I Kidnap Girls E-Book

Pamela Rigdon

• Herausgeber: Proisle Publishing Services
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 282

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

I kidnap girls from their traffickers. Their pimps never know it until the girls are in the car with me, speeding toward the safe house." Iana Matei did not always do such things. In fact, Matei, a once battered, imprisoned woman, had spent 10 years carefully constructing a better life halfway around the world. This life was interrupted by a single phone call that would eventually lead to the rescue of over 700 victims of forced prostitution. Iana Matei has achieved notoriety in the international community for her fight against human trafficking in eastern Europe - including the Reader's Digest European of the Year award in 2010. However, her solutions are local: teaching rescued children vocational skills and developing projects with sustainable jobs. Thus depriving traffickers of one of their most valuable tools: the false promise of work abroad. Author Pamela Rigdon shares a fictionalized biographical account of Iana Matei's initiation into the world of human trafficking. The three girls profiled in I Kidnap Girls -Tara, Louisa and Nicoletta - are composites of real-life experiences from the rescued victims. Profits from the sale of each book go to fund lana Matei's work in Romania. Matei works to educate employees and volunteers working in refugee centers, on identifying vulnerable Ukrainians in danger of being trafficked.

Leseprobe

I KIDNAP GIRLS

Stealing from traffickers

Restoring their victims

By Pamela Rigdon

With Iana Matei

Inspired by the life of Iana Matei, Reader’s Digest European of the year 2010, who rescued over 700 victims of forced prostitution.

For all the girls.

I KIDNAP GIRLS

Copyright © 2022 by Pamela Rigdon & Iana Matei

ISBN: 978-1-959449-75-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher disclaims any responsibility for them.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Proisle Publishing Services LLC

1177 6th Ave 5th Floor

New York, NY 10036, USA

Phone: [phone])

[email protected]

Acknowledgements

First of all I want to thank my family and friends who encouraged me throughout the writing of this book (there were so many, forgive me if I don’t mention you all by name). I’m grateful to Iana Matei for her continued work that provided the inspiration for this book. I would like to thank my critique group and those who worked with me in the early stages. Thank you for your encouragement and for not shying away from the dark parts of this story.

A special “thank you” goes to Lexi Scott at Proisle Publishing and her editorial team for their fine-tuning. Thank you also to Nick Ziros, who convinced me to put the story out there.

Thank you to Patti Foley, who accompanied me to Romania and transcribed the interview tapes. Thank you to my daughter Rachel Bjork, for also going to Romania and asking questions whose answers helped shape this book. Thank you also to my daughter, Amee Spadaro, for her encouragement along the way. Lastly, thank you to my son, Joel Ravan, who has been there with a good word and a song that fills my heart.

Introduction

I KIDNAP GIRLS DEPICTS how a phone call to one woman led to the rescue of over 700 victims of human trafficking and forced prostitution.

I Kidnap Girls presents a peek into Iana's world, where all traffickers don't get caught and most don't go to prison. They roam the streets freely and could show up at any moment. The girls don't all stay out of prostitution. The judges don't all do their jobs and her funding sources don't always come through.

I Kidnap Girls opens in 1998 with a phone call from the police department in Pitești Romania asking psychologist, Iana Matei, to come and get some prostitutes returning to Romania from Macedonia, bring them some clothes, take them to the hospital for a syphilis test and to find them a place to stay. The "whores" turn out to be children. "The orphanage director doesn't want them. They would be a bad influence on the other children," says the Director of Social Services. Iana launches into a diatribe about not protecting these children.

She faces the decision of whether to take the girls and open herself to all the risks involved. Traffickers consider the girls their property. They will want their property back. The pimps don't want the girls to obtain identification documents that would declare them a person. Under Romanian law, it's impossible to commit a crime against someone who doesn't exist. If anything were to happen to the girls, there would be no investigation or trial. If anything were to happen to an aid worker who assisted them it would be said that the aid worker was caught aiding criminals.

