Film 0800 800 818 Trafficking in Persons (2011 )

Those people look very nice in the beginning, I literally felt like they were my family. He said one thing to me - - "As long as you want to return home alive, you have to do what I'm telling you to do." They said I didn't have to speak the language that it was enough if I could clean so it was all ideal and everything was supposed to be normal and legal. We were sold two times already in Slovakia and we didn't know about it. documentary film Trafficking in human beings is a very profitable business. It's among the three most profitable illegal types of business, between business with arms and drugs. So it is very important to fight against it, but trafficking is a covert crime, so prevention against it is very important. A neighbour asked me if I was interested in some work. One cannot do anything here at all, one has to beg for some work, it is really a disaster here. I met an acquaintance who said he could find me a job in Great Britain. And he suggested a job in Switzerland, I could work as a chambermaid in a hotel there. He promised us wages of 80,000 crowns (cca 2,600 euros), and said that the work was certain and secure, we didn't have to be afraid. I had never been there before, so I had no clue what we were getting into. We simply found some leaflets, we called the number and made an appointment. They were nice, they offered me coffee or tea, we discussed when and how we would travel there. There are better opportunities abroad than here. There is some work here, but working for that amount of money, it is not worthwhile. You get the money every week, the travel is for free, accommodation for one month is free, so you only pay for it when you earn some money. I was searching for jobs on various websites, I wrote emails and these things. We agreed I would leave on Wednesday. It made a very good impression on me. ZUZANA VATRALOVA - IOM: This business is really so profitable ZUZANA VATRALOVA - IOM: that it pays off for those people to look trustworthy. They lead on some young girl, they go into a relationship for a few months. They invest in the relationship, buy her gifts. It is really worthwhile for him because he already has a plan that in a few months he will sell that woman somewhere in Sweden or Great Britain. CRIMINOLOGIST: There is a widespread opinion CRIMINOLOGIST: that trafficking is only about women abused for prostitution. That was, however, not confirmed in last years. Because men are also equally abused, they are recruited for hard work, harder than women, since a woman can only work as a *** or waitress, cleaning lady, chambermaid. Men can work really hard, in factories, on construction sites and it suits traffickers more to abuse a man than a woman. Men think they are strong and that it cannot happen to them. But it is not true. It can happen to anyone, a man or woman, someone who is strongly built, 180 cm tall. It can happen to everyone. The trafficker develops such confidence in the victim that they can deceive everyone. I went to school to learn to work as a lathe man, on a milling machine. I worked in a factory but it was closed. There is no work anywhere now. He promised me a wage of at least 500 euros. He came to tell me we were leaving in two days. In Austria, he had to arrange something and then out of nowhere he says I need to pay him money for the journey there and back. And I say – "What is that, I don't have money, we are going to Italy to earn money." He says – "But you have to earn some money now." When I asked how, he said by begging. I was travelling on my own, he told me his friends would be waiting for me there at the bus station. I arrived there and they really were waiting for me, they treated me really nice. A great, luxurious car came to pick me up. They asked me about the journey, if I was not tired. They said we had to go and eat somewhere. They literally treated me like family. I don't know why but I gained the impression they were really nice people who would take care of me, make sure I felt safe there. In Great Britain a man came to arrange for our papers, we went to a bank, he opened a bank account for us. The bank clerk was asking something, but I did not understand what. He simply knew everything, even the password we had chosen. But I didn't care, he said we would receive credit cards in a week that we didn't have to worry. We were leaving the bank and I asked for my papers back, those people told me not to worry about anything, there was still a lot they had to arrange for, that it doesn't take a day. They promised to give me back the papers and told me not to worry. And the only thing going on in my mind was when I finally could start working, start earning money as I had two children at home, I wanted to start sending them money. It is good to bear it in my mind, that the person might deceive you. Under no circumstances should you give away your personal documents. All the matters have to be arranged by everyone in person, both abroad as well as in Slovakia. If someone is trying to take your personal documents, it's always suspicious. Even though we know the agency is legal, it's always good to obtain recommendations, to find out who