Olga's Story Maria's Story Marsha's Story Rosa's Story
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M
y name is Olga. I am from Siberia in Russia. In December of 1998, a female acquaintance of mine returned from a trip to Israel with a lot of money. She told me that she had worked as a housemaid, in shops and in bars, and that I could go and find a job, too. I asked her how could she do this work without knowing the language. She told me that there were many Russian immigrants in Israel who wanted to hire Russian women so their children would not forget their heritage and original language.I had no money for a ticket to Israel, but the woman said, "Don't worry, I'll buy your ticket. You'll make so much money that you'll be able to pay me back in no time." I decided to go, and got a visa to travel. She went on to Israel before me, telling me she would meet me at the airport.
When I arrived, she was waiting with two big Israeli men. We went to a small city in Israel, where they showed me around, introducing me to many people but speaking in Hebrew so I could not understand. They told me they were people who might hire me. For a few days, it was as if I was a tourist just visiting. Then the men came back and told me that they had a job for me, but because I did not have a visa to work in Israel, I would have to give them my passport. A couple days later, they gave me a false passport, with my picture but the name of an Israeli woman.
Then another Israeli man came, and my friend told me to put my things in his car, that he would take care of everything. He took me to Tel Aviv. He told me then that I had been sold to him for $10,000, and that I would have to pay him back. He told me I would have to prostitute myself.
I was angry and disruptive, screaming and fighting every time he tried to take me from the apartment where I stayed. Because of this, he separated me from the other Russian women he owned. Every day I was taken to a brothel where all the other women were Israeli.
I was still resistant, so I wasn't making much money for my captor. He then told me that I had earned $8,000 of my debt, and that he would find me another job to make the rest of it quickly. He promised I would not have to be a prostitute anymore. He took me to a hotel and told me to wait for my new employer. Two men came to meet me there. They gave me something to drink, which was drugged. I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was locked in a dark room with no furniture. I could hear people speaking Arabic but I could not understand them.
I tried to escape, but the men there caught me quickly and again gave me some kind of drug to calm me. They told me just to sit down, that I had not been sold to them and that if I behaved well, everything would be okay. A Russian-speaking Arab told me that I had been kidnapped and was in Palestine. I began to fear that they would sell me to a harem in Iraq, or some place worse.
The men there didn't tell me what I was to do. I told them that I was Muslim, hoping that would give me some kind of protection. Several days later, they sold me back to another brothel in Israel.
I told the brothel owners there that I would never work for them, so they locked me in an apartment and sent clients in anyway. If I refused to work, they would not feed me. They beat me, but only across the back near my kidneys, so it would not hurt my appearance. It was very painful. I saw only clients who spoke no Russian, so I couldn't tell them my story. I saw 15-20 customers a day and the brothel owners gave me drugs so that I would work. I began to feel crazy and sick, so he gave me some kind of pills, which he told me were for headaches. I found out later that it was Ecstasy, a drug that makes you relax, and more willing to be intimate. After three weeks, I was dependent on the pills and asked for it every day.
I began to try and learn some Hebrew from my clients, so I could explain what had happened to me. Those customers never came back. But finally I told a Polish Jew, who contacted the police. The brothel was raided in May of 1999, and I was deported back to Russia.
G
ood afternoon. I would like to thank the foreign relations committee for the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of trafficking survivors. My name is Maria. I am in disguise today because I am in fear that my captors would recognize me and thus place my life and that of my family's in danger.My story begins in May of 1997 in Veracruz, Mexico. I was approached in Mexico by an acquaintance about some jobs in the United States. She told me that there were jobs available in restaurant or bars. I was working as a domestic helper in Mexico and had a job at a general retail store. This seemed like a great opportunity for me to earn more money for my daughter and family. I accepted the job and soon was brought by a coyote to Texas.
Once over the border, I was kept at a safe house. Then, I was transported to Florida. Once in Florida, Abel Cadena, one of the ring leaders, told me I would be working at a brothel as a prostitute. I told him he was mistaken and that I was going to be working in a restaurant not a brothel. He then ordered me to work in a brothel. He said I owed him a smuggling debt of approximately $2200 and the sooner I paid it off the sooner I could leave. I was eighteen years old and had never been far from home and had no money or way to get home.