I Kidnap Girls neither seeks to verify claims made by others about human trafficking and forced prostitution, nor to deny them. It is instead a story, not so much depicting the way things are and how the issue of human trafficking should be handled, but about the way these issues affect the work that Iana does. It's not that Iana doesn't have opinions about the multifaceted subject of trafficking, and how governments respond and the way law enforcement does or does not carry through. She possesses strong opinions, and they will come out, but they come out in the telling of her story. Her views are all filtered through the same lens: How does this affect the girls and the women that I work with? How would this help or hinder those who have already suffered so much?

The purpose of Iana's story isn't an expose or a recording of facts and figures, of which she is the expert and many books or televised broadcasts about trafficking and forced prostitution in Eastern Europe quote from statistics she has provided. Its goal is commercial in nature. Iana needs money to sustain her work.

Her vision goes beyond trying to outlaw prostitution or decide whether or not clients should be prosecuted. Since most victims of trafficking and forced prostitution get sucked into their situations in pursuit of jobs, her theory is that providing jobs robs the trafficker of his power. By making girls and women self-sustainable, a trafficker coming through isn't offering them anything they don't already have or that they can't obtain for themselves.

In I Kidnap Girls, Iana conveys the challenges of girls and women in the process of gaining stability in an unsteady economy within an unstable government while dealing with the psychological and physical effects of years of abuse, all amidst societal disapproval and alienation.

Iana Matei fights to free victims of the human sex slave industry. Whether speaking to the US State Department, the European Commission on Trafficking, The United Nations Human Development Global Forum, or to one abused, frightened girl, Iana brings the same convincing message: Trafficking is not okay, and it's up to us to do something about it.

Iana often says her most dangerous weapon is her big mouth. She began opening her mouth against trafficking and forced prostitution in 1998, when three girls captured her heart. Their stories left her wide-eyed. Although she is considered an expert on facts and figures involving trafficking in the Balkans (the US government and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime collaborate with her for data), it's Iana's passion and compassion that cause her to speak out in ways that will be heard.

Designated by Readers Digest as European of the Year 2010, awarded the Abolitionist Award by the House of Lords in 2007, and declared a hero by the US State Department in 2006, these are not the rewards Iana prizes. The one she does prize is when a girl reclaims her personhood and her self-respect. So far, Iana has aided over 700 victims of forced prostitution as they regained possession of their own lives.

Iana speaks out in ways that anyone can understand. If she is talking with a "pimp ambassador" who's attempting to gain entrance into the girl's safe house, she "communicates" what needs to be "communicated" and somehow she sends him away whining. Iana uses her giftedness to get her message across, and people listen.

Iana speaks to churches and civic groups, and anyone else she's put in front of. If she doesn't make it to heaven, I'm sure the devil doesn't possess enough patience to keep her. He'll toss her out so hard she'll probably land at St. Peter's feet, right near the Pearly Gates.

While the book tells the stories of a total of three girls, some a composite and others with details scrambled to protect their privacy, all are a representation of the thousands of girls trafficked from Eastern Europe each year.

Reason For Writing This Book

(Pamela Rigdon)

I SPENT EIGHT YEARS living in Romania where I worked with a humanitarian foundation serving abandoned children. In the late 1980s, the world was shocked to see the situation inside Romanian orphanages. By the time I arrived in 1993, many of these children— approaching their teens—had left the orphanages for the streets. They lived down under the manhole covers, below the street, huddled around sewer pipes for warmth. The cold and hunger weren't their worst enemies. These proved to be men in shiny, cars with dark tinted windows, who'd pull over and stare at the children. They would motion and point to a child. An adult or an older child would emerge from the car and walk over to the child and stand, huddling with him/her for a few minutes. Then the child would get into the car. The car would drive off. The child wouldn't be heard from again for weeks, months, and maybe never. This was my introduction to child prostitution. These children were promised food, a bed, and clothes. What they weren't told was that they would have to have sex with twenty or thirty people a day and probably travel to a different country where they didn't know the language and their documents would be taken from them. They would be there illegally at the mercy of pimps. I saw this happen and I was unable to do a thing about it. In 1998 I got a call from a woman who worked with the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest. She asked if our foundation would assist a Romanian woman (Iana Matei) who wanted to open a safe house for girls who had been prostituted against their will. I met with Iana and I was drawn to her immediately.

