True+Stories


 * All names are fictional.

=__ CAMBODIA __= "Mei was raised in the countryside of Cambodia. Orphaned at a young age, her older sister took care of her. Hoping for a better life for Mei, her sister arranged for her to marry at seventeen. A few months later. Mei and her new husband took a trip to a fishing village where they rented what she thought was a room in a guest house. When she awoke the following morning, her husband was nowhere to be found. Mei learned from the hotel owner that she had been sold for $300 and that the hotel was actually a brothel. When she tried to escape, Mei was caught and forcible detained. She was told that she would have to pay off her debt for food, clothing, accommodations, and other necessities before she could leave. For the next five years, Mei endured unimaginable physical abuse. She was raped by five to seven men every day. When she became infected with HIV and contracted AIDS, Mei was thrown out into the streets. Eventually, she made her way to a shelter, and at the age of twenty-three, she succumbed to the AIDS virus."

=__ NEPAL __= "Sangeeta was a nine-year-old girl living in Nepal when she was stolen. Drugged with a "sweet drink" by someone she thought she could trust, Sangeeta awoke on a train confused and afraid. She would never see her family again. After a three-day trip, Sangeeta arrived in a strange city with her captor. She recalls being grabbed by the hand and hurried down a crowded street through "a sea of legs" to a seedy brothel. There, the horrifying "seasoning" process began. In order to break Sangeeta's spirit and to make sure she would never run away, she was raped, beaten, and starved repeatedly. Because she was a young girl, the brothel owners advertised her as a virgin time and time again as a way to get more money out of her. Sangeeta was forced into seeing as many as **forty men per day**. Eventually Sangeeta's debt was paid off with the help of Shared Hope International, who took her to their Homes of Hope for recovery."

=__ BOSNIA __= "Amula was twenty-five when a friend wrote her a letter, asking if she'd be interested in working as a waitress. Little did Amula know, her friend was actually a prostitute. When Amula went to work at the Bosnian restaurant that her friend recommended, she was told that she had been sold. To repay her new owner, she was going to have to have sex with his customers. When Amula resisted, she suffered such a horrendous beating that for days afterward she was unable to walk--but she was still forced to sell her body. Her owner told her that since she was lying down anyway, she could work. Two months later Amula was sold to a different man. After threatening to go to the police, this new owner pressed a gun to Amula's head. He raped her many times and then sold her to a third man because he felt that she was too "dangerous." Eventually, Amula was able to escape and reach the police."

=In the words of the victims...=

"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 me. I was shocked by what was happening. **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." -- //Alina, trafficked from Armenia into the United Arab Emirates.//

"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." --//Rosa, trafficked from Mexico into the United States.//

"It was late afternoon. I was washing dishes at the river with six other girls. We tried to run, but they caught us. Three girls resisted. To punish them, the rebels cut off their ears They knifed out their eyes. Then they killed them. I was so afraid, I couldn't move. They raped us. They held me down. It was the first time I had sex." --//I, trafficked within Sierra Leone.//

"When we went into his "office," he explained that I had to audition for the the job and should step on the stage and raise my hands. When I did so, I felt leather straps being put around my wrists, but I didn't understand what was going on. When I tried to stop him from undressing me, the reality of what was happening became very clear. He shoved out the wooden box I was standing on, and I was left hanging in mid air naked, suspended from my wrists. It was the beginning of my "training" for a position as a prostitute that catered to "clients," who wanted to act on their violent bondage, torture fantasies."-- //Jill, trafficked with in U.S.//

"I did not understand what happened to me. There was no way out. On the weekend, I would often have to see around **32 to 34 men, for $15 each**. I would get myself drunk before the men arrived, so that I could stand the work. At the end of the shift, I would fill a bathtub with hot water and lay in it, drinking and crying. I would smoke one cigarette after another, and then go to bed drunk because it was the only way I could fall asleep."-- //Inez, trafficked from Mexico into the U.S.//

"When I heard the word "clients," I was so surprised. I was prepared to work as a waitress... From that day on my misery started: he was sending around **50 clients a day, sometimes even more**. I did not understand what was happening. I had no right to be sick, I had no right to refuse or choose. I do not know how he had established the terrible conveyor... but the line did not stop."--//Tamara, trafficked from Armenia into the United Arab Emirates.//

//Human Trafficking. Dir. Christian Duguay. 2005. DVD.//