Next, I was given tight clothes to wear and was told what I must do. There would be armed men selling tickets to customers in the trailer. Tickets were condoms. Each ticket would be sold for $22 to $25 each. The client would then point at the girl he wanted and the girl would take him to one of the bedrooms. At the end of the night, I turned in the condom wrappers. Each wrapper represented a supposed deduction to my smuggling fee. We tried to keep our own records, but the Bosses would destroy them. We were never sure what we owed.
There were up to four girls kept at each brothel. We were constantly guarded and abused. If anyone refused to be with a customer, we were beaten. If we adamantly refused, the Bosses would show us a lesson by raping us brutally. They told us if we refused, again it would be even worse the next time. We were transported every fifteen days to another trailer in a nearby city. This was to give the customers a variety of girls and so we never knew where we were in case we tried to escape. I could not believe this was happening to me.
We worked six days a week and twelve-hour days. We mostly had to serve 32-35 clients a day. Weekends were worse. Our bodies were utterly sore and swollen. The bosses did not care. We worked no matter what. This included during menstruation. Clients would become enraged if they found out. The Bosses instructed us to place a piece of clothing over the lamps to darken the room. This, however, did not protect us from client beatings. Also, at the end of the night our work did not end. It was now the Bosses turn with us. If anyone became pregnant we were forced to have abortions. The cost of the abortion would then be added to our smuggling debt.
The Bosses carried weapons. They scared me. The brothels were often in isolated areas. I never knew where I was. It was all so strange to me. We were not allowed to go outside of the brothels. I knew if I tried to escape I would not get far because everything was so unfamiliar. The Bosses told me that if I escaped, INS would catch me, beat me and tie me up. This frightened me. I did know of one girl who escaped. The Bosses searched for her and said they were going to get the money she owed them from their family. They said they would get their money one way or another.
I know of another girl that escaped and was hunted down. The Bosses found her and beat her severely. The Bosses would show the girl that they meant business by beating and raping her brutally. All I could do is stand there and watch. I was too afraid to try to escape. I also did not want my family put in danger.
I was enslaved for several months, other women were enslaved for up to a year. Our enslavement finally ended when the INS, FBI, and local law enforcement raided the brothels and rescued us. We weren't sure what was happening on the day of the raids. Our captors had told us over and over never to tell the police of our conditions. They told us that if we told we would find ourselves in prison for the rest of our lives. They told us that the INS would rape us and kill us. But we learned to trust the INS and FBI and assisted them in the prosecution of our enslavers. Unfortunately, this was difficult. After the INS and FBI freed us from the brothels we were put in a detention center for many months. Our captors were correct. We thought we would be imprisoned for the rest of our lives. Later, our attorneys were able to get us released to a women's domestic violence center where we received comprehensive medical attention, including gynecological exams, and mental health counseling.
Thanks to the United States government some of our captors were brought to justice and were sent to prison. Unfortunately, not all. Some of them are living in Mexico in our hometown of Veracruz. They have threatened some of our families. They have even threatened to bring our younger sisters to the United States and force them to work in brothels as well. I would never ever have done this work. No one I know would have done this work. I am speaking out today because I never want this to happen to anyone else. However, in order to accomplish this goal women like me need your help. We need the law to protect us from this horror. We need the immigration law to provide victims of this horror with permanent legal residence. We came to the United States to find a better future not to be prostitutes. If anyone thinks that providing protection to trafficking survivors by affording them permanent residency status is a magnet for other immigrants like myself; they are wrong. No woman or child would want to be a sex slave and endure the evil that I have gone through. I am in fear for my life more than ever. I helped put these evil men in jail. Please help me. Please help us. Please do not let this happen to anyone else. Thank you.
