| ||||||||||||||||
"I am living in Vanadzor and used to work as prostitute together with my friends. When our neighbour returned from Turkey and told us about the perspectives of work there it seemed attractive to us. Our neighbour said that she knew people there and that she could arrange our trip and job. If we did the same work in Vanadzor why not try to do it in Turkey for a better salary? We gave her our passports and money to buy the ticket. A week later she told us that everything was ready and we travelled by bus to Istanbul. When we came to the border to apply for visas we both got it very easily, but the Turkish immigration police refused to provide a visa to our organizer due to the fact that she had been deported once from Turkey. We had no other choice than to travel on our own. Our organizer told us whom to call when we arrived and gave us further instructions. As soon as we got from the bus in Istanbul a man came up to us and said that our organizer had called him to meet us. He took us to a place that was either a private house or a pub in the suburbs of the city, and said that we would be living there. We were supposed to meet clients and talk to them in the bar on the first floor and then take them up to the second floor. He would take 30 per cent of the money we earned to cover food and lodging expenses. It looked reasonable to us. The next day he brought us some clothing and told us that we needed to look better and that the clothing we wore was not good. We could not imagine that he would be sending so many clients. We remember it as an incessant flow. It was like he was selling tickets for short meetings with us. It was impossible to handle. When we complained he said that this was the only way to earn good and quick money for ourselves on top of the amount that we needed to pay back to him to cover the money he had spent on us."
"In reality he was collecting money from the clients and as it came out later was not giving money to us. A month later we made him give us US$ 200 each, but of course he had earned much more. As we had the documents and already knew the environment to a certain extent we decided to find another place and do the same job on our own. It was not so easy as it seemed. Soon it became clear to us that in a foreign country you cannot work without a ‘roof’. There should be a pimp who is familiar with the local traditions and situation. A couple of times when we were trying to get clients on the road we were terribly beaten, cheated and robbed. We realized that we needed to go back before it was be too late, considering the many stories of prostitutes from Russia and Ukraine who had been raped, beaten and killed. We took a bus back and are working home now. We have been told that people are kinder in Dubai and it is more profitable to work there, so we think we will be going to Dubai."
Source: IOM /// "Trafficking in Women and Children from the Republic of Armenia: A Study" (IOM, 2001, ISBN 92-9068-114-4)