went to work abroad through this agency and if everything went fine. I would not detect a liar like this, in spite of knowing all those cases. Let's get started, shall we? We are an agency called Profitable work. We really have a lot of people interested, (hidden camera) which is really great. (hidden camera) If you don't like your employer, accommodation, team, you can leave in 4 days. When we were establishing this agency, we agreed it isn't good to take money from you. We cannot speak the language. You don't have to, it is not a problem. The person who is there, he is from here. I run this business seriously, I would like it to be serious from both sides. We met a lot of people during these interviews who had been deceived but so far our people are really satisfied. We arrived near Udine and we stopped there under a viaduct. And he parked the car there and said we would be there, that we would also live there. I asked what that meant. As far as I know we were supposed to go to a construction site. "No construction, if you don't like it, you can go home" - that's what he said. I asked – "How can I earn money when I don't have a job?" We were supposed to work on a construction site. "That work was cancelled" - he told me and explained that if I wanted to earn some money, the only way was to go begging. Every morning he drove me in front of a shopping centre, left me there and then came to pick me up in the evening. I had a blue cap, not this one and I had to hold it like this, and say "prego, prego, prego" to everyone. He told me to repeat that word, it means "please, please, please" in Italian. People gave me some food, sometimes threw me some cash, so I bought some food, but the rest I always gave to him. I don't know, it just didn't cross my mind then, it seemed to me when we were entering the gloomy bar that we came just for a short break and we would go to the real bar where I was supposed to work. Then he took me aside into a room in the back and said that Jaro, the friend of mine, had sold me. And then he also said that I had to earn the money to pay off my debt to him. I was in fact supposed to work as a ***. Until he told me that he was very kind and nice, we went for a dinner together, his family was very nice and generous to me. They treated us like we had been growing up together. For example, when we didn't want to eat, they even forced us. You have to eat all of that – they told us. Like they were our brothers. I really could not understand. And after 2 weeks they started behaving completely differently. They started to be rude to us, they talked about us as 'my people', they talked about us like we were cattle. Like we were their slaves. We travelled 200 km to work. We got up early in the morning, arrived to work. It was really cruel because we worked 12 hours straight in terrible conditions. And then when we came home, we had to take care of their children or for example, cut the grass because she suddenly wanted the grass cut, or he suddenly wanted to move so we had to help. Simply put, we had to do what they told us. Sleeping was not an option, we could sleep on the bus if we wanted to. If I slept 4 hours a day, that was already a luxury. After 2 weeks we noticed that the wages arrived to our accounts but we didn't have credit cards. I was constantly asking about those credit cards. We were supposed to have received the cards already. Our wages were disappearing. I asked the supervisor in the factory where we worked where the wages were really sent. And the supervisor immediately asked me what we were thinking, that we were used as slaves. That we were only exploited. But I still didn't believe that, I couldn't believe that because no one was beating us. Hello, take a seat. I'm Peter, nice to meet you. We’ll arrange everything. You don't pay anything to us. The departure is on Wednesday. You don't pay anything for the transportation. So Wednesday would be ok for you? Are you interested, if we leave on Wednesday? You could leave on Wednesday, right? Very well then, sir, thank you. Another very important point is to go to work abroad only with a written contract which has to be in a language you understand. You shouldn't say - I know German a bit, so I will sign it. It is very important that the contract is clear. We had a case where it was stipulated in the contract that the accommodation would be provided and only after arriving did the person find out that the provided accommodation was not an option but an obligation, and they had to pay over 80 percent of their wage for that accommodation. They brought me to a factory, to a bakery in fact, and I started working there. A month and a half went by, and I was very angry; where was the money and what was really going on? So I went to speak to the man and clearly told him that I couldn't go on like that – no money, no phone call to my children at home after a month and a half. He only made empty promises all the time. I told him to give me the money, to start doing something. He told me to shut up and to start working hard, otherwise he would pick up the phone and 'take care' of my family back in Slovakia. I was afraid that if I didn't beg and didn't bring them the