion as she speaks - as if she has already accepted her fate.
Girls were sold for prices ranging from around 500 to 1,500 euro – the amount treated by their new pimps as a debt they then had to repay through forced, or willing, prostitution.
The hours were long. "I had to work every night, " she said. "The clients paid my boss 30 euro for an hour with me, or 128 euro for a whole night. On Fridays or Saturdays I had as many as 15 customers."
Elena is one of thousands who have experienced a similar fate. A little over a year ago, she went to the West in hope of earning money through prostitution but instead she was "sold" and then smuggled into Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she was forced to work in one of the country's numerous nightclubs.
She escaped, but then spent 20 days in detention for possession of false documents. Upon her release, she was handed over to the International Organisation for Migration, IOM. While waiting to return home to Moldova, Elena lives in one of the body's six safe houses scattered across the country.
Under IOM rules, she says, she cannot reveal her own name, or the names of the people she worked for. Nor can she leave her safe house unaccompanied.
According to non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and United Nations experts, human trafficking appeared in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, at the end of the war. Women and girls, mostly from Eastern Europe, but from Bosnia as well, were kidnapped or lured from home by the promise of well-paid work.
But then they were treated as little more than sex slaves until their supposed debts were paid off. Those who disobeyed the brothel owners were beaten or even tortured.
With its porous frontier and poorly-regulated administration, police and judiciary, Bosnia-Herzegovina became a safe haven for human traffickers and pimps, whose customers included local police, foreign peacekeeping troops and members of international organisations.
Tighter surveillance, increasingly frequent raids on bars and nightclubs, strengthened border controls, and a vigorous campaign against trafficking have combined to reduce the number of brothels in the past six months. Even so, few traffickers have been convicted.
"Local corruption and the complicity of international officials in Bosnia have allowed a trafficking network to flourish," the organisation Human Rights Watch, HRW, claimed in a recent report on the problem.
Elena's story confirms the report's conclusion. She arrived in Bosnia on April 4, 2002, to escape a life of poverty in her home country. "A girlfriend had been to Bosnia and when she returned to Moldova she told me she had worked as a waitress and that you could earn good money there," she told IWPR.
She and her two younger sisters had suffered abject misery in their homeland, as their mother was unemployed and their father alcoholic.
With only primary education qualifications, Elena had struggled to find a job to support at least her sisters. Finally, she was introduced to some people who promised to get her into Bosnia.
With fake Romanian papers, an ID card and a passport, Elena traveled first to Romania, where she was held in a house with three other girls. A few days later she was transported by boat to Belgrade, where she was bought by a local criminal called Dragan.
"I was with several other girls in a house in Belgrade. Various people came to inspect us. On some days, six or seven people came," she recalled.
"We presented ourselves in front of them with very few clothes on. They would sit there and the five of us would stand in front of them. When you went out there, you had to show what your breasts, waist and hips looked like.
"You had to convince them you would attract customers for them. They didn't take you if you had short hair. They watched out for scars, bad teeth or evidence of slashed wrists, because some girls do that. The new boss and the seller would then agree on a price."
Elena says she accepted her fate from the start. "All that time I thought this had to happen," she said. "I had left home for the first time and had tried to reach a place I didn't know. I badly needed money."
Elena was then dispatched to Bosnia, smuggled across the river by boat. The brothel-owner who had bought her from Dragan took her documents and gave her a Bosnian ID card.
"I then shared a house with 15 girls from different countries, including Romania, Bulgaria and Moldova. One was from Hungary," she said. " Some were younger and some older than me, and some had no documents at all. The house had four rooms, and the bar where we worked was a little further away. The boss kept his eye on us all the time."
Elena says all sorts of customers patronised her bar, including locals, soldiers from the NATO-led Stabilisation Force, SFOR, and even local policemen.
"The police would come to the bar, pay and take us to a room. The foreigners were just the same. Our boss always found out if any of the girls had asked them for anything. It was a vicious circle, because how could I ask people for help when they had paid my boss to have sex with me?"
After almost a year Elena escaped, and she was eventually taken to an IOM shelter. "The bar where we worked has closed," she said. "I don't know what happened to the boss and the girls. I want to go home now."
But going home is not going to be easy. After they heard of her fate, her family would not take her back. "When I called my mother, I could not lie and I admitted I was a prostitute. She told me I couldn't go back home." When she talks of her mother, Elena's stony facade finally begins to crack.
Elena now plans to stay at a friend's place when she returns home but is still worried about her future. "I'm scared of what will happen to me when I get back," she said.
"First I have to obtain regular papers so I don't have problems with the police. I want a husband and children. But I can never tell my children what happened to me, as I don't want them to know what their mother was like."
She holds herself partly to blame for her experience. "I did try to leave and do things differently and that's why it all happened," she said. "People in Moldova are very poor, and it's difficult to find a job and make ends meet there.
"I wanted to tell IWPR this because I feel better talking about it. Some girls will never discuss it, but I think you only end up crying more if you try to bottle it up and not tell anyone."
Nidzara Ahmetasevic is a freelance journalist from Bosnia.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Predilection for young girls.
Testimony of Rosario.
THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF INTERNAL TRAFFICKING (every bit as evil but receiving of less attention) - Patricia Church- Blog Editor.
Rosario was the ninth child of twelve in a poor family in Manila. Her mother died when she was nine years old. For awhile, her older brothers and sisters cared for the younger children, but after a few years they were unable to keep their small house, and the children were split up and left to fend for themselves. That is how Rosario ended up on the streets in Manila, scavenging for food. It was there that she met up with Peter, a twelve-year-old who had been on the streets for severalyears. In addition to begging, he also worked the streets for a local brothel. After a few days of scavenging together, Peter brought Rosario to the brothel and told her that she could trade doing odd chores for food and shelter.Also in Manila for a few weeks at that time was Heinrich Rimer (not his real name), an Austrian medical doctor who visited manila frequently for rest and relaxation. Dr. Rimer was well known in Manila for his predilection for young girls, and, this visit, like others, he contacted Peter at the brothel and asked him to bring a young female to his hotel.Peter brought Rosario. Dr. Rimer gave Peter $12.00 and asked him to stay. He gave Rosario a drink with a powerful muscle relaxant in it and then proceeded to rape her with Peter watching. Rosario said later that the doctor hurt her terribly. However even then, he wasn't finished. He took out a vibrator from his suitcase and tried to insert it into Rosario. But the vibrator broke into several pieces inside Rosario. Dr. Rimer then removed the vibrator and gave Peter another $10.00 and told him to take Rosario away.Out on the street Rosario complained that she was hurting. Peter took her to a local doctor who gave her some pain pills. They told no one what had happened to Rosario. The pills helped a bit and Rosario felt better…for a few days. Then she began to complain of a fever and chills, and general malaise. When they went back to the doctor, he gave her an antibiotic. She felt better again for awhile, but about four weeks later, she developed several pains in her abdomen and the fever came back. She wandered the streets like this for several more weeks before she collapsed. She was taken to the local hospital, where, 3 days before she died, she told a nun what had happened to her.The nun ordered an autopsy and several pieces of the vibrator were found in Rosario's cervical area. The nun reported Rosario's death to the police who went looking for Peter. When they found him, he told them the story of Dr. Rimer, who visited frequently and always asked for young girls. For the first time, the government was galvanized. Law enforcement agents contacted Austria and Dr. Rimer was identified. He was extradited to the Philippines and tried, but let off on a technicality. He went back to Austria and returned to his medical practice.Since then Austria, Germany, and a few other Western European countries have passed laws prohibiting child sex tourism, and making it a crime to sexually abuse a child in a foreign country.- Rosario, trafficked in the Philippines, originally from the Philippines
Special Thanks to: Protection ProjectWebsite: http://www.protectionproject.org
THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF INTERNAL TRAFFICKING (every bit as evil but receiving of less attention) - Patricia Church- Blog Editor.
Rosario was the ninth child of twelve in a poor family in Manila. Her mother died when she was nine years old. For awhile, her older brothers and sisters cared for the younger children, but after a few years they were unable to keep their small house, and the children were split up and left to fend for themselves. That is how Rosario ended up on the streets in Manila, scavenging for food. It was there that she met up with Peter, a twelve-year-old who had been on the streets for severalyears. In addition to begging, he also worked the streets for a local brothel. After a few days of scavenging together, Peter brought Rosario to the brothel and told her that she could trade doing odd chores for food and shelter.Also in Manila for a few weeks at that time was Heinrich Rimer (not his real name), an Austrian medical doctor who visited manila frequently for rest and relaxation. Dr. Rimer was well known in Manila for his predilection for young girls, and, this visit, like others, he contacted Peter at the brothel and asked him to bring a young female to his hotel.Peter brought Rosario. Dr. Rimer gave Peter $12.00 and asked him to stay. He gave Rosario a drink with a powerful muscle relaxant in it and then proceeded to rape her with Peter watching. Rosario said later that the doctor hurt her terribly. However even then, he wasn't finished. He took out a vibrator from his suitcase and tried to insert it into Rosario. But the vibrator broke into several pieces inside Rosario. Dr. Rimer then removed the vibrator and gave Peter another $10.00 and told him to take Rosario away.Out on the street Rosario complained that she was hurting. Peter took her to a local doctor who gave her some pain pills. They told no one what had happened to Rosario. The pills helped a bit and Rosario felt better…for a few days. Then she began to complain of a fever and chills, and general malaise. When they went back to the doctor, he gave her an antibiotic. She felt better again for awhile, but about four weeks later, she developed several pains in her abdomen and the fever came back. She wandered the streets like this for several more weeks before she collapsed. She was taken to the local hospital, where, 3 days before she died, she told a nun what had happened to her.The nun ordered an autopsy and several pieces of the vibrator were found in Rosario's cervical area. The nun reported Rosario's death to the police who went looking for Peter. When they found him, he told them the story of Dr. Rimer, who visited frequently and always asked for young girls. For the first time, the government was galvanized. Law enforcement agents contacted Austria and Dr. Rimer was identified. He was extradited to the Philippines and tried, but let off on a technicality. He went back to Austria and returned to his medical practice.Since then Austria, Germany, and a few other Western European countries have passed laws prohibiting child sex tourism, and making it a crime to sexually abuse a child in a foreign country.- Rosario, trafficked in the Philippines, originally from the Philippines
Special Thanks to: Protection ProjectWebsite: http://www.protectionproject.org
Thrown out at 14. Testimony of Sasha.
The Beginning
"When did it all begin?" I asked Sasha.
We were sitting around a table covered with brightly colored teacups and trays of cookies. The small apartment, belonging to our friend Lauran, felt like the haven that it had become: peaceful, gentle, safe. I knew something about Sasha's story from Lauran - that she had been trafficked to Germany and Holland, that she had a young daughter, that she was rescued by a Dutch cab driver who married her, and that she was working hard to get her life back together. I knew that she had been befriended by a Dutch woman in Amsterdam who saw her weeping day after day as mothers waited for their children outside of school, and had introduced her to an ever-expanding circle of compassionate strangers who showed her love, friendship and steadfast commitment during this long and arduous process of emerging from prostitution. When Sasha found out that I would be visiting Lauran, and that I worked for an anti-trafficking organization, she was eager to tell me her story in the hope that it would help someone else.
Her silence lasted a long time. I wondered what event she would choose as the beginning of her story.
"With my mother," Sasha finally replied, and there was no hesitation in her voice. She began talking in a calm, conversational tone, and told me the story of a childhood characterized by abandonment, cruelty and loneliness. Her real father had left the family when she was a child. Sasha hardly remembered him. Her mother, who remarried shortly after, worked as a cleaning lady in dorm buildings for male laborers. She drank extensively, and when she drank, she beat her daughter. Sasha was expected to take care of the house, prepare the meals, clean up after her parents. Every morning her mother would make a list for her and if she did not complete her tasks, her mother would beat her. Sometimes, Sasha was forced to endure other punishments ranging from the irrational to the cruel. On occasion, she would be forced to write, "I will respect my mother," over and over again. At other times, she would be required to kneel on the stone floor, her arms stretched out in front of her, as her mother weighed them down with books. She had to stay that way for an hour and if she dropped her arms, she would be beaten. Her stepfather was a good-enough man, but passive. He was kind to Sasha, but never interfered when she was being punished. He too drank, vodka and rum. Because her mother was frequently too drunk to go to work, Sasha was the one who lied for her, fabricating stories of illness and injury.
