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Q: How was it at your home?
Lena: I was not in school for four years now. My mother is in the Turkey, my father is here, but I was with my grandmother. 1998 I ran away.
Q: Why?
Lena: My father lived four years also in the Turkey with his new wife and I was with my grannie. But after he came back he did beat me a lot, to bring me up, so I ran away. I was hanging around on the street, the mafia picked me up and brought me to Italy. They did beat me and sold me to other people...
Q: Was it the bulgarian mafia...?
Lena: Yes.
Q: Did they pick you up on a street?
Lena: No, it was in a dance club. One of my far relatives did sell me to them. Well why should I be angry, I cannot change it. In February 1999 I was sold to Italy. In September 1998 I was still working in Haskovo before they brought me to Italy where I spent 9 months, in Milano. I ran away to Bulgaria then. I came home but I was scared of my father. That he will beat me again. Actualy he is a good man, but I am scared of him. So I ran away second time and was cought again by the pimps. This time they brought me to Macedonia.
Q: How was the way over the border?
Lena: You have to walk through the forest by foot. It takes around 5 or 6 hours over the macedonian border. On the other side a car picks you up. From Strumica it goes to Tetovo. We've been 3. The other two are still there. They have been older than me - the one was 16 at that time, the other 15.
Q: Where and how did you work?
Lena: In Haskovo in an apartment, but also in trucks and vans.
Q: And in Italy, where did you work there?
Lena: On the street...
Q: How was it in Italy?
Lena: My boss was quite OK.
Q: You've been illegal there all the time?
Lena: We had forged passports...
Q: Bulgarian?
Lena: Yes...
Q: What was your name there?
Lena: Gergana. I was 20 in the passport.
Q: And you liked Italy?
Lena: Italy is beautiful. But there have been also albanian pimps who sometimes did beat the girls so brutal that they could die. A friend of mine died that way. She got ripped up. But our pimp was good to us.
Q: Have there been other girls too?
Lena: Yes, italian girls, brasilian girls, black girls. Most of them have been minors. Only few of them have been mature. Matures can get into jail, so therefore the pimps prefer minors...
Q: And then you got into the razzia?
Lena: From the police station they just put me out in Milano. So I ran away to Bulgary. I paid 400$ bribe so the border police left me in and didn't ask me questions... Then I went home...
Q: How long have you been in Macedonia?
Lena: Since December until August.
Q: It was after the war?
Lena: Yes.
Q: Again with a pimp?
Lena: Yes, they sold me again. I worked in a bar where mostly Germans came. Soldiers, you know. Then sometimes English, journalists... First I was just a "kompanionka" (hostess), later more...
Q: What was the name of the bar? Was it in Tetovo?
Lena: It was in Neproshento, the bar of Grigorij, but I don't know the name.
Q: You was there the whole time.
Lena: Yes. We had a day off one or two times a month, but we weren't allowed to go outside, so the police would not pick us up. But they did catch me at last und deported to Bulgaria.
Q: How have you been treated in Macedonia?
Lena: My boss was good, but there have been other bar, where it wasn't good at all. My boss was the Big Boss, he was a Macedonian. But when you got sold to Albanians, this is very bad - they don't give you anything and beat you whenever they can. Some girls have been sold to us from Albanians and they cried all the time because of all the lashes they got, broken rips, heads, everything... Thanks heaven I was sold to such a guy only once. They took me to the Black Sea to Pomorie for a week. 3 strong guys did beat me there with a baseball bat and raped me then. I had long hair in that time but they cut it off. After that I sat 2 weeks on the toilet.
Q: Why did they do that?
Lena: I ran away, but they found me again and therefore they punished me. But this I year have grown older and promised to myself not to follow this way anymore. Because you get only bad, very bad things from it. I have never stolen, but as you see, it's better to steal than to do those things, where people beat you so much...
Q: Tell me about this bar...
Lena: For my clients I was 20, but I am 16. Well when I was in Macedonia, I was even 15.
(...)
Q: Now you are in this home for homeless minors...
Lena: I am ill. My father want to get me out of here. It's really not nice here... But I want to stay in my real home now, not run away anymore. I know the life. I wait until I'm 18, then I will leave Bulgaria. There is no future here.
Q: You said, you are ill at the moment...
Lena: My kidneys hurt very bad...
source: Inge Bell archive (Radiovision.info)