A Short, blonde woman of about forty–who never stopped talking–greeted me at the Metro station where I picked her up. It didn’t take long to realize that this woman not only knew her way around in the complicated, ever-changing Romanian governmental system (something it takes years if ever a westerner to comprehend) but she was getting things done. Many western foundations had come and gone because of the frustrations of not understanding the system and the corruption.

I quickly recognized that this woman had what it took to hold her own against all of this. I was right. In the last three years I lived in Romania, Iana established a safe house for girls who had been forced into prostitution. She was also instrumental in the conviction and imprisonment of some of the most notorious pimps of minor-aged victims.

As the years went by, I returned to the states and resumed my life. What I had seen while in Romania haunted me. I still wanted to do something.

I called Iana one day. She told me she was developing self-sustainability program to provide at-risk girls in one of the economically hardest hit areas of Romania. Writing this book is my way if contributing. It’s not that Iana needs me to be able to write a book. She’s perfectly capable of doing that herself, and she probably would do it...if she weren’t busy rescuing girls and doing things that only Iana can do. Her story is worth telling, and it’s my honor todo so. Read it with your heart.

Since I first wrote this section, a book about Iana has been published in Europe (a memoir) and as a document (unedited version) in English. It’s written from more of a journalistic perspective. The book I offer reads more like a novel and I would classify it as a fictionalized version of a real character and real events.

Explanation

IN THE TELLING OF THIS STORY, I have changed details of dates, times, and places to protect the identities of those forced into prostitution. I have also scrambled some of the details of their circumstances to further protect their privacy.

In 1998, when the police from Pitești Romania first contacted Iana, the girls she came for had been transported within Romania. However the situation quickly escalated into the transportation of girls over the border. The girls I depicted in this book are a representation of the girls Iana has spent the majority of the past twenty plus years rescuing.

I have also compressed events and details in order to fit Iana's huge life between the covers of this book and to provide a smoother read. I have at all times during the writing worked hard to preserve the spirit of the truth, rather than a recitation of facts or simply what happened. There are several places in the book where we worked to protect Iana's continued work within the country and disguised and changed details in order for her to maintain working relationships. For these reasons I would rather place this book into the novel inspired by a true story, than in the straight memoir or non-fiction section of the bookstore. Not because her story isn't true, but because so much care had to go into the protection of the work and the protection of the girl's identities. The girls are a representation of the girl's Iana has assisted.

The characters of Grigore, the police officer and Silvu Sabu, the Director of Social Services are based on real characters.

Readership

FOR ANYONE WHO HAS EVER possessed the desire to dance upon injustice.

It's for those who:

Won't look the other way as pimps buy, sell, and transport millions of minor-aged girls, forcing them into prostitution.

Will recognize the atrocities committed by those in pursuit of sex and cheap labor.

Want to be aware of the cruelties perpetrated on the most vulnerable in our society and celebrate the life of one who cares.

Wonder how a once battered woman, living in a corrupt, broken society, in her efforts to assist a few trafficked girls, winds up battling crooked administration and organized crime.

Wish to share in her victory as governments and traffickers alike recognize her as a force to be reckoned with.

It's how one woman, in the midst of saving others, saves herself.

Author’s Note

By Iana Matei

I KIDNAP GIRLS FROM THEIR TRAFFICKERS. Their pimps never know it until the girls are in the car with me, speeding toward the safe house. This is my greatest pleasure.

I often get calls from traffickers, demanding that I give the girls back or they'll kill me. I never do it. I'm still alive and a few of them are in jail.

Once I got a call from the police. They confronted me. "Did you take one of Bucu's girls? He wants her back." I just about had a heart attack. With this statement, they let me know whose side they were on.

Kidnapping the girls is the easy part of my job. The hard part begins once the girl is safe and attempts her journey toward a stable life. Romanian society says: "All of this is your own fault. You went with bad people and look what happened. You shouldn't be so stupid."

My book, I Kidnap Girls, describes how I got involved with victims of human trafficking. It also portrays some very courageous girls as they move forward into health, healing, and self-sustainability.

Happy Reading!