money, they would leave me there and beat me up. And I was truly lost, I cannot speak the language and I didn't really know where exactly I was. You know how ashamed I was? Such an embarrassing feeling when people were looking at me. Oh my god, I had never been in a situation like that in my life. How many times I wanted to cry! Especially when they all had their siesta, between 11 am and 2 pm, I went somewhere in the back, near the bins and there I cried, and not once. After about a month two people came, they were Czechs. One man and one woman who bought me from Robert. And they took me to Switzerland. I stayed in a rented apartment there. They wouldn't even allow me to sleep. When I slept, it was only for a short period. I had no health care. They started giving me drugs so I could last longer, so I could work longer and earn more. Then I found out I was pregnant. And I assumed it would all end because of that. I thought it couldn’t go on like that anymore. But it did not end and it all just continued. Why are people put in jail? Because you limit their freedom that way. That is the punishment. This person did nothing to be punished for but they are put in a position where their personal freedom is limited. Moreover, they don't get money, have to work like slaves. Such a person cannot make any decision. ADRIANA HAVASOVA - PSYCHOLOGIST: That is important for everyone - to be able to make decisions, ADRIANA HAVASOVA - PSYCHOLOGIST: to decide what they want to do, how they want to behave. But in this case, all of this is denied, so the person loses the essence of their personality at that moment. If it lasts longer, it can have profound consequences on their mental state. The person might even end up committing suicide. My sister-in-law called us and persuaded me to be smart, to finally understand that we had been sold. I didn't take it seriously because I still didn't want to believe any of it. But she was pressuring us to return home. I thought she was just jealous or something, I didn't know what to make of it, they were able to convince me so much that I trusted them completely. Unfortunately, only later did we realize they were lying about a lot of things. When talking about exploitation for work, a lot of people are abused at once. But the traffickers have a strategy – out of those people they choose someone who they pay better and that person is on their side and becomes their informer. This way they choose a spy who reports everything to them and the trafficker then knows if one of the victims is plotting to flee, or already called home. So they immediately take certain measures by using physical violence, threatening. It can get really worse and doesn't have to end up with just a beating. If a potential victim of trafficking calls us and needs help, for example in Great Britain, we first try to find out where the person is exactly, what their situation is. We get in touch with either a non-governmental organization, or Slovak embassy or local police. All depends on where the person is and what their situation is. I told him – "Listen, Marian, I know what is going on here already, we found it out, we are not small children. Tell us how much we owe you. You tell us, we work to pay you off and we are done." He simply laughed at it and said – "Fine, each of you owe me a 1,000 euros." Of course, I agreed to that, but then at around 5 he put us both in a car and took us to those Kurds who found us the job. They spoke English but I understood that he was offering to sell us to those Kurds. That means that we would not get out of there, because it would all be futile, to work and give him the 1,000 euros, when he was already looking out to sell us. My belly started to swell up and the men, the clients kept coming and at the snap of a finger, upon order I had to spread my legs and have sex with them. One of them used to come to me quite often and he was like, I don't know … So it occurred to me that he might help me. He said he could come with a van below my window and I would have to jump out. I really didn't care, I was ready to do anything. I didn't have anywhere to wash myself, so I thought I would go to a small river nearby, to wash myself a bit. Then I was thinking, saying to myself I had to disappear and so I did. And then I got lost, didn't know where I was. I was wondering how will I ever get back? So I went further and further until I found a street with a house, and I was asking for "carabinieri, carabinieri", or "police, police", asking the people around to call them. I went upstairs and saw where they took the passports from. And then they made a mistake – they went out on Saturday night. So I went to check for the passports and they were really hidden where I had seen before. We only needed to run away. I saw that they left a door opened in the back, I didn't hesitate for a minute, I quickly grabbed my bag, threw some things in, opened the door and started running. The worst thing was I had no idea where I was running. I knew that until I found some police station, those people were still close, they could catch me again. And kill me. Meanwhile, we got a call from Slovakia that some masked commando was coming to rescue us, that