Trafficked The Diary of a Sex Slave

by Sibel Hodge

 
  My name is Elena and I used to be a human being. Now I am a sex slave.

  If you are reading this diary then I am either dead or I have managed to escape…

  /body>

  Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave is a gritty, gripping, and tear-jerking novella, inspired by real victims’ accounts and research into the sex trafficking underworld. It has been listed as one of the Top 40 Books About Human Rights by Accredited Online Colleges

  Trafficked: The Diary of a Sex Slave

  by

  Sibel Hodge

  Copyright © Sibel Hodge 2011

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition, License notes

  The ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  It is estimated that 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year – 80% of these are women and girls. (Source: U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons Report: 2007)

  Day 1

  For the first time since I was a little child, I am lost. I have no idea where I am, although I have not travelled far, so I must still be in Moldova. I remember getting lost at a busy market when I was about four years old. My mother turned away to haggle over vegetables with a stall holder, and I wandered off at the lure of something bright-coloured and pretty in the distance. In a sea of legs, I disappeared, and when I turned to look for my mother again, I could not find her. I screamed, of course, crying out for her. When eventually we were reunited, I hugged her tight and would not let her go. I followed her around for weeks afterwards so the same thing never happened again.

  Now I am lost and my mother cannot help me. No amount of crying or screaming will get me out of here. I have tried.

  I know what is going on. I have heard the stories from nearby villages but I never thought it could happen to me. You don’t, do you?

  Trust. It is such a small word but it can have such a big effect on your life.

  I trusted my best friend when she told me her boyfriend could get us both a job in a casino in Italy. I had no reason not to trust her. We have been friends since we could talk. In all this time I never thought she would betray me. Am I naïve or just stupid? I have a feeling I will wonder this a lot in the coming days.

  There is nothing else to do at the moment but sit and think of a way out of here. Somehow, I fear it will be impossible, though. I have decided to keep this diary in case I never get out. It is hidden in my rucksack, in a gap underneath the lining at the bottom. If they find it, I will be in serious trouble. Maybe writing it will stop me going mad, and hopefully my family will eventually know what happened to me.

  I can picture my mother’s wrinkled face and see my daughter Liliana’s gappy-toothed smile. Liliana is four years old, and she is my life. I need to survive for her, but they have told me if I try to escape, they will kill her and my mother. I have seen the cold hatred in their eyes as they described to me in detail exactly what they would do to them, and I know they would not hesitate to carry out their threats.

  I should explain how I came to be locked in this small bedroom somewhere in Moldova, because I need you to know that none of this is my fault.

  I am twenty-two years old and live in a poor village. Most people are living hand-to-mouth – maybe on less than a dollar a day. Moldova has a very high rate of unemployment, and they say it is one of the poorest countries in Europe. People in our village sold their kidneys on the black market just to keep them in food. They could make around $500 for one kidney. You can do the maths to know that is a fortune. I wonder how much the rate is for a sex slave.

  Some people have sold their children to the slave gangs, too. I heard of one woman whose husband died. She had seven children she could not afford to feed anymore so she sold three of her daughters to the sex mafia. I always wondered what happened to her girls. Maybe they are here, in this place, and I will see them again.

  How could she do that to her children? Her daughters would be better off dead than suffering what they must have to endure. If they are alive, they are surely in a living hell. I think of Liliana’s innocent face, the way she cuddles up to me for a story. She trusts me. How could I ever put her in danger? To save my other children? Is that a good enough reason?

  Natalia, my so-called best friend, told me her boyfriend Andrei knew of some jobs working in a casino in Italy where the wages were €500 a month. A month! Imagine so much money. Natalia said the casino would even pay our travelling fare.

  I had it all figured out. Liliana could stay with my mother for a month, just until I got everything arranged in Italy. I would find a small apartment using my wages and bring them both to live with me. It would be perfect. A way out of this country to a world of new opportunities.

  It was a very emotional goodbye with Liliana and my mother. Liliana held onto my legs and did not want to let go. We all cried so much. I promised them as soon as I got an apartment I would send for them and we would be together again. It would not be long, a month at the most.

  I arranged to meet Natalia at the bus station in town. We were going to be picked up by a friend of Andrei who would drive us all the way to Italy. But when I found Natalia she told me there was a problem with her passport and she would not be able to go until it was sorted out. She talked me into going without her.

  ‘It will only be a week or so before I join you,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, Andrei and his friend will look after you.’ She smiled and hugged me.

  And I trusted her.

  Andrei’s friend did not drive me to Italy. I am still somewhere in Moldova. I was blindfolded and handcuffed and threatened with death in the car before I arrived here with my captor. If I did not do what they ordered, they told me they would do unspeakable things to Liliana and my mother before they kill them. I cannot risk their lives so I must do what they tell me.