Sasha's mother became pregnant. Her labor was long, the baby was born ill, and mother and son were required to stay in the hospital for two weeks, leaving Sasha alone with her stepfather. One night, while her stepfather was out celebrating the birth of his son, Sasha fell asleep in her parents' bed watching television. Her stepfather returned quite drunk and collapsed in bed next to her. He raped her. "He was a decent man," Sasha explains. "Sometimes I think that he was too drunk to know what he was doing. But I knew what happened." She told no one.
As her brother grew, Sasha was required to take care of him as well as the rest of the family - in addition to keeping up with her schoolwork. The mother started to entertain men at home in the afternoons. Their house was tiny - two rooms - and Sasha remembers putting her hands over her brother's ears so that he would not hear what was going on, but she did. One day, her stepfather returned from work early and caught his wife with another man. He took a knife and attacked. Both men were injured, and Sasha's stepfather was sent to jail for two years. Sasha was sad - he had been the only person who had been remotely kind to her, and now he was going to jail.
To escape some of the horror of home, Sasha began to visit her grandmother, who lived in an adjoining town. The walk there and back provided Sasha with time to escape the ugliness of her home life, even though she was frequently under orders from her mother to steal from her grandmother. One day, as she passed through a wooded area, she was attacked by a group of local boys. They took her off the road into the cellar of a house and spent the afternoon raping her. After they left, she went home and said nothing. Her mother found out and called the police. Two of the boys were sons of police officials and were never arrested. The story was quickly forgotten. In a drunken rage, her mother began screaming at her, accusing her of going after the boys, and telling Sasha she regretted the day her daughter has been born. "Take your clothes and get out of my house forever," she screamed. Sasha collected her few possessions and went out in to the night. She was 14, homeless, and had just been gang raped.
For the next four years, Sasha lived with her grandmother on weekends and attended a vocational high school to become a nurse. She moved to Prague, began her professional training as a psychiatric nurse in one of the city's hospitals, and found a boyfriend. He was a nice guy, good company, and Sasha liked spending time with him. She never worried about contraception because she had been told that, after being raped, it was not possible to become pregnant. However the inevitable happened. On May 11 she turned 18; on May 31 she was married, and on July 16, her son was born.
Her husband ran off with another woman and she found herself with a baby to support. For two months, she slept in a cheap hotel and finally in cars. The government child protective services took her son away from her, declaring her unfit as a mother. She finally got a job in a factory and applied for subsidized housing. "If you sleep with me, I will put you at the top of the list," her boss told her. Knowing that a house would enable her to get her child back, she complied. Soon after, she was given her own home. It did not matter that it was tiny, that there was only cold water, and no heat. She had learned the power of her own beauty to get something that she wanted. All that she wanted was a home for her child.
She started keeping company with another young man. Because she was told her first pregnancy was a fluke, she still used no contraception and inevitably became pregnant again. Again, she married, gave birth to a daughter, lived unhappily and divorced. This time, she lost her children, her home and her job. She started working as a waitress at a local restaurant, met a man named Peter and, because he promised her some stability and the likelihood of getting her children back, they married. She was able to get her daughter; her mother had demanded custody of her son. Again, the cycle of domestic violence and emotional abuse repeated itself. Peter lost his job, and Sasha was the only one providing an income for the family. She worked, shopped, and took care of the family. Peter drank, gambled, slept with other women and beat her when she came home. One night, she was so badly hurt she had to be hospitalized. Still, she continued, knowing that without her, her daughter would have nothing.
Sold!
Sasha was barely eking out a living for herself and her family. For several months, she also worked in one of Prague's many nightclubs, getting out on the floor as a way to get others to dance. Men told her that she was a good dancer. In the summer of 1996, she was approached by some men who told her that they knew about her hard life. They offered her an opportunity to go to Germany, dance in a restaurant and make some money. She could strip - only if she wanted - to increase her income. Sasha wanted to take her daughter, fearing that her husband would mistreat her, but her new friends said that this would not be possible. Sasha made a deal with her husband, Peter: "I'll go to Germany and make us a lot of money if you will take care of our daughter when I am gone. I promise you, I will give you all the money." He agreed, and she left.
She started to worry when they crossed the German border. The man making all the arrangements, Stefan took her passport and those of the other girls riding in the car in order to clear customs, and kept the documents, "In case we need them for something else," he said by way of explanation. He never returned the documents.
When they arrived in Germany, she and the other girls were taken to an underground apartment and told what their new life would be like. "You will work in the club, you will talk and drink with the customers, encouraging them to buy lots of alcohol and, when they want, you will go to the back rooms and have sex with them."
"I was in shock," Sasha tells me later. I could not realize that this was happening to me." She wanted to leave, and demanded her passport back, but Stefan told her, "You cannot go now. You owe me money. I bought you." I asked her how much she owed, but Stefan never told her. Consequently, she never knew if she was every getting closer to paying off her debt or not. She felt enveloped in a shroud of deep despair. "I saw that I had traded one type of hell for another," she said flatly, describing how she reacted to the news of her enslavement. "I did what I had to do, because I was doing it for my daughter."
Later she was taken to the Netherlands, and located in a window in the red light district of Amsterdam. She was told that she would charge clients 50 guilders (US $20) for twenty minutes. At the end of every night, she would be expected to pay Stefan and his aide, Joseph, 550 guilders (US $200) - the result of 11 clients, plus installment on the exorbitant rent for the apartment they had found for her. Anything after the income from 13 clients was hers to keep. Together we calculated what her traffickers were able to make off of her on one year. Considering that Sasha worked six days a week, in one year she paid her traffickers the equivalent of $70,000 - tax-free. Sasha was appalled. "All that money, and I have nothing for myself,' she kept saying. When she said she wanted her daughter, Stefan said that she would have to pay 10,000 guilders (US $4,000) to get her. Sasha had no choice but to work more. I asked her, what was the most she had ever worked. She closed her eyes and thought. Telling me an amount of money, she asked, "How many clients would that make?" I did the math and looked at her, hardly able to believe what she was telling me. "You were sometimes with 36 clients in one day?" I asked her, and she said, "Yes. I had to. I wanted my daughter back." She described how she coped. She drank a lot. Every night. And after each client left, she showered to wash the feeling off of her body. She disassociated herself from what she was doing, much as she had done when she was in the Czech Republic and was repeatedly being beaten by her husbands. She became numb, feeling nothing. "I kept reminding myself, it is for my daughter. That is how I got by."
"Were you not free to go?" I asked her. "There was always a security guard out side the street," she said. He walked back and forth. Stefan said that she was there to protect Sasha, but Sasha did not have a cell phone or any way of getting in contact with him if a client were to become abusive. He was there for one reason: to make sure that Sasha and the other girls Stefan was managing stayed right where they were. Stefan also threatened her daughter. Her life consisted of caring for her daughter and going to work. All of her movements were watched. She was not going anywhere.
Rescue
Amsterdam's red-light district needs no description. Customers blend in with curious pedestrians; others are brought there by cab drivers that drop off their fares and drive around the streets waiting to take the man back to his home or hotel. As good businessmen, these drivers became familiar with the women behind the windows, making mental notes of their different characteristics so as to provide their fares with what they wanted. Mihiel was one such cab driver. He noticed Sasha soon after she got there. She was tall and strong, with wavy blond hair and deep blue eyes. But something else caught Mihiel's attention. "It was more of a sense that she didn't belong there," he told me. He decided he wanted to get to know this woman so he walked into her room, put down his money and said, "I just want to talk to you." Sasha was stunned. This had never happened to her before. "Who are you?" he wanted to know. "Where do you come from?" Slowly, and in spite of herself, Sasha came to trust this big but gentle man who genuinely seemed to care about her. Mihiel was falling in love with her. Sasha tells me that she spent the first months of their relationship trying to push him away. "By that time, I believed that I could never trust another man again. Men had beaten me, raped me, abused my children and me, and sold me into slavery. Why should I trust another man?" But Mihiel was undaunted. One evening, as he was standing around a street corner talking with other cab drivers between fares, he noticed a few flower vendors on the corner. "How much for all of your roses?" he asked them, knowing full well that they were not cheap. He piled the bushels of roses into his car and drove to the red light district. "Every half hour I would stop at Sasha's window and take in a rose." Sasha still seems incredulous in the retelling of the story. "He never said anything, he just came in, put the rose on a table, and left. Later the next morning, I went home. When I opened the front door to my apartment building, I noticed that there were roses on the stairs leading up to my apartment. There were roses in front of my door. I entered, and the apartment was completely filled with roses - in the kitchen sink, inside the refrigerator, on the bed and in the closets. There were even roses in the toilet!" He had broken in during her absence and covered the place with flowers.
Eventually Mihiel's gentle persistence paid off and she began to think that she could have a relationship with this man. She had never hid her past from Mihiel, nor her slave status. And he was determined that he could do something about this. Mihiel, the son of a well-known Dutch television celebrity who had been disowned by his father when he was a young boy, was very familiar with the ways of the streets and with Amsterdam's shadow sector. One night he took a few of his own associates and met with Stefan. The deal, simply put, was Sasha's full release from any from of debt bondage and slavery as well as the return of her passport. In exchange, Mihiel assured Stefan that he would not be harmed. The one stipulation Stefan asked for was that his name not be revealed to the authorities.
To this day, Sasha divides her life into two parts - "Before and after I got my freedom."
The Long Road Back
Sasha and her daughter Denisa have lived with Mihiel for six years. Overstuffed photo albums document the development of family life - birthdays, Christmas, new clothes, and finally, Mihiel and Sasha's wedding after their respective divorces became final. For several years, Mihiel has supported Sasha and Denisa, as well as providing support to three daughters from an earlier marriage, on his taxi driver salary. Paying taxes as a single man with no dependents, he has also had to pay for medical bills, school, and other expenses out of his own pocket. Now that she is legally married to Mihiel, Sasha has applied for resident status but the Dutch government has issued an extensive list of requirements that must be met first. Because her status is that of an illegal alien, she must leave the Netherlands until her status is regularized, and her family is once more separated. In her efforts to normalize her status and provide long-term stability to her daughter, she feels as if she is being punished.
On one of her trips back to the Czech Republic, she sought refuge and help in a shelter run by a non-profit organization located in numerous Eastern European and former Soviet countries with a mandate to assist victims of trafficking. It was an experience she never wants to repeat. The "shelter" was located out of the center of the city. It was an empty apartment with minimal furniture, no television, and no phone. A paid social worker was on duty until three in the afternoon every day but after that, went home. At first, Sasha was in the home by herself, soon to be joined by three women from other former Eastern Block countries. They were all there in a strange city, with nothing to do, no telephone, and no one to speak to. "We can't get too involved with our clients, we would lose our objectivity," commented a worker from this
"When did it all begin?" I asked Sasha.
We were sitting around a table covered with brightly colored teacups and trays of cookies. The small apartment, belonging to our friend Lauran, felt like the haven that it had become: peaceful, gentle, safe. I knew something about Sasha's story from Lauran - that she had been trafficked to Germany and Holland, that she had a young daughter, that she was rescued by a Dutch cab driver who married her, and that she was working hard to get her life back together. I knew that she had been befriended by a Dutch woman in Amsterdam who saw her weeping day after day as mothers waited for their children outside of school, and had introduced her to an ever-expanding circle of compassionate strangers who showed her love, friendship and steadfast commitment during this long and arduous process of emerging from prostitution. When Sasha found out that I would be visiting Lauran, and that I worked for an anti-trafficking organization, she was eager to tell me her story in the hope that it would help someone else.