Iana Matei

The Call

Pitești Romania, 1998

SO MANY THINGS IN LIFE start with a phone call...

"Iana, I've got three prostitutes here at the police station. They've been working in Macedonia. Now they're back in Romania. They have no identification documents, no visas, and no place to stay. We need some clothes to take them to the doctor to get tested for syphilis..."

I rolled my eyes. What day aren't there a few prostitutes at the police station?

"That's unfortunate, Alex, but why are you calling me? I don't work with prostitutes. I work with children. Children in the streets. Children in the orphanage."

"I know, Iana, but what am I supposed to do? Lock them up or put them in the streets? Or, should I let the guys here have some time alone with them?"

I shifted in my chair. "You want me to drop everything to come and get three prostitutes? Even though they've probably just had a fight with their pimp and run off? You want me to find them a place to stay, knowing their pimp wants his property back? That he's probably right behind them!"

"I'm in a tight spot, Iana." He let out a deep sigh. "I promised them protection if they testified against their pimp."

"And, I'm their protection?"

"We'll provide an apartment and police surveillance. Come on, Iana. I just need my brilliant, beautiful, blonde psychologist friend to come down here and offer me her expertise."

"Stop trying to manipulate me, Alex. You don't have what it takes."

"Ouch, Iana! Do that again! I feel such pleasure when you hurt me. OHHh," he moaned.

Sicko clown. Can't he ever be serious? "Alex, nu am prost!" (I'm not stupid.) My voice sped up like a record out of sync. "Remember the aid worker from England who took in a couple of prostitutes? Remember the headlines in The Bucharest!?: ENGLISH AID WORKER KEEPS WOMEN LOCKED IN APARTMENT IN EXCHANGE FOR SEXUAL FAVORS."

Although the allegations proved false, the newspaper never printed a retraction and the pimps beat him up.

I started to slam the phone down when I heard a man hollering in the background.

"Are you whores back in Romania because you already screwed all the men in Macedonia? Now you're back for real Romanian men, so you can infect us with your diseases?"

I kept listening. A high, thin voice pleaded, "No, no you don't understand."

The man interrupted. "I understand perfectly. The pimps gave you the right price. You went with them to Macedonia. End of story. All three of you are just another bunch of filthy, stinking, whores. Why did you come back? No one wants you here!"

Alex remained silent so I could hear what was going on.

Finally he said, "Iana, the yelling—that guy, he's my boss. As you can hear, he's an idiot. These are young prostitutes. He plans to put them back into the street where their pimp will retaliate."

I started to remind him that I just came to Romania from Australia on a one-year assignment and my year was almost over. I couldn't take on anything else.

"By the way, Iana, their pimp? He's one of the worst. The girls who escape him—the ones who cost him money to retrieve—they get his full attention. When he finds them, he beats them, knocks their teeth out, and scars their faces until they're not even fit for prostitution."

He waited a moment before continuing. "When they re-enter Romania, they don't have identification documents. You know our law. Without documentation, they don't exist. It's impossible to commit a crime against a person who doesn't exist."

Alex took a deep breath. "I've been working for two years to try to get this Bucu (the pimp) convicted. When we get close, he drags the witnesses over the border and shoots them." He paused, allowing what he just said to sink in.

Finally he went on. "I'm in charge of the investigation. Come here and take them before Mr. Dimwit kicks them out into the streets and Bucu comes for them."

"Alex, are you asking me to do this to help the prostitutes, or to protect your reputation as a vice cop?"

There was a moment of silence on his end. Finally he spoke.

"I don't know, Iana... Just come, okay?"

"Alex, all of this is sad. I feel bad for these women. I feel bad for you."

"Come on, Iana, I need a place for them to go tonight. We told them there would be protection."

My voice rose. "That's your problem."

I heard more shouting in the background. "Alex, are you asking me to do this to try to keep me in Romania? Because if you are, I'm sure there is a law against it somewhere and I'll find it." Alex had continually tried to strike up a relationship with me. Although I was born in Romania, I'd spent the better part of the 1980s trying to escape. I'd lived the past ten years in Australia, making a life for my young son and myself.