  I am in a house, I think, in the country. There are no city noises here, only birds chirping. I never thought I would envy a bird, but I do. They are free to fly away from here, and I imagine I am a sparrow or an owl, launching myself through the windows to freedom. But there are bars on the windows and the shutters are closed, so there is no way for me to escape. I have tried the door but it is locked with a key and bolted from the outside. It is dark in my prison cell, and I think I have been here for about eight hours so it must be night time by now. I am in a whitewashed room about two metres square, and I am lying on an old mattress that smells of urine and filth, with my hands and feet in chains. There is a bucket in here for me to go to the toilet. No paper to use, though, and the thought of being unable to wipe myself disgusts me.

  There are other girls here, too. I can hear them through the walls, crying and screaming. I want to talk to them; to get some comfort from knowing we are together, but I do not dare. If my captors hear me talking it may make them angry. Earlier I heard a door burst open nearby and a man’s voice yelling at one of the girls to be quiet. I heard slaps and punches, and her high-pitched screams that pierced my brain, even though my hands were pressed tightly over my ears. Now I hear just her soft sobs.

  I know what happened; I could hear that, too.
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  Day 2

  One of my captors is a woman. It is unbelievable to think that a woman could be involved in something like this. Women are mothers and nurturers. How can she do this to another woman, knowing what will happen to us? Somehow that makes her worse than the men. Does living in poverty and the sudden prospect of money make people evil, or are they evil to begin with?

  I begged for a toilet roll and she gave me one. I know from now on it is the little things that I took for granted in life that will make me feel like a human being again. Toilet roll – an everyday item, and yet I am so happy to see it.

  It is morning, I think. She unlocked the door and left a plate of bread and salted dried fish. She gave me a big bottle of water, too. My thirst seemed to have come from nowhere, and I forgot that I had had nothing to eat or drink for twenty-four hours. I swallowed half the bottle without stopping for air. I cannot eat, though. My stomach is churning at the thought of things to come.

  I wanted to ask how she could do this to us, but I cannot antagonize her. She is a hard-looking woman, about thirty-five years old. She has nice hair and make-up, and her clothes are expensive. I hear her laughing and joking with the male captors like this is all perfectly normal. In her world I suppose it is.

  Instead, I asked her what was going to happen to me, and she told me I am now owned by a slave gang. Soon they will transport me and the other girls across Europe to Italy. She said they have my passport and I must do as they say. She told me how they had killed other girls’ family members when they disobeyed them. I do not want to listen to her, but I have to. The seventy-five-year-old mother of one of the girls who tried to escape was strung up from a tree and hanged. The seven-year-old daughter of one of the girls who tried to escape was tortured. She had all her nails and teeth pulled out with pliers before being stabbed a hundred times. On and on she went, telling me horrific things like that.

  I forced the bile down in my throat and willed the tears not to fall. I cannot show weakness, they will try to use it against me.

  As she left the room, she smirked at me. ‘Night night,’ she said, even though it must be daytime.

  As I drain the last of the water, I finally know what she meant. I am feeling very sleepy now and must hide my diary.

  I think they have drugged me.

  Day 4

  There will be some days when I cannot write in here. Yesterday was one of those days. I woke up in a van with six other girls. There were two men in the front of the van, and Andrei’s friend was driving. I recognized one of the men’s voices. He was the one who raped the crying girl in the room near mine. The Rapist has a shaved head and a big, bulky body. He has blue eyes that seem to stare right through you, and his teeth are wonky and stained. The second man is taller and even bigger than the Rapist. He puffed on a cigarette continuously and chatted to the others friends about football and gambling.

  I was still dopey when we came to the border with Romania, but I tried to force myself awake. I glanced at girls around me who were still asleep. I thought that surely the immigration guards would know something was wrong and stop us. Wouldn’t they find the van suspicious? Wouldn’t they rescue us? I wanted to be alert so when they arrested the gang of men, I would be able to get home to my mother and Liliana as quickly as possible.

  As we drew along side the immigration booth a guard got out and spoke to Andrei’s friend through the driver’s window. The Rapist handed a collection of passports to the guard, who barely flicked through them before peering into the small window at the back of the van where I was sitting. For a second my eyes connected with his, and I could see a brief flicker of sadness and pity etched into his face. At that moment I knew he knew what was happening to us. I held his gaze, tempted to mouth the words, “Help me”. Then he quickly turned away from me and waved the truck on, and I knew it would have done no good anyway. You cannot transport so many girls a year from Moldova to other countries to be sex slaves without the border guards or people high up knowing about it. I wondered how they would feel if it happened to their daughters or sisters or wives. Would they feel the same then?