Her silence lasted a long time. I wondered what event she would choose as the beginning of her story.
"With my mother," Sasha finally replied, and there was no hesitation in her voice. She began talking in a calm, conversational tone, and told me the story of a childhood characterized by abandonment, cruelty and loneliness. Her real father had left the family when she was a child. Sasha hardly remembered him. Her mother, who remarried shortly after, worked as a cleaning lady in dorm buildings for male laborers. She drank extensively, and when she drank, she beat her daughter. Sasha was expected to take care of the house, prepare the meals, clean up after her parents. Every morning her mother would make a list for her and if she did not complete her tasks, her mother would beat her. Sometimes, Sasha was forced to endure other punishments ranging from the irrational to the cruel. On occasion, she would be forced to write, "I will respect my mother," over and over again. At other times, she would be required to kneel on the stone floor, her arms stretched out in front of her, as her mother weighed them down with books. She had to stay that way for an hour and if she dropped her arms, she would be beaten. Her stepfather was a good-enough man, but passive. He was kind to Sasha, but never interfered when she was being punished. He too drank, vodka and rum. Because her mother was frequently too drunk to go to work, Sasha was the one who lied for her, fabricating stories of illness and injury.
Sasha's mother became pregnant. Her labor was long, the baby was born ill, and mother and son were required to stay in the hospital for two weeks, leaving Sasha alone with her stepfather. One night, while her stepfather was out celebrating the birth of his son, Sasha fell asleep in her parents' bed watching television. Her stepfather returned quite drunk and collapsed in bed next to her. He raped her. "He was a decent man," Sasha explains. "Sometimes I think that he was too drunk to know what he was doing. But I knew what happened." She told no one.
As her brother grew, Sasha was required to take care of him as well as the rest of the family - in addition to keeping up with her schoolwork. The mother started to entertain men at home in the afternoons. Their house was tiny - two rooms - and Sasha remembers putting her hands over her brother's ears so that he would not hear what was going on, but she did. One day, her stepfather returned from work early and caught his wife with another man. He took a knife and attacked. Both men were injured, and Sasha's stepfather was sent to jail for two years. Sasha was sad - he had been the only person who had been remotely kind to her, and now he was going to jail.
To escape some of the horror of home, Sasha began to visit her grandmother, who lived in an adjoining town. The walk there and back provided Sasha with time to escape the ugliness of her home life, even though she was frequently under orders from her mother to steal from her grandmother. One day, as she passed through a wooded area, she was attacked by a group of local boys. They took her off the road into the cellar of a house and spent the afternoon raping her. After they left, she went home and said nothing. Her mother found out and called the police. Two of the boys were sons of police officials and were never arrested. The story was quickly forgotten. In a drunken rage, her mother began screaming at her, accusing her of going after the boys, and telling Sasha she regretted the day her daughter has been born. "Take your clothes and get out of my house forever," she screamed. Sasha collected her few possessions and went out in to the night. She was 14, homeless, and had just been gang raped.
For the next four years, Sasha lived with her grandmother on weekends and attended a vocational high school to become a nurse. She moved to Prague, began her professional training as a psychiatric nurse in one of the city's hospitals, and found a boyfriend. He was a nice guy, good company, and Sasha liked spending time with him. She never worried about contraception because she had been told that, after being raped, it was not possible to become pregnant. However the inevitable happened. On May 11 she turned 18; on May 31 she was married, and on July 16, her son was born.
Her husband ran off with another woman and she found herself with a baby to support. For two months, she slept in a cheap hotel and finally in cars. The government child protective services took her son away from her, declaring her unfit as a mother. She finally got a job in a factory and applied for subsidized housing. "If you sleep with me, I will put you at the top of the list," her boss told her. Knowing that a house would enable her to get her child back, she complied. Soon after, she was given her own home. It did not matter that it was tiny, that there was only cold water, and no heat. She had learned the power of her own beauty to get something that she wanted. All that she wanted was a home for her child.
She started keeping company with another young man. Because she was told her first pregnancy was a fluke, she still used no contraception and inevitably became pregnant again. Again, she married, gave birth to a daughter, lived unhappily and divorced. This time, she lost her children, her home and her job. She started working as a waitress at a local restaurant, met a man named Peter and, because he promised her some stability and the likelihood of getting her children back, they married. She was able to get her daughter; her mother had demanded custody of her son. Again, the cycle of domestic violence and emotional abuse repeated itself. Peter lost his job, and Sasha was the only one providing an income for the family. She worked, shopped, and took care of the family. Peter drank, gambled, slept with other women and beat her when she came home. One night, she was so badly hurt she had to be hospitalized. Still, she continued, knowing that without her, her daughter would have nothing.
Sold!
Sasha was barely eking out a living for herself and her family. For several months, she also worked in one of Prague's many nightclubs, getting out on the floor as a way to get others to dance. Men told her that she was a good dancer. In the summer of 1996, she was approached by some men who told her that they knew about her hard life. They offered her an opportunity to go to Germany, dance in a restaurant and make some money. She could strip - only if she wanted - to increase her income. Sasha wanted to take her daughter, fearing that her husband would mistreat her, but her new friends said that this would not be possible. Sasha made a deal with her husband, Peter: "I'll go to Germany and make us a lot of money if you will take care of our daughter when I am gone. I promise you, I will give you all the money." He agreed, and she left.
She started to worry when they crossed the German border. The man making all the arrangements, Stefan took her passport and those of the other girls riding in the car in order to clear customs, and kept the documents, "In case we need them for something else," he said by way of explanation. He never returned the documents.
When they arrived in Germany, she and the other girls were taken to an underground apartment and told what their new life would be like. "You will work in the club, you will talk and drink with the customers, encouraging them to buy lots of alcohol and, when they want, you will go to the back rooms and have sex with them."
"I was in shock," Sasha tells me later. I could not realize that this was happening to me." She wanted to leave, and demanded her passport back, but Stefan told her, "You cannot go now. You owe me money. I bought you." I asked her how much she owed, but Stefan never told her. Consequently, she never knew if she was every getting closer to paying off her debt or not. She felt enveloped in a shroud of deep despair. "I saw that I had traded one type of hell for another," she said flatly, describing how she reacted to the news of her enslavement. "I did what I had to do, because I was doing it for my daughter."
Later she was taken to the Netherlands, and located in a window in the red light district of Amsterdam. She was told that she would charge clients 50 guilders (US $20) for twenty minutes. At the end of every night, she would be expected to pay Stefan and his aide, Joseph, 550 guilders (US $200) - the result of 11 clients, plus installment on the exorbitant rent for the apartment they had found for her. Anything after the income from 13 clients was hers to keep. Together we calculated what her traffickers were able to make off of her on one year. Considering that Sasha worked six days a week, in one year she paid her traffickers the equivalent of $70,000 - tax-free. Sasha was appalled. "All that money, and I have nothing for myself,' she kept saying. When she said she wanted her daughter, Stefan said that she would have to pay 10,000 guilders (US $4,000) to get her. Sasha had no choice but to work more. I asked her, what was the most she had ever worked. She closed her eyes and thought. Telling me an amount of money, she asked, "How many clients would that make?" I did the math and looked at her, hardly able to believe what she was telling me. "You were sometimes with 36 clients in one day?" I asked her, and she said, "Yes. I had to. I wanted my daughter back." She described how she coped. She drank a lot. Every night. And after each client left, she showered to wash the feeling off of her body. She disassociated herself from what she was doing, much as she had done when she was in the Czech Republic and was repeatedly being beaten by her husbands. She became numb, feeling nothing. "I kept reminding myself, it is for my daughter. That is how I got by."
"Were you not free to go?" I asked her. "There was always a security guard out side the street," she said. He walked back and forth. Stefan said that she was there to protect Sasha, but Sasha did not have a cell phone or any way of getting in contact with him if a client were to become abusive. He was there for one reason: to make sure that Sasha and the other girls Stefan was managing stayed right where they were. Stefan also threatened her daughter. Her life consisted of caring for her daughter and going to work. All of her movements were watched. She was not going anywhere.
Rescue
Amsterdam's red-light district needs no description. Customers blend in with curious pedestrians; others are brought there by cab drivers that drop off their fares and drive around the streets waiting to take the man back to his home or hotel. As good businessmen, these drivers became familiar with the women behind the windows, making mental notes of their different characteristics so as to provide their fares with what they wanted. Mihiel was one such cab driver. He noticed Sasha soon after she got there. She was tall and strong, with wavy blond hair and deep blue eyes. But something else caught Mihiel's attention. "It was more of a sense that she didn't belong there," he told me. He decided he wanted to get to know this woman so he walked into her room, put down his money and said, "I just want to talk to you." Sasha was stunned. This had never happened to her before. "Who are you?" he wanted to know. "Where do you come from?" Slowly, and in spite of herself, Sasha came to trust this big but gentle man who genuinely seemed to care about her. Mihiel was falling in love with her. Sasha tells me that she spent the first months of their relationship trying to push him away. "By that time, I believed that I could never trust another man again. Men had beaten me, raped me, abused my children and me, and sold me into slavery. Why should I trust another man?" But Mihiel was undaunted. One evening, as he was standing around a street corner talking with other cab drivers between fares, he noticed a few flower vendors on the corner. "How much for all of your roses?" he asked them, knowing full well that they were not cheap. He piled the bushels of roses into his car and drove to the red light district. "Every half hour I would stop at Sasha's window and take in a rose." Sasha still seems incredulous in the retelling of the story. "He never said anything, he just came in, put the rose on a table, and left. Later the next morning, I went home. When I opened the front door to my apartment building, I noticed that there were roses on the stairs leading up to my apartment. There were roses in front of my door. I entered, and the apartment was completely filled with roses - in the kitchen sink, inside the refrigerator, on the bed and in the closets. There were even roses in the toilet!" He had broken in during her absence and covered the place with flowers.
Eventually Mihiel's gentle persistence paid off and she began to think that she could have a relationship with this man. She had never hid her past from Mihiel, nor her slave status. And he was determined that he could do something about this. Mihiel, the son of a well-known Dutch television celebrity who had been disowned by his father when he was a young boy, was very familiar with the ways of the streets and with Amsterdam's shadow sector. One night he took a few of his own associates and met with Stefan. The deal, simply put, was Sasha's full release from any from of debt bondage and slavery as well as the return of her passport. In exchange, Mihiel assured Stefan that he would not be harmed. The one stipulation Stefan asked for was that his name not be revealed to the authorities.
To this day, Sasha divides her life into two parts - "Before and after I got my freedom."
The Long Road Back
Sasha and her daughter Denisa have lived with Mihiel for six years. Overstuffed photo albums document the development of family life - birthdays, Christmas, new clothes, and finally, Mihiel and Sasha's wedding after their respective divorces became final. For several years, Mihiel has supported Sasha and Denisa, as well as providing support to three daughters from an earlier marriage, on his taxi driver salary. Paying taxes as a single man with no dependents, he has also had to pay for medical bills, school, and other expenses out of his own pocket. Now that she is legally married to Mihiel, Sasha has applied for resident status but the Dutch government has issued an extensive list of requirements that must be met first. Because her status is that of an illegal alien, she must leave the Netherlands until her status is regularized, and her family is once more separated. In her efforts to normalize her status and provide long-term stability to her daughter, she feels as if she is being punished.