Interpol was looking for us and who else, my sister-in-law was babbling about many things at once. We didn't know, so we calmly packed our things, took the passports and we were waiting for the commando to come. And then all of a sudden, the traffickers came. We were terrified, didn't know what to do, so we started running through the back door. As I was running through the street, I suddenly noticed a big sign on a building – "hospital", I immediately went inside, but not knowing the language I only shouted "please". We got another call from home, we didn't know whether to pick up the phone, because already the man who bought us had called, threatening us. In full traffic I jumped in the way of a police car, and I simply told them in Slovak I had a problem. They found an interpreter who came to the police station and finally I could talk to someone in Slovak, and tell them everything that had happened to me. And then the man took me to a police station and they contacted some local organization which worked with women like me, with cases similar to me. We are trying to get to the victim as soon as possible, we find a person who will speak to the victim face-to-face, and then that person, most often from a non-governmental organization, talks directly to the victim, finds out their story, if it is really a victim of human trafficking or not. The interpreter who called them from Rome, she sent me to that organization - Stella Polare. The organization where they took me, immediately contacted Bratislava to inform them about what happened. If the victim wants to return home, we help them with this, which means buying them a ticket which is covered by our Program and then the person returns to Slovakia. When we got on a plane, I finally knew we were going home. We let out a long breath, we were finally home. We were really excited about coming home, about getting away from all of that. When I came home and looked at my kids, I started crying a lot, I hugged them, stroked them, asked them how they had been. I can never forget that feeling. When I came home and got off the bus, people were staring at me, asking me if I was still alive. There were rumours that I had died a long time ago. A lot of people describe it the same way - how they got on the plane still feeling the burden of their situation and then when they came to Slovakia, they felt a huge relief. They thought they would finally feel good, that everything was over. Unfortunately, the relief is only temporary, they keep everything in their head and it influences them in their everyday life. Now I have to live in a safe shelter, I attend psychotherapy, I'm trying to take care of my child, while I don't know who the father of my child is. And I'm trying to integrate into life but I don't know if I will ever succeed. What was I thinking about? Excuse me for saying it, but I thought if I had had a gun, I would have probably shot him. All those things keep coming back, memories, nightmares, sadness, tears, isolation, lack of interest about the world around - all these feelings persist and influence the person in their everyday life. That's why it is important to seek a professional, a psychologist or psychiatrist who will help them process these things, the things they keep in their head, so that they can find the relief, the same relief they felt when getting off the plane. That is what we explain to people – - go to work abroad, but go prepared, and come back with a good experience. Don't go in such a way that someone will deceive you, abuse you, and you will need the rest of your life to get over it. The cases are really like that, it takes 10-15 years, and it is still stored in the memory and that person must learn to live with it. Because the memory cannot be erased. We are trying to help the people learn to live with it. People here in Slovakia live hand to mouth, it's not possible to find a job, so they grab at what is offered. I decided to go work abroad with the agency, even without knowing whether it's legal. I'm really surprised about what you've just told me, you took me aback. If you hadn't been here, I would have come to the interview, and agreed to leave on Wednesday at 10. So I would have gone. National line 0800 800 818 is a toll-free hotline providing assistance and information to people who might be in a vulnerable situation with regard to human trafficking. The technical operation of the hotline is co-funded by T –Mobile Slovakia. We didn't even know who was helping us, we had no idea that so many people stood behind us, we cannot say that the police didn't help us, or that someone let us down. A lot of people were around us and we had no idea. We didn't know whom to thank, we haven't thanked them yet. The film was supported by: Slovak Government Council for Crime Prevention The Embassy of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and The Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands. We would like to thank for the cooperation to: Vlado Chudy, Juraj Benda, MIRAFILM s.r.o., and LEON productions. Production of this film was financially supported by the Slovak Audiovisual Fund. Produced by: © FRAME FILM s.r.o. Radio and Television of Slovakia and IOM 2011