"Dear Maria,
my name is Larissa, I never met you but I heard from my friends about your site. My life was not too different from your's, only instead of modeling work, they offered me waitress job. This is a short story about Viktoria and my friend Eleni, published by jurnalist JEFF EDWARDS in THE MIRROR. Keep up, and thanks on your devoted work. All the best."
my name is Larissa, I never met you but I heard from my friends about your site. My life was not too different from your's, only instead of modeling work, they offered me waitress job. This is a short story about Viktoria and my friend Eleni, published by jurnalist JEFF EDWARDS in THE MIRROR. Keep up, and thanks on your devoted work. All the best."
They, may have endured a living hell but Viktoria and Eleni still consider themselves fortunate. Both were beaten, raped and prostituted as sex slaves - but they escaped and are now in a safe house in Mostar (Bosnia & Hertzegovina) run by charity La Strada.
Viktoria, 20, was tempted by a 500 DEM a month job waitressing two years ago but on the way to her new life, her employers handed her over to a bar owner. He had paid for her to work as his prostitute. Viktoria Said: "I was locked in a tiny room with just a bed. The owner said You owe me 5000 DEM and you will have sex with men whenever I tell you until you have repaid the debt." She entertained up to 15 men a day who paid as little as 4 DEM a time. She said: "Escape was out of the question. I had no money, no ID, I didn't even know which country I was in." Viktoria let herself get pregnant to try to escape. She refused to abort it and was sold on to a man who forced her to have sex with clients until days before the birth. She was back working again days later. About two months ago she escaped and contacted police. She said: "I'm one of the lucy ones." But she will always bear the scars. She said: "These gangsters forced me into being a whore. What am I supposed to tell my son when he grows up?"
Eleni, 25, didn't know the friend who wrote inviting her to work as a waitress was now a prostitute. Once at the Bosnian restaurant her new owner told her she had been bought for 900 DEM and had to repay him by having sex with his customers. When she refused she was beaten until she couldn't walk for days but was still forced to have sex. She said: "My owner told me 'You are lying down anyway so you can still work for me'." After two months she was sold on to a man who held a pistol to her head when she threatened to go to police. Eleni was moved to a remote house after corrupt police tipped off her owner that Interpol was looking for her. He raped her several times then passed her to a third owner as she had become "too dangerous". She said: "I was a slave. I was no more than a piece of meat." She fled one night and made it to police. Amna Saric, who is now protecting the girls, said: "These are just two of thousands being lured and tricked into prostitution."
source: human peril