On one of her trips back to the Czech Republic, she sought refuge and help in a shelter run by a non-profit organization located in numerous Eastern European and former Soviet countries with a mandate to assist victims of trafficking. It was an experience she never wants to repeat. The "shelter" was located out of the center of the city. It was an empty apartment with minimal furniture, no television, and no phone. A paid social worker was on duty until three in the afternoon every day but after that, went home. At first, Sasha was in the home by herself, soon to be joined by three women from other former Eastern Block countries. They were all there in a strange city, with nothing to do, no telephone, and no one to speak to. "We can't get too involved with our clients, we would lose our objectivity," commented a worker from this
Trafficked in China, originally from Bolivia
Testimony of Patricia
From her home in an impoverished village in rural Bolivia, the prospect of quick riches as an escort girl proved impossible to resist for 23-year-old Patricia Suarez.A neighbor working for a Hong Kong gang suggested the trip, promising the youngmother an escape from part-time work as a domestic servant that paid only US $50 (HK $387) a week.Desperate for money, the former university student left her two-month old baby with her mother and six brothers and sisters—unaware that she was heading for a nightmare trapped in a sleazy underworld.Ms. Suarez speaks no English or Chinese. When she landed at Kai Tak airport last May she was met by another Bolivian woman who whisked her to a flat run by her pimp, known as Jacky. From there she was sent out to clients who had contacted the escort agency through adverts in pornographic magazines. At one point she became pregnant and an abortion was arranged by the gang.She was arrested on November 22, charged with robbery and spent four months in Tai Lim prison. She was acquitted yesterday and is due to be deported within days. Ms. Suarez has no idea where to find the flat in which she was kept, so she cannot collect her clothes. She will fly home with $5,000 in her bag. It is a far cry from the fortune she dreamed of.- Patricia, trafficked in China, originally from BoliviaSpecial Thanks to: Protection ProjectWebsite: http://www.protectionproject.org
Original Source: Oliver Poole. “Young Mother’s Dream of Fast Fortune Ended in Nightmare.”
South China Morning Post (11 March 1997).
From her home in an impoverished village in rural Bolivia, the prospect of quick riches as an escort girl proved impossible to resist for 23-year-old Patricia Suarez.A neighbor working for a Hong Kong gang suggested the trip, promising the youngmother an escape from part-time work as a domestic servant that paid only US $50 (HK $387) a week.Desperate for money, the former university student left her two-month old baby with her mother and six brothers and sisters—unaware that she was heading for a nightmare trapped in a sleazy underworld.Ms. Suarez speaks no English or Chinese. When she landed at Kai Tak airport last May she was met by another Bolivian woman who whisked her to a flat run by her pimp, known as Jacky. From there she was sent out to clients who had contacted the escort agency through adverts in pornographic magazines. At one point she became pregnant and an abortion was arranged by the gang.She was arrested on November 22, charged with robbery and spent four months in Tai Lim prison. She was acquitted yesterday and is due to be deported within days. Ms. Suarez has no idea where to find the flat in which she was kept, so she cannot collect her clothes. She will fly home with $5,000 in her bag. It is a far cry from the fortune she dreamed of.- Patricia, trafficked in China, originally from BoliviaSpecial Thanks to: Protection ProjectWebsite: http://www.protectionproject.org
Original Source: Oliver Poole. “Young Mother’s Dream of Fast Fortune Ended in Nightmare.”
South China Morning Post (11 March 1997).
FRANCE Is a Destination Country
Testimony of Maria
"I'll call myself Maria in this story. This is a real story about my life and I am not the only one who could be named that name. There are many Marias like I am and that is the reason to bring this story to daylight - to stop 'Maria's Story' happens again. I come from a little village in Albania where my parents and my sisters still live. They probably think I am dead, and I hope so. It is easier than the truth; I have done things they never can imagine. I shall never see them again. It was only four years ago when a young man from Skopje came into my father's shop. He was very polite and well dressed and he asked about life in our town. When I said there was little to do, my father asked if he was there to talk or to buy something. My father is very old fashioned and he was always protecting me from boys, which I did not like. I was almost 17 years old and did not need my father's protection. The smile the young man gave me said he understood. But he talked to my father politely, paid for some items and I saw him going away in a Mercedes Benz car. I was very angry with my father and many time think of the young man in his expensive car. Perhaps two weeks after, the young man arrived again. This time my father was away to cafe and we talked (Later, I wonder if he watched the shop to see my father going out...). His name was Damir and he spoke of the famous cities he often visited. Rome, Paris, Madrid and many other ones, I could only dream about. I said how much I wanted to see them and Damir said how he works for a modeling agency that looks for pretty girls like I was (My face became red but I enjoyed him to say such things...). To live and work in Paris!!! If I wanted to do it, he would arrange for colleague to speak with my parents. I was very excited and said yes. Some days passed and woman entered the shop. She was Damir's colleague. Her jewelers and expensive clothes made me embarrassed of my own. She spoke to my parents and showed them a contract. I will earn certain amount of money, so much to me for living and the rest to my parents. When my father asked about safety, Vanja said how young models live together and always with chaperone. I beg them to allow me and finally my father signed. I remember he was very sad about me going away. Vanja took me to a photo shop for passport photos and said Damir hope to see me soon. I was in Heaven! The next week Vanja returned. In her car were two other girls, one gypsy girl, younger than me and another Albanian, little older. I kissed my parents goodbye. It was last time I saw them. We drove some hours to Durres on the coast of Adriatic sea. Damir was waiting for us... The other girls knew him also and I was already jealous, but too excited to be angry. He had our new passports but told us he must keep them. It was first time I saw the sea and first time in a ship. It seemed very big and beautiful. We followed Damir, who had our tickets and travel documents. He spoke with official and gave him something before we went into the ship and down many stairs. I thought we were near the engine - the smell of oil was very strong, also rotten food and the smell of clothes not washed in long time. He said for our safety he must lock the door but will return in the morning. Two of us had to share a bed, but only for one night and next day we shall come to Italy! The sound of the engine was very loud and soon the ship was moving very fast. We wished to talk about the handsome men we are going to meet and how the girls at home will be jealous, but the bad smells and moving ship make me and gypsy girl very sick. The next morning we arrived in Bari. Damir took us to a house where the streets are dirty and we see beggars and even rats during the day. We were nervous because we expecting something very different than that. When we enter the house it smelled as bad as the ship. There were many girl's magazines, wine bottles and cigarettes on the floor. Some men were sitting inside, they laughed and looked at us in bad way and speak to Damir in Italian, which we did not understand. I asked him who they are, but the polite young man from my father's shop grab my arm and said something very bad in Albanian. He hit me on the face. I fell on the ground and he pulled me by hair into a room and hit me more than once until my face start bleeding. I did not understand what has happened. I heard other girls screaming. And then he raped me. Than the other men came in and did the same. After that event, each day the same men came again, and then the others, who paid money to be with us. If we said no, Damir would hit and kick us and gave us no food. He said THIS was modeling we must do for anyone they say. He paid for our passports and documents. They belong to him and to be without them in foreign country means going to prison if police find us. If we try escape, he and his friends will kill us and no one will ever know. If we succeed and go to police, bad things will happen to our families and everyone will hear we are prostitutes. He laughed and and said how we were stupid girls from farms. He asked what our parents and friends would say if they knew with how many men we have been already!? It was very cruel to make us feel ashamed for what he make us to do. One night Damir took me and the gypsy girl to the truck and said another man own us now and if we thought he was a bad man, this man is worse, so we better do always what he says. He gave our passports to this man and we travel all night and next day until Marseille in France, where we stayed in the house with the other girls. There I learnt if I am quiet and do what he says I won't be punished and some given drugs to make them addicts. If they are bad, they do not have the drugs they wanted. I was in Marseille almost one year and sold to a man and a woman who took me to Amsterdam. I slept in a small room with no heat and little food, sometimes only what is left over from their meals. Sometimes I did not eat for one or two days. They are drug addicts and would forget about me - except to bring men. When there were no customers, the man would hit me and burn me with cigarettes and force me to do things sometimes with the woman there also. He said this to make me remember he is the master. I made no trouble and after some time the woman take me to carry her shopping. I liked these shopping trips with her and did everything se wanted me to do - it was wanderful to be away from my small, cold room. After some time she began to give me some small money for treats. One day I saw a poster about charity for women. I begin to pray that I will find them and they will help me. But I was frightened because I have no papers. my owners always said to me how without the passport I will go to prison and then sent to Albania if the police find me. Even after more than two years I cry with shame of my life and shame of my parents if they ever know about me. One day the woman was looking at clothes. She gave me small money to buy a treat. But I found a telephone and with the money called the number of the charity. It was difficult to understand me but Bulgarian came to the telephone and asked where I am. SHE SAID SHE WAS COMING FOR ME !!!!! Now I work for this charity more than one year and help girls like me. I talk to them every day, and I tell them they must make a new life. They weep very much. I also, but wait until night so they do not see. We all want to go home but we cannot. The shame for our parents and us is too large. I dreamed to be a model. Now I dream about a nice man but what man will marry me? Even if he accepts what happen to me I can never have children because of it. It is difficult to smile. My new friends in the charity all say the girls like us must be warned. My Bulgarian friend says parhaps the way is Internet. There is little money needed for making website and my English is not good but she helps me. We hope many people will find it."
- Maria, trafficked in France & Italy, originally from AlbaniaSpecial Thanks to: Ex Oriente LuxWebsite: http://ex-oriente-lux.org/acc_albania_01.html
Original Source: Human Peril
"I'll call myself Maria in this story. This is a real story about my life and I am not the only one who could be named that name. There are many Marias like I am and that is the reason to bring this story to daylight - to stop 'Maria's Story' happens again. I come from a little village in Albania where my parents and my sisters still live. They probably think I am dead, and I hope so. It is easier than the truth; I have done things they never can imagine. I shall never see them again. It was only four years ago when a young man from Skopje came into my father's shop. He was very polite and well dressed and he asked about life in our town. When I said there was little to do, my father asked if he was there to talk or to buy something. My father is very old fashioned and he was always protecting me from boys, which I did not like. I was almost 17 years old and did not need my father's protection. The smile the young man gave me said he understood. But he talked to my father politely, paid for some items and I saw him going away in a Mercedes Benz car. I was very angry with my father and many time think of the young man in his expensive car. Perhaps two weeks after, the young man arrived again. This time my father was away to cafe and we talked (Later, I wonder if he watched the shop to see my father going out...). His name was Damir and he spoke of the famous cities he often visited. Rome, Paris, Madrid and many other ones, I could only dream about. I said how much I wanted to see them and Damir said how he works for a modeling agency that looks for pretty girls like I was (My face became red but I enjoyed him to say such things...). To live and work in Paris!!! If I wanted to do it, he would arrange for colleague to speak with my parents. I was very excited and said yes. Some days passed and woman entered the shop. She was Damir's colleague. Her jewelers and expensive clothes made me embarrassed of my own. She spoke to my parents and showed them a contract. I will earn certain amount of money, so much to me for living and the rest to my parents. When my father asked about safety, Vanja said how young models live together and always with chaperone. I beg them to allow me and finally my father signed. I remember he was very sad about me going away. Vanja took me to a photo shop for passport photos and said Damir hope to see me soon. I was in Heaven! The next week Vanja returned. In her car were two other girls, one gypsy girl, younger than me and another Albanian, little older. I kissed my parents goodbye. It was last time I saw them. We drove some hours to Durres on the coast of Adriatic sea. Damir was waiting for us... The other girls knew him also and I was already jealous, but too excited to be angry. He had our new passports but told us he must keep them. It was first time I saw the sea and first time in a ship. It seemed very big and beautiful. We followed Damir, who had our tickets and travel documents. He spoke with official and gave him something before we went into the ship and down many stairs. I thought we were near the engine - the smell of oil was very strong, also rotten food and the smell of clothes not washed in long time. He said for our safety he must lock the door but will return in the morning. Two of us had to share a bed, but only for one night and next day we shall come to Italy! The sound of the engine was very loud and soon the ship was moving very fast. We wished to talk about the handsome men we are going to meet and how the girls at home will be jealous, but the bad smells and moving ship make me and gypsy girl very sick. The next morning we arrived in Bari. Damir took us to a house where the streets are dirty and we see beggars and even rats during the day. We were nervous because we expecting something very different than that. When we enter the house it smelled as bad as the ship. There were many girl's magazines, wine bottles and cigarettes on the floor. Some men were sitting inside, they laughed and looked at us in bad way and speak to Damir in Italian, which we did not understand. I asked him who they are, but the polite young man from my father's shop grab my arm and said something very bad in Albanian. He hit me on the face. I fell on the ground and he pulled me by hair into a room and hit me more than once until my face start bleeding. I did not understand what has happened. I heard other girls screaming. And then he raped me. Than the other men came in and did the same. After that event, each day the same men came again, and then the others, who paid money to be with us. If we said no, Damir would hit and kick us and gave us no food. He said THIS was modeling we must do for anyone they say. He paid for our passports and documents. They belong to him and to be without them in foreign country means going to prison if police find us. If we try escape, he and his friends will kill us and no one will ever know. If we succeed and go to police, bad things will happen to our families and everyone will hear we are prostitutes. He laughed and and said how we were stupid girls from farms. He asked what our parents and friends would say if they knew with how many men we have been already!? It was very cruel to make us feel ashamed for what he make us to do. One night Damir took me and the gypsy girl to the truck and said another man own us now and if we thought he was a bad man, this man is worse, so we better do always what he says. He gave our passports to this man and we travel all night and next day until Marseille in France, where we stayed in the house with the other girls. There I learnt if I am quiet and do what he says I won't be punished and some given drugs to make them addicts. If they are bad, they do not have the drugs they wanted. I was in Marseille almost one year and sold to a man and a woman who took me to Amsterdam. I slept in a small room with no heat and little food, sometimes only what is left over from their meals. Sometimes I did not eat for one or two days. They are drug addicts and would forget about me - except to bring men. When there were no customers, the man would hit me and burn me with cigarettes and force me to do things sometimes with the woman there also. He said this to make me remember he is the master. I made no trouble and after some time the woman take me to carry her shopping. I liked these shopping trips with her and did everything se wanted me to do - it was wanderful to be away from my small, cold room. After some time she began to give me some small money for treats. One day I saw a poster about charity for women. I begin to pray that I will find them and they will help me. But I was frightened because I have no papers. my owners always said to me how without the passport I will go to prison and then sent to Albania if the police find me. Even after more than two years I cry with shame of my life and shame of my parents if they ever know about me. One day the woman was looking at clothes. She gave me small money to buy a treat. But I found a telephone and with the money called the number of the charity. It was difficult to understand me but Bulgarian came to the telephone and asked where I am. SHE SAID SHE WAS COMING FOR ME !!!!! Now I work for this charity more than one year and help girls like me. I talk to them every day, and I tell them they must make a new life. They weep very much. I also, but wait until night so they do not see. We all want to go home but we cannot. The shame for our parents and us is too large. I dreamed to be a model. Now I dream about a nice man but what man will marry me? Even if he accepts what happen to me I can never have children because of it. It is difficult to smile. My new friends in the charity all say the girls like us must be warned. My Bulgarian friend says parhaps the way is Internet. There is little money needed for making website and my English is not good but she helps me. We hope many people will find it."