  I rested my head against the window, staring out at the endless road ahead for what felt like half a day. Some of the other girls had started to wake up by now and it was the first time we got to look into each other’s eyes. I know my own desperation and dread must have been mirrored in theirs, and I could smell the fear on their bodies. I wanted to ask them who they were. Who had they trusted that got them in this situation? What was their story? But none of us spoke. To speak meant it was real.

  Andrei’s friend pulled the van over at the side of the road and gave us all more water laced with drugs, forcing us to drink it. I did not want to drink it, but what choice did I have? I knew when I woke up things would be worse.

  Soon after the liquid entered my system I felt sleep threatening to overtake me again. I closed my eyes and imagined myself with Liliana, my arms around her fragile body and my lips resting on top of her head. I could almost smell her shampoo.

  Her face was the last thing I saw before I sunk into darkness.

  ****

  The next time I woke up it felt like I was trapped in some kind of box. I could not turn around; the space was too small, like a coffin, and dark. My throat felt dry and scratchy, and my muscles were stiff. I tried to swallow, but I had no moisture in my mouth. My head pounded with the worst headache I had ever experienced, and I felt nauseous, my stomach bubbling away. I had not eaten for a long time so I had no food to bring up. Instead, I felt acid bile in my throat. I sucked my tongue to stimulate some saliva so I could swallow, and this seemed to help. I could hear the hum of traffic speeding past, horns occasionally blaring out, and the steady bump, bump, bump of the road.

  I slept and woke many times during the drive. Thoughts of what happened to the other girls drifted into my head. Had they been killed? Would I be killed? Were the other girls the lucky ones who managed to escape somehow?

  I had no concept of time, but it felt like days until I was shaken from sleep by the Rapist. He opened the lid to my coffin, which was hidden in the floor of a van, and yanked me out by my arm. My whole body was stiff, and trying to make it work took some effort. I stumbled as he dragged me out of the van into the dark night. We were parked outside a big house in a residential area.

  I could smell his bad breath as he gripped my arm and pulled me around the back of the house. The Rapist opened the back door and pushed me into a kitchen where a big man with a beard who was watching TV nodded and said hello to the Rapist. The lights burned my eyes at first until they adjusted to the brightness, but I could see the bearded man grin leeringly at me.

  ‘Here is the new girl,’ the Rapist said to a woman wearing a short black dress, high heels, and red lipstick who was playing cards with the bearded man. She was not much older than me; maybe twenty-five. She slowly took a puff on her cigarette and studied me carefully.

  ‘Very pretty.’ She stubbed out the cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and walked towards me as the Rapist still gripped my arm. ‘Do you know how to use a condom?’ she asked, as casually as if she were asking about the weather.

  My stomach lurched as I imagined what was to come.

  The Rapist twisted my arm behind my back, yanking it upwards. ‘Answer her.’

  I yelped and nodded at the woman.

  ‘Good.’ She smiled with satisfaction then grabbed my chin in her hands and turned my face this way and that to get a better look at me. ‘She is an excellent find. The men will love her,’ she said to the Rapist.

  ‘I do not want to sleep with any men,’ I whispered. ‘Please, I’ll do anything else you want. I will cook or clean or–’

  The Rapist tugged on my arm again so hard I thought my shoulder would pop out of its socket. ‘You will do as we say. We own you now. I think it is time I taught you a lesson.’

  He dragged me out of the kitchen by my hair, and through a living room where there were several women wearing hardly any
clothes. The only thing I noticed as they stared at me stumbling past was their eyes looked dead.

  I screamed as he pulled me up some stairs towards the top of the house. He pushed open a doorway with a lock on the outside, and into a bedroom. He punched me in the stomach and I doubled over as the wind disappeared from my lungs.

  He let out a cackling laugh, and I could smell his dirty breath in the air. He banged my head into the metal bedpost and I fell to the floor, struggling to breathe. And then everything happened so fast it is hard to remember which order it happened.

  He pulled my hair, slapped me, kicked me, punched me, pinched me. I tried to bring my arms up to my head to protect myself by curling into a ball, but then he was on top of me. He grabbed my arms and held them above my head with one hand as he ripped off my skirt and knickers with the other. Then he forced my legs apart with his knee and he was inside me.

  In my head I screamed, “No, no, no,” over and over again, but nothing came out of my mouth. I screwed my eyes shut and tried to think of something else, but the pain everywhere kept me from concentrating.

  ‘You’re a fucking whore, and you will do what I tell you,’ he shouted in my ear.

  I could hear myself whimpering but it sounded like it was coming from someone else far off in the distance; like I was disconnected from my body.

  After a final thrust, he lifted his heavy body off mine and zipped up his trousers. I finally got my wish and curled in a foetal position on the floor to try and stop the pain. I could not hold back the tears anymore. They streamed down my face, stinging the grazes, but I did not care anymore if he saw my weakness.