on: Human Trafficking - Coming To a Town Near You

(contains adult content)

I have this tab in my Gmail account where all “promotions” get sent to. I rarely look through the random emails from Groupon or Sezane, but today I scanned the subjects to find one entitled Men Jailed for Trafficking Woman in the UK.

I read the story from this week of two brothers who tricked a Romanian woman to come to the UK to work in a factory. Immediately after landing at Luton airport, she was taken to a house, dressed in sexy clothing, given condoms and wipes, and told to work the streets. Let’s just stop and actually imagine what that scenario might have looked like.

She had left her home in Romania - possibly a mother and father, brothers and sisters, to work in a factory in the UK. She was obviously desperate for money. It is likely she was sent by her family to get money to send back home. She put her life in the hands of two men, promising her a future. She was nervous, but excited for what opportunities lie ahead. Maybe she would make friends. Get to buy new shoes. She gets off the plane, unsure about where to go, unable to read the airport signs. Taken in a car to a house, confused about why the women were so scantily clad for factory work. And then a red bra that pushed her boobs up and low waste, ripped shorts were shoved into her arms. She’s confused. Work the streets? What does that mean? Why do I need wipes?

She found out quickly. The report states that she had her first client that night. She was threatened by her traffickers that they would ‘break her neck’ if she didn’t get money out of the client.

Can you imagine that first “client”? That first man that had to have his fix. With no thought about why this woman was asking for sex on the streets. All he wanted was to gratify his fantasy and feel release. Street prostitution is nearly never a choice. It is exploitative, controlling, and frightening. If anyone tells you otherwise, they most likely pick up women from the streets and want to justify their sexual outings. She had to lay under this man. In pain. Pictures of her family rushing through her head. Visions of her mother’s kitchen. She did her duty and gave all her earnings to her traffickers.

Back to the report. Early on in her street work, a condom used by a client split. And she became pregnant.

Did she see the split condom? Could she feel his excretion in her? Did her mind rush to the baby that may now be forming in her womb?

Report. Even whilst pregnant, she was forced to sleep with 10-15 men each day. And then faced beatings from her captors.

Her stomach grew. Each sexual encounter hurt more. What kind of men were paying to have sex with a woman obviously pregnant and in pain? And as much as she wanted the sex to stop, she knew the minute it did, the beatings from her traffickers began. Which was worse? And what about her baby? Alive? Dead?

Report. At seven months pregnant, she feared the baby had died after a forced attempted abortion.

Would she see blood? Or worse, a fetus? Would she need hospital care? Where would she get that? She must have felt incredible grief. Her first baby had been aborted against her will.

Report. A client asked her if she had contact with family in Romania. She told him everything.

She must have had wondered how he might respond. Would he report her to the police for all the awful things she had done? Or tell her traffickers that she had confessed all?

Report. One week later. The same client showed up with a phone.

Hope.

Report. She got in touch with her family in Romania.

Hope

Report. The police showed up at the property and arrested the brothers.

Tears. Relief. Numbness. Anger. Fear. Anxiety. Uncertainty. Feels like she may faint.

Human trafficking is happening RIGHT NOW. It is happening in your city. Men and women are being raped, tricked, drugged, worked, and beaten at the hands of an evil underworld. Let’s not look away. Let’s glare into the issue and figure out what we can do to stop it.

And if you were wondering, her baby lived. A baby, her baby, part of her body. And yet, a constant reminder of the man that put that baby in her.

Don’t look away.