- Maria, trafficked in France & Italy, originally from AlbaniaSpecial Thanks to: Ex Oriente LuxWebsite: http://ex-oriente-lux.org/acc_albania_01.html
Original Source: Human Peril
Saturday, September 20, 2008
She had a baby at 14
Posted on Wed, Sep. 17, 2008
Teen details human trafficking, prostitution
BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle
She had a baby at 14, fathered by a man in his 30s.
At 15, she ran away, and met another man who she said took her from Wichita to Dallas and put her on the streets as a prostitute.
Now 16, the girl took the witness stand Tuesday and pointed to Marlin Williams as the man she knew by the nickname "Pressure." She said she gave him the money she earned for having sex with strangers.
Williams, 38, so vehemently denied the charge against him that he had to be escorted out of court during jury selection for shouting at Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens.
The five women and seven men selected for the jury are hearing the first case of human trafficking filed in Sedgwick County under a provision of Jessica's Law, which last year increased punishment for most sex offenses against children and teens. It also added the new crime of human trafficking, which carries a penalty of 12 to 44 years in prison for people who "recruit, harbor or transport" minors to engage in sex.
Lawyer Brad Sylvester, who represents Williams, argued to the judge that under this law a father could be charged with a crime for driving his daughter to a school dance, if he knew she might have sex with her boyfriend afterward.
Sylvester told the jury all Williams did was drive.
The girl said he did more.
She is not being named because The Eagle has a policy of not naming victims of alleged sex crimes.
Williams gave her eight condoms, a price list for sexual favors and told her "don't come back with less than $400," the girl told prosecutor Christine Ladner.
She said she'd run away from her family after the 33-year-old father of her child went to jail for having sex with her as a minor.
She also ran away from the Wichita Children's Home and ended up living with a woman who couldn't pay her bills, the teen testified.
"That's what it's like being on the run," she said. "You never know where you're going to end up next."
The girl said she met Williams through the woman she lived with. She told him she was 17, but she was really 15.
Williams drove her and another girl to Dallas, the girl testified, not even letting her pick up her clothes on the way out of town.
"He told me he would buy me new things," she said.
The girl said they drove to Dallas that same night and within two hours she was working the streets.
"He bought me a pair of shoes," she said.
Sylvester, Williams' lawyer, told the jury in his opening statements that the girl met other prostitutes once she reached Dallas. Sylvester said that when police found her and questioned her, she pointed to Williams because she was afraid of the people who really were behind her prostitution.
As the girl's testimony continues today, Sylvester said, he plans to cross-examine her about her MySpace page -- a Web site on which he claims she still advertises herself as a prostitute.
Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or rsylvester@wichitaeagle.com.
Teen details human trafficking, prostitution
BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle
She had a baby at 14, fathered by a man in his 30s.
At 15, she ran away, and met another man who she said took her from Wichita to Dallas and put her on the streets as a prostitute.
Now 16, the girl took the witness stand Tuesday and pointed to Marlin Williams as the man she knew by the nickname "Pressure." She said she gave him the money she earned for having sex with strangers.
Williams, 38, so vehemently denied the charge against him that he had to be escorted out of court during jury selection for shouting at Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens.
The five women and seven men selected for the jury are hearing the first case of human trafficking filed in Sedgwick County under a provision of Jessica's Law, which last year increased punishment for most sex offenses against children and teens. It also added the new crime of human trafficking, which carries a penalty of 12 to 44 years in prison for people who "recruit, harbor or transport" minors to engage in sex.
Lawyer Brad Sylvester, who represents Williams, argued to the judge that under this law a father could be charged with a crime for driving his daughter to a school dance, if he knew she might have sex with her boyfriend afterward.
Sylvester told the jury all Williams did was drive.
The girl said he did more.
She is not being named because The Eagle has a policy of not naming victims of alleged sex crimes.
Williams gave her eight condoms, a price list for sexual favors and told her "don't come back with less than $400," the girl told prosecutor Christine Ladner.
She said she'd run away from her family after the 33-year-old father of her child went to jail for having sex with her as a minor.
She also ran away from the Wichita Children's Home and ended up living with a woman who couldn't pay her bills, the teen testified.
"That's what it's like being on the run," she said. "You never know where you're going to end up next."
The girl said she met Williams through the woman she lived with. She told him she was 17, but she was really 15.
Williams drove her and another girl to Dallas, the girl testified, not even letting her pick up her clothes on the way out of town.
"He told me he would buy me new things," she said.
The girl said they drove to Dallas that same night and within two hours she was working the streets.
"He bought me a pair of shoes," she said.
Sylvester, Williams' lawyer, told the jury in his opening statements that the girl met other prostitutes once she reached Dallas. Sylvester said that when police found her and questioned her, she pointed to Williams because she was afraid of the people who really were behind her prostitution.
As the girl's testimony continues today, Sylvester said, he plans to cross-examine her about her MySpace page -- a Web site on which he claims she still advertises herself as a prostitute.
Reach Ron Sylvester at 316-268-6514 or rsylvester@wichitaeagle.com.
Child workers are easy to find in cocoa plantations
Meeting the 'chocolate slaves'
By Humphrey Hawksley BBC, Mali
The morning Malian sun was so severe that it cast on the white-washed wall stark shadows of the four children sitting upright and bewildered on a bench.
A fan cooled sweat from their faces. Its breeze blew a sheet of paper off the table. One of the children helpfully ran after it and handed it over to the woman looking after them.
"We are like your parents," she told them gently. "Whatever is here belongs to you."
One of the boys buried his face into his cupped hands, the relief was so great. The oldest was 13. The youngest, 10.
"What happened to you?" I asked.
Kidnap attempt
"I was playing football," said Karim Sadibe. "This man said I should come with him to the Ivory Coast. He would sign me up for the national team and I would get lots of money and that I shouldn't tell my parents."
Karim went, but luckily was intercepted by police. The man who was to have sold him into slavery - probably for about £50 - melted away.
Karim was sent back to Mali, to a centre run by Save the Children Fund, Canada. All of that had taken place within the past week.
Next door was 20-year-old Moussa Doumbia. He slipped off a freshly pressed pink shirt to reveal welted scars where he had been made to carry sacks of cocoa until he managed to escape two years ago.
At night he slept on the floor in a locked room. He was given food once a day. If he complained, he was beaten. The boys who tried to escape had their feet cut with razors.
"I don't know how one human being can treat another in the way they treated me," he whispered.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Women Trafficking from Thailand to Japan
A personal story of Thai woman who was trafficked to Japan as a sex worker (THAIWOMEN case)
"Since arriving to work in Japan, I cried a lot although normally I did not cry easily" --- A personal story of Thai woman who was trafficked to Japan as a sex worker
After leaving a primary school, I helped my parents do some domestic chores and worked in the paddy field. My friend told me that she was going to work in Japan and persuaded me to go with her. I decided to go with her. But I told my mother I went to work in Bangkok.
When we arrived in Japan, the weather was so cold. An agent chose me and my friend and sent us to Tokyo. Other women were sent to rural areas. The agent told us that each of us owed him 500,000 Thai Baht (about US$ 20,000). We were taken to a bar where inside we could see thirty Thai women singing and talking to customers. A man who was in charge of the bar told me to sit with one of the customers who had already paid him 30,000 Yen (about US$ 300). After that, he ordered me to go out with that customer.
Many times I saw Yakuza or the Japanese gangsters rush into the bar. One day, three of Yakuza came in and took three Thai women out. The women returned to the bar with tears. One woman had had her throat tickled with a knife and was forced to have oral sex. Another woman was forced to get into the bathtub, and then the man urinated on her face. Sometimes, while I was staying with a customer in a room, I heard my colleague screaming for help in Thai from a room near by. But my customer forbade me to do anything about it or I myself would receive the same awful treatment.
There were some women who ran away. The boss paid Yakuza to trace them and return them for punishment. They locked the woman up in a small room in which she had to sleep with any customers they commanded. If she disobeyed, she would have only one choice-death. Since arriving to work in Japan, I cried a lot although normally I did not cry easily.
One day when we were walking, two policemen came to hold our arms and asked us to show them our passports. We told them that we left them in our room but in fact, our visas had expired a long time ago. We were taken to a Police Station. There were about 200 women inside and we were investigated. Most of the Thai women had been there for two or three months. They said that they couldn't afford any air tickets so they were waiting for help from the Thai Embassy. One morning, the immigration policeman called our names telling us that we could go back home. I was so delighted but when I saw many of my fellow countrywomen who were not called crying, I felt sympathy for them but couldn't provide any help.
I was deported. After working in these conditions I arrived in Thailand empty handed. All my work, my traumatic experience, was for nothing. At present I stay with my parents and my little nephews in my village. I make my living from a small grocery and do some agriculture. All of this work requires labour, endurance and some capital. But everyone of us who was born in this world has to struggle and work hard in order to live in this world. I also give my time working on the committee for the women's group in my village. Though it is just a small thing, I hope it can be useful for the community.