M
y name is Marsha, and I am from Southern Russia. In 1996, when I was 24, I visited St. Petersburg. I was preparing to return home to my village, waiting at the train station one day when a woman approached me. She started talking with me about life problems, encouraging me to share mine with her. We had a nice talk, and the woman suggested that she could help me to get work somewhere abroad. She told me she had an acquaintance in Germany, a woman who could connect me with a family for whom I could be a housemaid.I was issued a tourist visa to Spain, and left on a bus tour of Europe in February 1997. I was supposed to get off the bus in Germany. There I was met by a woman named Geanna, who had a flat in Hamburg. She took me to an apartment there, where I met about 20 other girls who had come from Russia and Poland. Most of them were younger than me. After a few days, Geanna told me she could not find a family who would hire me as a housemaid. She said I owed her 2,000 German marks (about $1,000 USD) and said that I would earn that money by providing sexual services to men. I was shocked.
I was afraid to say no because she had taken my passport, and I didn't know any German. She and her husband, who was a drug dealer, threatened to beat me if I tried to leave, and said if I went to the police, I would be deported. They said no one would care what happened to me, and no one would help. Girls who would not cooperate were taken down to the basement of the bar, where they were beaten across their backs, where it would not show but would still be painful, possibly causing damage to their kidneys. I was afraid they would use drugs and alcohol to force me to prostitute myself -- I had seen other girls given cocaine and beaten into submission. Geanna tried to tell me that it didn't happen, but her husband threatened that I would suffer the same if I did not go along with it.
Downstairs from our apartment, there was a bar where we were to find clients for sex. I tried not to attract attention by dressing modestly and sitting by myself. The girls who had come to Germany knowing they would be prostitutes were regularly beaten. Our passports were kept behind the bar, but we were afraid to take them because big guards supervised us all the time. The bar had surveillance cameras on the bar, and the road so they could see clients or police coming.
I was kept there for two months, and never made much profit. I had only a tourist visa, good for one month, but Geanna told me she could prepare documents that would say I was married to a German man. She would do this so I would have to stay longer and work for her. I refused; so instead, she sold me to a Greek pimp who was operating in Germany.
Shortly after that, the police raided the bar and I was taken, along with the other girls, to the station. I was not given a chance to explain what had happened to me -- that I never wanted to be there, that I was tricked, threatened and intimidated into staying. Instead, I was charged with prostitution and held in a jail cell. I was issued an order to leave Germany, or face deportation. The Greek pimp then gave me money for a ticket back to Russia. Some would say that he took pity on me, but in reality this helped him to avoid being arrested and charged with pimping. He was never charged, and the German police never attempted to do anything about the network of people who had trafficked me -- from the woman who recruited me, to the agent who got me the visa, to the Russian woman pimp and her husband.
W
hen I was fourteen, a man came to my parents' house in Veracruz, Mexico and asked me if I was interested in making money in the United States. He said I could make many times as much money doing the same things that I was doing in Mexico. At the time, I was working in a hotel cleaning rooms and I also helped around my house by watching my brothers and sisters. He said I would be in good hands, and would meet many other Mexican girls who had taken advantage of this great opportunity. My parents didn't want me to go, but I persuaded them.A week later, I was smuggled into the United States through Texas to Orlando, Florida. It was then the men told me that my employment would consist of having sex with men for money. I had never had sex before, and I had never imagined selling my body.
And so my nightmare began. Because I was a virgin, the men decided to initiate me by raping me again and again, to teach me how to have sex. Over the next three months, I was taken to a different trailer every 15 days. Every night I had to sleep in the same bed in which I had been forced to service customers all day.
I couldn't do anything to stop it. I wasn't allowed to go outside without a guard. Many of the bosses had guns. I was constantly afraid. One of the bosses carried me off to a hotel one night, where he raped me. I could do nothing to stop him.
Because I was so young, I was always in demand with the customers. It was awful. Although the men were supposed to wear condoms, some didn't, so eventually I became pregnant and was forced to have an abortion. They sent me back to the brothel almost immediately.
I cannot forget what has happened. I can't put it behind me. I find it nearly impossible to trust people. I still feel shame. I was a decent girl in Mexico. I used to go to church with my family. I only wish none of this had ever happened.