Posted on 03/17/2006 5:51:34 AM PST by klossg
MIRROR CAMPAIGN Sex ordeal still haunts Olga
SADNESS in her eyes, Olga tries to explain. "With my life, it was hard to refuse," she says. "I didn't think anything could be worse."
But it was. When Olga was just 20 she was stopped in the street near her home in Lithuania by a "kind" stranger who promised to help her find a better life.
"I had no mother or father," she says. "My sisters were alcoholics. My life wasn't very good and nobody cared about me. I believed he would give me a new start."
Olga was brought to the UK by a trafficker. She travelled by bus on a false passport, dreaming of a job in a hotel or a restaurant. But when she arrived in London she was sold like a piece of meat to a gang of Albanian pimps and taken to a dingy house.
She says: "Another girl told me I had been sold for £3,000 and that I was going to work as a prostitute. I became terrified, but what could I do?
"I had to go with a man on my first day. I knew how they would treat me if I didn't. They beat the girls up and kept their heads under water in the bathtub.
"They broke my friend's tooth. They had guns, too. They threatened me, but I was afraid so I always did what they said."
Olga had to share a room with an Albanian who watched her eat and sleep and raped her whenever he felt like it. Every day brought the same agony.
"I saw five to six men a night, sometimes more. I could not stop it. I felt so bad. You sleep, you get up, you have sex the whole night, you go back to sleep. Then you get up and have to do it all again. It felt horrible."
After three months of torment she plucked up the courage to flee.
"My guard went to have sex with another girl and I walked out," she says. "I just ran and ran down the street. I had nothing with me, but I wanted to get far away."
Olga was picked up by a Pakistani man - only to be thrown into another life of abuse. He gave her a waitressing job and a room, but he had other "work" in mind. "All the other men in the restaurant tried to use me," she says. "I was the only girl there and every night they pressured me to have sex."
Finally she could stand it no longer. She found the courage to go to the police, and eventually she arrived in the caring hands of staff at the POPPY project.
Based in South London and funded by the government, POPPY is the UK's only refuge for trafficking victims. It has just 25 places, but for women like Olga it is often the first place of genuine safety they have ever known.
Team leader Anna Johansson has seen for herself the devastating effect of Britain's sex slave trade. "It really is like torture," she says. "The women are raped again and again. Some see 40 men a night. They work incredibly long hours, are denied sleep, proper food, are under constant threat of violence.
"We see women who have been beaten, knifed. One had been stabbed in the eye and blinded."
Some arrive pregnant or suffering from alcohol or drug addiction. Others have thrown themselves from buildings or moving cars to escape and have cuts and broken bones.
POPPY helps them with practical support, from clothes, toiletries and mobile phones to accommodation, education and healthcare.
Olga is one of around 80 victims, mostly from eastern Europe, who have had intensive support since 2003.
POPPY is working with police on Operation Pentameter, a UK-wide crackdown on sex trafficking launched last week. And it says attitudes towards the so-called "sex industry" must change.
Anna says: "These women need our help because of what British men have done to them. Britain is a destination country for traffickers and we are being put to shame."
POPPY is behind the Daily Mirror's campaign to persuade the government to sign up to the European Convention on Trafficking and win basic rights for girls such as Olga.
She is still haunted by her ordeal.
"I can't stand it when men stare at me in the street," she says. "I get so angry. But I have a boyfriend now who is nice to me and I am going to English classes.
"I want to work and start my life again. Anything is better than being a prostitute."
POPPY has had real success stories, giving women new hope in life. With your help they could do more. To make a donation please visit www.poppyproject.org.uk or call 020 7840 7132.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Sign Amnesty's petition at http://www.amnesty.org.uk/svaw/trafficking/
Or visit www.amnesty.org.uk for more details.
Please find out about John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
I take exception to this statement.
I know that there are evil people everywhere, but to characterize this as "British men" is a fraud and a gross, unfair, Politically Correct distortion.
I could not agree more. God bless us all.
I wouldn't know what this Anna lady is refering to, but if Olga had said that quote, she'd probably have a point, considering quite possibly that the only English she knew, took advantage of her, used her for sex....
Middle-eastern scum.
DISCUSSION ABOUT:
"SEX SLAVE SOLD LIKE A PIECE OF MEAT"
Anyone who believes that prostitution is "harmless" needs to be informed that almost nobody becomes a prostitute voluntarily.
To be included in or removed from the MORAL ABSOLUTES PINGLIST, please FreepMail wagglebee.
It is almsot unbearable to read these stories. Prayers for these women. When I get time I will visit these links.
In our own country, a major source of women in prostitution and nudie bars is college girls trying to pay for school. We did an expose on this when I was at Carnegie Mellon for a school newspaper. Its truly appalling the level of participation by coeds. At one "Massage Parlor" we found 3% of the University of Pittsburgh's Nursing School on staff busy giving "Hand, Mouth, and Full-Body Massages" to help pay for schooling. We found officers of Sororities, and ordinary girls from the dorms. We watched local politicians such as members of Pittsburgh's City Council, suburban Mayors, prominent local businessmen, and even recruiters from ROTC come in to be "serviced" for "relief of tension" by female "massueses". The clientele we observed obviously explains the protected status of the "Escort" and "Massage" industry.
The story came to our attention when the roommate of one of our staffers asked her for help to get away from her Pakistani pimp, who was threatening to harm her if she didn't continue hooking.
Fathers - is this how you want your daughters to get through school? What do you know about what daddy's little girl is really doing away at College?
You are right. It was not "British men" who abused this poor thing. It was the company she fell into. Now the question is: Will honorable British men kick their butts and rescue these women who have gotten themselves into this sex slave business managed by evil men. I hope they will.
Albanians and Pakistanis in England were mentionned specifically. Not Anglo-Saxons or Celts.
England managed to clean up her underclass during the nineteenth century, and then they imported a new one.
Mrs VS
Also, you all might want to read the account of a repentant ex-prostitute who worked in near-slavery for a few weeks in a legal brothel in Nevada: Prostitution in Nevada: What it's really like.
I've been meaning to post an excerpt here at FR. Some explicit language and situations at this link, too.
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