----Summary of a Thai woman's personal story "Once in My Life," Our Lives Our Stories (Bangkok, Thailand: Foundation of Women, 1995, pp12-42)
Rachel's Story
Trafficking of Nigerian Women into Italy is a human rights issue that reflects a global problem. This case study uses the example of the Trafficking of Nigerian Women into Italy for reasons of prostitution and sexual exploitation to highlight the human rights violations committed against women, the massive infection of HIV/AIDS among the women, and the social repercussions of the most profitable global trade.
Rachel is a young Nigerian woman who managed to escape from traffickers and agreed to meet with the Advocacy Project. I have borrowed her story from the Advocacy Project's website. Rachel was living in Benin City with her sister when she was approached by a man who asked if she would like to go abroad and earn money. After a long and roundabout route she arrived in Rome, where she met her pimp, named "Madam Agnes." She was shocked to learn that she was expected to earn $50,000 dollars from prostitution, or be denounced to the police as an illegal immigrant. At the going rate that would have meant sex with several partners a day for three years.
Rachel tried to escape, but to no avail. After three weeks on the streets, a client drove her to the patch of empty ground. After having sex with Rachel in his car, he told her to hand over all of her earnings from the day. She kept her earnings in a sock and gave him an empty purse. He started to curse and hit her, whereupon she managed to open the door and start running. He started the car and drove it right at her, knocking her down. Luckily he then drove off, because as she knows only too well, she could have been killed. Covered in blood and crying, Rachel then walked back to the corner where she worked. In retrospect, it seems amazing that she returned. It shows how totally cowed she had been by her experience and by the fearsome Madam Agnes.
Rachel was rescued by a group of modern Samaritans from the Catholic group Caritas, who patrol the streets of Rome every Wednesday in an attempt to check up on the prostitutes. They quickly realized that Rachel was sick and asked her to go to a hospital with them. At first Rachel refused: "I thought I would not be able to afford treatment." They insisted gently and told her that the treatment would be free. Even ensconced in a hospital bed, Rachel was reluctant to sleep, afraid of how Madam would react. The staff carried out medical tests, which presumably included a test for sexually transmitted diseases and even HIV-AIDS.
Rachel's five days in the hospital finally broke the grip of Madam Agnes. The Caritas group asked if Rachel wanted to return to Nigeria and offered to help. She was taken to a convent in Rome, where she stayed for several days with two other girls. She then went to the Nigerian embassy in Rome and to the office of the International Organization of Migration, to collect the necessary documents and ticket. In one final act of pure malice, Madam Agnes had phoned Rachel's family after she had escaped and told them that she had been killed. When Rachel returned home, alive and well, they were overjoyed. They were also bitterly angry-so angry, in fact, that they went in person to confront the brother of Agnes. He was living in Benin City and had arranged for the departure of their child two months earlier.
Rachel's story rings true for most Nigerians, and it is only one of thousands of stories just like it that radiate from all over the world.
Rachel is a young Nigerian woman who managed to escape from traffickers and agreed to meet with the Advocacy Project. I have borrowed her story from the Advocacy Project's website. Rachel was living in Benin City with her sister when she was approached by a man who asked if she would like to go abroad and earn money. After a long and roundabout route she arrived in Rome, where she met her pimp, named "Madam Agnes." She was shocked to learn that she was expected to earn $50,000 dollars from prostitution, or be denounced to the police as an illegal immigrant. At the going rate that would have meant sex with several partners a day for three years.
Rachel tried to escape, but to no avail. After three weeks on the streets, a client drove her to the patch of empty ground. After having sex with Rachel in his car, he told her to hand over all of her earnings from the day. She kept her earnings in a sock and gave him an empty purse. He started to curse and hit her, whereupon she managed to open the door and start running. He started the car and drove it right at her, knocking her down. Luckily he then drove off, because as she knows only too well, she could have been killed. Covered in blood and crying, Rachel then walked back to the corner where she worked. In retrospect, it seems amazing that she returned. It shows how totally cowed she had been by her experience and by the fearsome Madam Agnes.
Rachel was rescued by a group of modern Samaritans from the Catholic group Caritas, who patrol the streets of Rome every Wednesday in an attempt to check up on the prostitutes. They quickly realized that Rachel was sick and asked her to go to a hospital with them. At first Rachel refused: "I thought I would not be able to afford treatment." They insisted gently and told her that the treatment would be free. Even ensconced in a hospital bed, Rachel was reluctant to sleep, afraid of how Madam would react. The staff carried out medical tests, which presumably included a test for sexually transmitted diseases and even HIV-AIDS.
Rachel's five days in the hospital finally broke the grip of Madam Agnes. The Caritas group asked if Rachel wanted to return to Nigeria and offered to help. She was taken to a convent in Rome, where she stayed for several days with two other girls. She then went to the Nigerian embassy in Rome and to the office of the International Organization of Migration, to collect the necessary documents and ticket. In one final act of pure malice, Madam Agnes had phoned Rachel's family after she had escaped and told them that she had been killed. When Rachel returned home, alive and well, they were overjoyed. They were also bitterly angry-so angry, in fact, that they went in person to confront the brother of Agnes. He was living in Benin City and had arranged for the departure of their child two months earlier.
Rachel's story rings true for most Nigerians, and it is only one of thousands of stories just like it that radiate from all over the world.
Slavery, the Cote d'Ivoire, and the Rest of West Africa
CHOCOLATE and SLAVERY
There are about 600,000 cocoa farms in Cote d'Ivoire (Child Labor Coalition). Estimates of the number of children forced to work as slaves on these farms are as high as 15,000 (Save the Children Canada). In addition to the very illegality of trafficking and hiring children workers, the implicated cocoa farmers subject the children to inhuman living conditions. Besides overworking them, the farmers do not pay the children nor feed them properly-often times they are allowed to eat corn paste as their only meal. The denigration also includes locking the children up at night to prevent escape. Although it is only one of many occurrences of bonded labor, Aly Diabate's experience on a cocoa farm still illustrates how this torture strips away the dignity of children.
Aly Diabate, who is from Mali, was eleven years old when he was lured in Mali by a slave trader to go work on an Ivorian farm. The locateur told him that not only would he receive a bicycle, but he could also help his parents with the $150 he would earn. However life on the cocoa farm of "Le Gros" (or "Big Man") was nothing like Aly had imagined. He and the other workers had to work from six in the morning to about 6:30 at night on the cocoa fields. Since Aly was only about four feet tall, the bags of cocoa beans were taller than him. To be able to carry and transport the bags, other people would have to place the bags onto his head for him. Because the bags were so heavy, he had trouble carrying them and always fell down. The farmer would beat him until he stood back up and lifted the bag again. Aly was beaten the most because the farmer accused him of never working hard enough. The little boy still has the scars left from the bike chains and cocoa tree branches that Le Gros used. He and the other slaves were not fed well either. They had to subsist on a few burnt bananas.
Yet when nightfall came, Aly's torture did not end. He and eighteen other slave workers had to stay in their one room that measured 24-by-20 feet. The boys all slept on a wooden plank. There was but one small hole just big enough to let in some air. Aly and the others had to urinate in a can, because once they went into the room, they were not allowed to leave. To ensure this, Le Gros would lock the room.
Despite the horrendous conditions that he was living in, Aly was too afraid to escape. He had seen others who had attempted escapes, only to be brutally beaten after they got caught. However one day, a boy from the farm successfully escaped and reported Le Gros to the authorities. They arrested the farmer and sent the boys back home. The police made Le Gros pay Aly $180 for the eighteen months he had worked. Now Aly is back with his parents in Mali, but the scars, both physical and psychological still remain. He admitted that after he first came back from the farm, he had nightmares about the beatings every night. Aly was fortunate that the authorities were alerted about the slavery that was present at Le Gros' farm, but many other children are not as lucky and are still being subjected to the beatings and overall dehumanization on these cocoa farms.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
MTV EXIT: End Exploitation and Trafficking documentary hosted by Lucy Liu
Part One clip courtesy of MTV networks
Monday, September 15, 2008
Survivor's Story
For almost a year, 20-year-old Katya, a university student from Ukraine was forced to work strip clubs in Detroit by two men she thought were taking her to a waitressing job in America. Alex Maksimenko’s and Michail Aronov imprisoned her and 15 other women in separate apartments around Detroit. Katya: "We couldn't kept any money in our apartment because the guys has keys. They have, I believe, there was listen us in the apartment. And we could not hide nothing. They're say, if they find at least a dollar, it will be something bad happen to us." The 12 hour shifts yielded up to $1000 a night but the women saw none of it.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
The $50 Baby
International FORUM SPIEGEL WISSEN ABO
CHILD TRAFFICKING IN CAMBODIA
By Annette Langer
The horror scene is, sadly, reality: A 25-day-old Cambodian baby is sold to a human trafficker for a pittance. Police manage to break up the sale at the border, but that, sadly, is the exception in a country where children have long been a major export product. Most wind up as forced workers or sex slaves.
The victims of child trafficking: After they are sold, they often face lives of slavery and prostitution.
To read the rest of this article go to http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,339105,00.html
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Thai Women Trafficked to Japan
Pot was recruited to work in Japan in 1990 when she was twenty-seven years old.
A friend I knew from the market in Nakhon Sawan told me about the opportunity to work in factories in Japan. I had divorced my Thai husband when I was four months pregnant and now my son was three years old and I had to raise him by myself and was finding it difficult to make enough money. My parents asked me not to go, but I thought if I went for just one year I could make money for my family and son. I didn't realize what kind of work I was going to do until I was on my way to Japan, and I didn't realize I was in debt for 380 bai [3.8 million yen; US$26,000](2) until I arrived at the snack.(3) I was told by the recruiters in Thailand that I would work in a factory and would get fifty percent of my salary until my debt was paid off. I was angry and freaked out about my situation.
After describing the good job opportunities in Japan, Pot's friend introduced her to an agent in Bangkok who made the arrangements for her travel. First, he helped her obtain her travel documents. She applied for and received her own passport, but the agent took care of all of the paperwork and negotiations with the officials. Then he took Pot to get her Japanese visa. "The agent told me to go to a certain window at the visa section at the Japanese Embassy. I got my visa without anyone asking me any questions or having to talk at all because the agent filled out all the forms for me." The agent also gave Pot money for clothing, but Pot sent most of it to her family instead. The day Pot's visa arrived, the agent put her in a hotel room at the Central Hotel in the Ladprao area of Bangkok and would not let her go out. Pot recalled:
It was a big room and four or five other women going to work in Japan were also kept there. I was surprised to be locked up because I was not allowed any chance to say goodbye to my family, even over the phone. I heard the agents talking about the price for each woman being between 150-160 bai [1.5-1.6 million yen; US$10,000-11,000], but I couldn't really understand what they were talking about and did not realize that we were being sold into prostitution. I was feeling suspicious but still wasn't clear about what was going on. I stayed at the hotel for several days. During that time, I saw that if a woman did not get approved for a Japanese visa, then the agent exchanged her real passport for a false one.
Two weeks after her initial decision to go to Japan, Pot was put on a flight to South Korea with four other women from the hotel room and a Thai man nicknamed Dee. Dee told them which immigration officer to go to at the airport. "In hindsight I believe that the immigration officer at Don Muang airport in Bangkok knew what I was going to do in Japan better than I did at the time, as the officer was buddy-buddy with my escort and just kept smiling at me and the other Thai women as he stamped our passports." When Pot got to South Korea she was put in a room with fifty other Thai women and seven or eight men. "Most of the women were under twenty years old and from the north of Thailand. All fifty women were guarded, controlled, and watched by the men at all times. I knew that there was something wrong and began talking to the other Thai women there. This is where I learned that all of the women were going to work in prostitution, because some of the women had worked in prostitution before and knew that they were going to do so in Japan. I didn't know what to do. I just thought that once I got to Japan I would change my job immediately."
All fifty Thai women were put on the same flight to Narita airport, just outside Tokyo. The men who were accompanying them went through immigration control first, and then waited near the immigration officers to give explanations when needed. A few of the women were not allowed into Japan, but most were. From the airport, Dee put Pot and several of the other Thai women into a van with a Khmer woman named Chan, who was from one of the refugee camps close to the Thai border with Cambodia. Chan brought the women to Tokyo, and spent the next five days taking them to different places around the city. "Chan was trying to sell me and the others like cattle. Then, on the fifth day, a Thai woman bought me and took me to another woman named Chan in Ibaraki prefecture who paid 380 bai [3.8 million yen; US$26,000] for me. I had known since Korea that I was being sold as a prostitute, but I didn't realize until I got to the snack that this 380 bai that I was bought for was to be my debt."
Human Rights Watch New York · Washington · London · Brussels
A friend I knew from the market in Nakhon Sawan told me about the opportunity to work in factories in Japan. I had divorced my Thai husband when I was four months pregnant and now my son was three years old and I had to raise him by myself and was finding it difficult to make enough money. My parents asked me not to go, but I thought if I went for just one year I could make money for my family and son. I didn't realize what kind of work I was going to do until I was on my way to Japan, and I didn't realize I was in debt for 380 bai [3.8 million yen; US$26,000](2) until I arrived at the snack.(3) I was told by the recruiters in Thailand that I would work in a factory and would get fifty percent of my salary until my debt was paid off. I was angry and freaked out about my situation.
After describing the good job opportunities in Japan, Pot's friend introduced her to an agent in Bangkok who made the arrangements for her travel. First, he helped her obtain her travel documents. She applied for and received her own passport, but the agent took care of all of the paperwork and negotiations with the officials. Then he took Pot to get her Japanese visa. "The agent told me to go to a certain window at the visa section at the Japanese Embassy. I got my visa without anyone asking me any questions or having to talk at all because the agent filled out all the forms for me." The agent also gave Pot money for clothing, but Pot sent most of it to her family instead. The day Pot's visa arrived, the agent put her in a hotel room at the Central Hotel in the Ladprao area of Bangkok and would not let her go out. Pot recalled:
It was a big room and four or five other women going to work in Japan were also kept there. I was surprised to be locked up because I was not allowed any chance to say goodbye to my family, even over the phone. I heard the agents talking about the price for each woman being between 150-160 bai [1.5-1.6 million yen; US$10,000-11,000], but I couldn't really understand what they were talking about and did not realize that we were being sold into prostitution. I was feeling suspicious but still wasn't clear about what was going on. I stayed at the hotel for several days. During that time, I saw that if a woman did not get approved for a Japanese visa, then the agent exchanged her real passport for a false one.
Two weeks after her initial decision to go to Japan, Pot was put on a flight to South Korea with four other women from the hotel room and a Thai man nicknamed Dee. Dee told them which immigration officer to go to at the airport. "In hindsight I believe that the immigration officer at Don Muang airport in Bangkok knew what I was going to do in Japan better than I did at the time, as the officer was buddy-buddy with my escort and just kept smiling at me and the other Thai women as he stamped our passports." When Pot got to South Korea she was put in a room with fifty other Thai women and seven or eight men. "Most of the women were under twenty years old and from the north of Thailand. All fifty women were guarded, controlled, and watched by the men at all times. I knew that there was something wrong and began talking to the other Thai women there. This is where I learned that all of the women were going to work in prostitution, because some of the women had worked in prostitution before and knew that they were going to do so in Japan. I didn't know what to do. I just thought that once I got to Japan I would change my job immediately."
All fifty Thai women were put on the same flight to Narita airport, just outside Tokyo. The men who were accompanying them went through immigration control first, and then waited near the immigration officers to give explanations when needed. A few of the women were not allowed into Japan, but most were. From the airport, Dee put Pot and several of the other Thai women into a van with a Khmer woman named Chan, who was from one of the refugee camps close to the Thai border with Cambodia. Chan brought the women to Tokyo, and spent the next five days taking them to different places around the city. "Chan was trying to sell me and the others like cattle. Then, on the fifth day, a Thai woman bought me and took me to another woman named Chan in Ibaraki prefecture who paid 380 bai [3.8 million yen; US$26,000] for me. I had known since Korea that I was being sold as a prostitute, but I didn't realize until I got to the snack that this 380 bai that I was bought for was to be my debt."
Human Rights Watch New York · Washington · London · Brussels
The Price of a Woman?
"One day when I was 17, I went to my cousin’s wedding party. He said he could offer me a good job. I went with him to a hotel and there he raped me in front of a dozen people. For 15 days he kept me at this hotel in Hetquda [Nepal]. Then we left for India. In Rakswal, India, my cousin gave me some tea with pop rice, which made me very drowsy and he told the Indian police that I was his sick wife and he was taking me to India for treatment. He also tortured me with a knife and burnt me with cigarette butts and threatened me saying that I should not talk to anybody on the way. When we reached Pilas, I was taken to a building where I saw many other ladies in vulgar clothes with short skirts. I was amazed. From the other girls I came to know that I had been trafficked."
This is the testimony of Thuli, a young girl from Nepal who was trafficked to India and sold into prostitution for Rs 35,000, the equivalent of $720. Thuli’s blacksmith family is considered low-caste, and their poverty kept her from attending school as a young child. Intrigued by the promise of good pay, Thuli’s desire to improve her economic situation led to a period of forced labor in an Indian brothel where she worked 18 hours a day for no pay, having unprotected sex with up to 15 clients a day. She describes being physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by her brothel owner and the clients she was forced to serve. On one occasion, her identity was hidden from Nepalese police who were conducting an inspection of the facility, and later, it was only after the help of a health worker that Thuli was removed from the brothel and taken home to her family in Nepal.
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Resources for Teachers
This is the testimony of Thuli, a young girl from Nepal who was trafficked to India and sold into prostitution for Rs 35,000, the equivalent of $720. Thuli’s blacksmith family is considered low-caste, and their poverty kept her from attending school as a young child. Intrigued by the promise of good pay, Thuli’s desire to improve her economic situation led to a period of forced labor in an Indian brothel where she worked 18 hours a day for no pay, having unprotected sex with up to 15 clients a day. She describes being physically, sexually, and emotionally abused by her brothel owner and the clients she was forced to serve. On one occasion, her identity was hidden from Nepalese police who were conducting an inspection of the facility, and later, it was only after the help of a health worker that Thuli was removed from the brothel and taken home to her family in Nepal.
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Resources for Teachers
No Future
Tales of sex and sadness from inside Britain's oldest profession
'I'D BEEN DREAMING OF A FUTURE AS A WIFE AND A MOTHER' - ALMA, 26 - Alma (not her real name) fell in love with a man she met in Poland seven months ago. He said he wanted to introduce her to his family. Under this pretence, he ended up kidnapping her. He used a false passport to bring her to Manchester and force her to work in a brothel.
'I had been working as a waitress, dreaming of a future as a wife and mother,' Alma says. 'This man shared my Muslim religion. I trusted him. When he locked me in his house, took away all my money and possessions, I was terrified. But when he forced me into a car and had a friend drive me to a foreign country where I didn't speak the language or know anyone, I was beside myself . My family went to the police but after a week I knew they wouldn't take me back because, according to our religion, I was ruined. 'He beat me and made me live with another girl who spied on me. She wouldn't leave me for a second and reported to this man if I did anything that looked like trying to escape. He forced me to work in the brothel, but the clients complained because I just cried all the time. The manager asked me what was wrong. I didn't have the language to express myself, but eventually I managed to explain. I don't think she felt sorry for me, but she saw that I wasn't going to earn her brothel any money because I would never willingly work. She helped me to escape and I went to the police. This has damaged my life in all directions. I have no dreams now and no hopes. I have nothing.'
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Resources for Teachers
'I'D BEEN DREAMING OF A FUTURE AS A WIFE AND A MOTHER' - ALMA, 26 - Alma (not her real name) fell in love with a man she met in Poland seven months ago. He said he wanted to introduce her to his family. Under this pretence, he ended up kidnapping her. He used a false passport to bring her to Manchester and force her to work in a brothel.
'I had been working as a waitress, dreaming of a future as a wife and mother,' Alma says. 'This man shared my Muslim religion. I trusted him. When he locked me in his house, took away all my money and possessions, I was terrified. But when he forced me into a car and had a friend drive me to a foreign country where I didn't speak the language or know anyone, I was beside myself . My family went to the police but after a week I knew they wouldn't take me back because, according to our religion, I was ruined. 'He beat me and made me live with another girl who spied on me. She wouldn't leave me for a second and reported to this man if I did anything that looked like trying to escape. He forced me to work in the brothel, but the clients complained because I just cried all the time. The manager asked me what was wrong. I didn't have the language to express myself, but eventually I managed to explain. I don't think she felt sorry for me, but she saw that I wasn't going to earn her brothel any money because I would never willingly work. She helped me to escape and I went to the police. This has damaged my life in all directions. I have no dreams now and no hopes. I have nothing.'
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Resources for Teachers
The Promise of The New World
"Before I came to the United States, I lived in a small town near Veracruz, Mexico. I helped support my family by working in the fields, harvesting lemons. Although I did not mind the work, I wished I could earn more money to help my family.
Sometime in 1997, a woman named Maria Elena approached me and told me about opportunities for work in the United States.
She told me she had worked there at a restaurant and had made good money. When I told my mother about the offer, she was skeptical. Since I was interested in helping my family out, I decided to learn more about this opportunity. Maria Elena set up a meeting with two men named Abel Cadena-Sosa and Patricio Sosa. At the meeting, the men confirmed that they had job openings for women like myself in American restaurants. They told me that they would take care of my immigration papers, and that I would be free to change jobs if I did not like working at the restaurants.
Sometime in 1997, a woman named Maria Elena approached me and told me about opportunities for work in the United States.
She told me she had worked there at a restaurant and had made good money. When I told my mother about the offer, she was skeptical. Since I was interested in helping my family out, I decided to learn more about this opportunity. Maria Elena set up a meeting with two men named Abel Cadena-Sosa and Patricio Sosa. At the meeting, the men confirmed that they had job openings for women like myself in American restaurants. They told me that they would take care of my immigration papers, and that I would be free to change jobs if I did not like working at the restaurants.
Testimony of Inez
I decided to accept the offer. In 1997, I was brought into the United States through Brownsville, Texas. Maria Elena traveled with me. We were both transported to Houston, Texas, where a man named Rogerio Cadena picked us up and took us to a trailer in Avon Park, Florida. In Avon Park, I met a girl named Sue who lived in the trailer. She asked me if I knew why I had come to Avon Park. I said I was going to work in a restaurant. She told me that I was actually going to be selling my body to men.
I am trying hard to be the person I was before I came to the United States."
- Inez, trafficked in the United States, originally from Mexico
To read complete article visit the Website below:
Special Thanks to: Protection Project
Website: http://www.protectionproject.org/
I decided to accept the offer. In 1997, I was brought into the United States through Brownsville, Texas. Maria Elena traveled with me. We were both transported to Houston, Texas, where a man named Rogerio Cadena picked us up and took us to a trailer in Avon Park, Florida. In Avon Park, I met a girl named Sue who lived in the trailer. She asked me if I knew why I had come to Avon Park. I said I was going to work in a restaurant. She told me that I was actually going to be selling my body to men.
I am trying hard to be the person I was before I came to the United States."
- Inez, trafficked in the United States, originally from Mexico
To read complete article visit the Website below:
Special Thanks to: Protection Project
Website: http://www.protectionproject.org/
The Younger, the Better?
Testimony of Gina
Gina was a young child -- only nine years old -- living with her family in a small village in Nepal. However, unlike Asha, Gina wasn't sold. She was stolen.
Drugged with a "sweet drink" by a friend, Gina awoke on a train – never to see her family again. When Gina arrived in Bombay after a three-day journey, she remembers being grabbed by the hand, rushed down a crowded street through "a sea of legs" to a dingy brothel. They put makeup on her face and then the "seasoning" process began.
She was repeatedly raped, beaten and starved until she was too afraid to leave her new "home." (Businesses have sprouted up all over Bombay whose sole purpose it is to perform seasonings for brothel owners.)
Because of Gina's young age, she was held out by her owners as a virgin -- again and again. Sexual encounters counted as many as 40 per day. Younger girls like Gina -- especially virgins -- command a higher price in the brothels.
Recently, Shared Hope International helped pay Gina's debt and brought her into one of our newly-opened Homes of Hope. There she is getting the physical and emotional care she needs to start a new life. She is learning skills that will help her become self-sufficient.
- Gina, trafficked in India, originally from Nepal
Special Thanks to: Protection Project
Website: http://www.protectionproject.org
Original Source: Shared Hope International
Gina was a young child -- only nine years old -- living with her family in a small village in Nepal. However, unlike Asha, Gina wasn't sold. She was stolen.
Drugged with a "sweet drink" by a friend, Gina awoke on a train – never to see her family again. When Gina arrived in Bombay after a three-day journey, she remembers being grabbed by the hand, rushed down a crowded street through "a sea of legs" to a dingy brothel. They put makeup on her face and then the "seasoning" process began.
She was repeatedly raped, beaten and starved until she was too afraid to leave her new "home." (Businesses have sprouted up all over Bombay whose sole purpose it is to perform seasonings for brothel owners.)
Because of Gina's young age, she was held out by her owners as a virgin -- again and again. Sexual encounters counted as many as 40 per day. Younger girls like Gina -- especially virgins -- command a higher price in the brothels.
Recently, Shared Hope International helped pay Gina's debt and brought her into one of our newly-opened Homes of Hope. There she is getting the physical and emotional care she needs to start a new life. She is learning skills that will help her become self-sufficient.
- Gina, trafficked in India, originally from Nepal
Special Thanks to: Protection Project
Website: http://www.protectionproject.org
Original Source: Shared Hope International
Friday, September 5, 2008
Eleni - Trafficked in Bosnia
Testimony of Eleni
Eleni, 25, didn't know the friend who wrote inviting her to work as a waitress was now a prostitute. Once at the Bosnian restaurant her new owner told her she had been bought for 900 DEM and had to repay him by having sex with his customers. When she refused she was beaten until she couldn't walk for days but was still forced to have sex.
She said: "My owner told me 'You are lying down anyway so you can still work for me.'" After two months she was sold on to a man who held a pistol to her head when she threatened to go to police. Eleni was moved to a remote house after corrupt police tipped off her owner that Interpol was looking for her. He raped her several times then passed her to a third owner as she had become "too dangerous." She said: "I was a slave. I was no more than a piece of meat." She fled one night and made it to police. Amna Saric, who is now protecting the girls, said: "These are just two of thousands being lured and tricked into prostitution."
Special Thanks to: Ex Oriente Lux
Website: http://ex-oriente-lux.org/acc_bosnia_01.html
Original Source: Jeff Edwards. "The Sex Factory." The Mirror (19 May 2002).
Eleni, 25, didn't know the friend who wrote inviting her to work as a waitress was now a prostitute. Once at the Bosnian restaurant her new owner told her she had been bought for 900 DEM and had to repay him by having sex with his customers. When she refused she was beaten until she couldn't walk for days but was still forced to have sex.
She said: "My owner told me 'You are lying down anyway so you can still work for me.'" After two months she was sold on to a man who held a pistol to her head when she threatened to go to police. Eleni was moved to a remote house after corrupt police tipped off her owner that Interpol was looking for her. He raped her several times then passed her to a third owner as she had become "too dangerous." She said: "I was a slave. I was no more than a piece of meat." She fled one night and made it to police. Amna Saric, who is now protecting the girls, said: "These are just two of thousands being lured and tricked into prostitution."
Special Thanks to: Ex Oriente Lux
Website: http://ex-oriente-lux.org/acc_bosnia_01.html
Original Source: Jeff Edwards. "The Sex Factory." The Mirror (19 May 2002).
Destiny Pre-determined
Testimony of Alina
"I met my boyfriend at my girl-friend’s house. He had been dating me for a month already when he told me he was going to marry me. My boyfriend told me we could earn some money for our wedding if we went to work in Greece at his friend’s company.
We would stay for three months there to earn enough money and come back. I was extremely happy. I could not believe all that was happening to me. He took my passport and all necessary papers and said that he would take care of visa and travel arrangements. I was so happy and careless that I did not even ask to see the tickets or documents. The day of departure came. We took the plane and instead of Greece we landed in Dubai. As I had not been abroad before I could not really understand where I was. I could only recognize the Arabic signs and people dressed in Arabic robes. When I asked why we landed in Dubai he said we would have to stay for a couple of days in Dubai, and then later we would go to Greece. He took me to a hotel and said that he was going to see his friend and would be back soon. Two hours later a man came to take me to another hotel saying that I was his property. I could not understand, I kept saying that it was a misunderstanding and that my friend would come soon. I had come to Dubai for another purpose. The man told me that my friend had sold me to him, that from now on he would have my documents and I had to do whatever he told me to. He said that the next day I had to move to another place and serve all the clients he would send to me. I was shocked by what was happening. The next day he came and took me to another hotel. He said that every day I had to give him $500, no matter how many clients I would serve. He was so violent. It was a continuous hell. Each day I served around 30 to 40 clients. I was not able to move or think. It went on for weeks. I was living between clients and tears. That was the rhythm of my life. I could not even realize what they wanted from me. The intensity of the process lasted for a couple of weeks. One day I got terribly sick. He left me alone and sent another Armenian woman to visit me. That day I understood that it was an organized enterprise and that there were many women from many countries who shared the same fate.Meanwhile the pimp refused to give back my passport because of the debts he said he had incurred on account of me. I had to work and earn money if I wanted to go back home. Then he introduced me to another man telling me that he had sold me to him and that I had to take my passport from him. The next day I was beaten like for the first time. He was an extremely cruel man. He came every morning to pick up his money and beat me terribly. I had no right to speak or express my concern, everybody knew him well for his cruelty. I did not receive any money from him. He did not even buy food. It all depended on the client’s will. I was resold four times.One of my clients was trying to kill me. If it were not for the women in the next room I would have been killed. In his frenzy the man was beating me. He squeezed my throat.Luckily enough there was a police raid in the hotel where I was working and I was taken together with other women to a police station and detained. My pimp did not do anything to release me from prison. I spent four months there. Though it was prison and the conditions were terrible, it was incomparable with what I had gone through before that. Nobody was cruel or rude to me there and I had to wait while my temporary documents from Armenia and the ticket for deportation were arranged. I came back without any money. All I had before remained with the pimp, I could not pick up anything. The most shameful thing happened at Yerevan airport. Everybody was treating me as if I were a prostitute, saying bad words. My life has changed since that time. Now you see me here in the street. I have become a real prostitute."- Alina, trafficked in the UAE, originally from Armenia
Special Thanks to: Ex Oriente Lux
Website: http://ex-oriente-lux.org/acc_armenia_01.html
Original Source: IOM. "Trafficking in Women and Children from the Republic of Armenia: A Study" (2001).
"I met my boyfriend at my girl-friend’s house. He had been dating me for a month already when he told me he was going to marry me. My boyfriend told me we could earn some money for our wedding if we went to work in Greece at his friend’s company.
We would stay for three months there to earn enough money and come back. I was extremely happy. I could not believe all that was happening to me. He took my passport and all necessary papers and said that he would take care of visa and travel arrangements. I was so happy and careless that I did not even ask to see the tickets or documents. The day of departure came. We took the plane and instead of Greece we landed in Dubai. As I had not been abroad before I could not really understand where I was. I could only recognize the Arabic signs and people dressed in Arabic robes. When I asked why we landed in Dubai he said we would have to stay for a couple of days in Dubai, and then later we would go to Greece. He took me to a hotel and said that he was going to see his friend and would be back soon. Two hours later a man came to take me to another hotel saying that I was his property. I could not understand, I kept saying that it was a misunderstanding and that my friend would come soon. I had come to Dubai for another purpose. The man told me that my friend had sold me to him, that from now on he would have my documents and I had to do whatever he told me to. He said that the next day I had to move to another place and serve all the clients he would send to me. I was shocked by what was happening. The next day he came and took me to another hotel. He said that every day I had to give him $500, no matter how many clients I would serve. He was so violent. It was a continuous hell. Each day I served around 30 to 40 clients. I was not able to move or think. It went on for weeks. I was living between clients and tears. That was the rhythm of my life. I could not even realize what they wanted from me. The intensity of the process lasted for a couple of weeks. One day I got terribly sick. He left me alone and sent another Armenian woman to visit me. That day I understood that it was an organized enterprise and that there were many women from many countries who shared the same fate.Meanwhile the pimp refused to give back my passport because of the debts he said he had incurred on account of me. I had to work and earn money if I wanted to go back home. Then he introduced me to another man telling me that he had sold me to him and that I had to take my passport from him. The next day I was beaten like for the first time. He was an extremely cruel man. He came every morning to pick up his money and beat me terribly. I had no right to speak or express my concern, everybody knew him well for his cruelty. I did not receive any money from him. He did not even buy food. It all depended on the client’s will. I was resold four times.One of my clients was trying to kill me. If it were not for the women in the next room I would have been killed. In his frenzy the man was beating me. He squeezed my throat.Luckily enough there was a police raid in the hotel where I was working and I was taken together with other women to a police station and detained. My pimp did not do anything to release me from prison. I spent four months there. Though it was prison and the conditions were terrible, it was incomparable with what I had gone through before that. Nobody was cruel or rude to me there and I had to wait while my temporary documents from Armenia and the ticket for deportation were arranged. I came back without any money. All I had before remained with the pimp, I could not pick up anything. The most shameful thing happened at Yerevan airport. Everybody was treating me as if I were a prostitute, saying bad words. My life has changed since that time. Now you see me here in the street. I have become a real prostitute."- Alina, trafficked in the UAE, originally from Armenia
Special Thanks to: Ex Oriente Lux
Website: http://ex-oriente-lux.org/acc_armenia_01.html
Original Source: IOM. "Trafficking in Women and Children from the Republic of Armenia: A Study" (2001).
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Australia is not immune.
Deng, in her late 20's, was recruited in her native Thailand to travel voluntarily to Australia where she was told she could make lots of money as a prostitute. Upon arrival in Australia, however, she was met by traffickers who took away her passport and locked her in a house. She was told that she would have to pay off a debt of over $30,000 by servicing 900 men. She was given little food to eat and was forcibly escorted to a brothel seven days a week, even when she was sick. She was told that if she tried to escape, criminal allies of the trafficking ring would catch her. Deng's exploitation ended when Australian Immigration officials raided the brothel in which she was enslaved.
- Deng, trafficked in Australia, originally from Thailand
Special Thanks to: US Department of State
Website: http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/34021.htm
Polaris Project
- Deng, trafficked in Australia, originally from Thailand
Special Thanks to: US Department of State
Website: http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2004/34021.htm
Polaris Project
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
SEXUAL SERVITUDE - THE JAMMED
Australia surely is an attractive immigration destination. It offers the dream of a better life; it stands as a beacon for freedom and hope and opportunity; a nation of acceptance, tolerance, equality. But not everyone who lands on our shores is privy to this privileged view of our home.It is estimated between 500 and 1000 girls are “imported” into Australia each year by individuals and trafficking syndicates. The girls land up in brothels – usually illegal – and find themselves in sexual servitude and debt bondage. Many of the girls are aware that they are coming over as prostitutes, but are generally not informed about the contractual conditions – and essentially become “modern slaves” within a cruel system.
Often when they have paid their debt back – an amount which can be nominated as high as $50,000 or the equivalent of 700 “jobs” they are deemed “past their used by date”, and many were dobbed into immig4ration and deported back to their home country.
They become victims a second time when they land up in the immigration system – landing up in detention centres and promptly deported at the tax payers expense – and not at the expense of the brothel owner. There is also the indignity that they are theoretically “billed” or in debt once again for the days they are in detention.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