Things had gone well there, until a tragedy had struck so deep that I felt ruined. As a psychologist, I often encouraged others in similar situations not to wallow in self-pity, but to reach out beyond themselves. In an attempt to follow my own advice, I had accepted the invitation of an acquaintance to come back to Romania and work with street children. My decision came easier in knowing my young son would get to know his grandmother and see where I grew up. Even so, I had no intentions of remaining permanently in the place I'd put so much effort into escaping.

There was no denying that Alex's bulging biceps and crooked smile made me look twice (okay, three times maybe) and that these could have gone a long way in persuading me. Except, I didn't want a relationship with a man in Romania. That would only sabotage my plan to return to Australia. Alex was out of the question and I let him know it. In a few months, I'd be gone.

I didn't need to get involved in something as nasty as prostitution either. Trying to solve these kinds of problems could suck the life out of me and hold me hostage in Romania forever.

"Bye, Alex. Thanks for thinking of me." Again, I started to hang up but I heard the shouting in the background. "You are all just a bunch of whores. I'll get my guys and we'll pay you a visit."

I sucked in my breath and held it for a long moment. "I'll be there in an hour."

"That's great, Iana! I'll marry you on the courthouse steps tomorrow. You want that too, don't you, Iana?" I hung up on him. Sicko Clown! Every time he calls, I have to ignore half of what he says to find out what he wants.

My stomach tightened and my breath quickened. The conversation had taken me back to what I'd spent years trying to forget. Ignoring it proved impossible. I knew I needed to get moving to pull some things together if I were to be at the police station in an hour. Instead, I sat and rubbed my temples.

* * *

It was 1978 and I was seventeen. Huge flakes of snow settled on our shoulders as my father and I showed up at the Romanian Embassy. He was Serbian. For him to leave would have been possible, but for my mother and me, things were different. Travel outside the country was either extremely limited or prohibited, depending on who you were and who you knew.

My father and I planned to pretend that he and I were going on a holiday so I could meet my grandparents. We would send for my mother once we gained political asylum. As we approached the embassy gates, the guards poked at each other with their elbows and nodded in my direction.

"Hey, you with the blue scarf. Come over here." As I moved forward, my father stepped in right behind me. "No, you wait over there." The guard pointed to my father and then indicated a place a few paces away.

The tall one approached me. He stood very close, his face in my face. "Turn around." When I hesitated, he pushed my shoulder with the butt of his gun. "I said turn!"

I did as I was told. He stepped back slightly.

"Do you want to leave here because you've screwed all the men in Romania? Now you want foreign men to satisfy you?" A hard chiseled face outlined his squinted eyes and jutted chin. He leaned way in toward me. I stepped back to avoid him. He moved in closer.

"I know girls like you. They just can't get enough... And your father over there, he goes along with it. He goes along with it because he's been with all the women in Romania. You two make quite the pair."

I started to protest. He held his hand up in front of my face. "I'll do the talking here."

"Come over, guys. All of you." At this, five other guards came to his side. Their eyes were slightly glazed over, like wild animals ready to bite into fresh meat. A couple of them breathed so hard they had to catch their breaths.

"We're going to pay you and your mother a visit. If the daughter is this good looking, the mother must be a real piece. She'll be stretched out enough from birthing you to accommodate our huge Romanian manhood. Soon, you will be too."

* * *

The verbal cruelty of Alex's boss churned a familiar anger in me. Somewhere, somehow, it had to stop. I began to gather clothes and food.

Armed with a basket of pants, shirts, a few sandwiches, and my big mouth, I headed out the door and into the hallway. When the elevator button brought no response, I caught the tipping basket up under my arm and trudged down the five flights of stairs and walked to the police station. The accusations hurled at me so long ago spun furiously with the words of Alex's boss. My stomach tightened until vomit rose in my throat.

What gives them the right to intimidate people like this? Yes, many women agree to leave the country. Some seek relief from days without food, and from seeing a parent or grandparent suffer with untreated diseases that costly medication could cure but they can't afford. Others longed to escape an abusive alcoholic spouse or a parent. For most, selling their bodies wasn't the motive.

I understood them. When my father and I had tried to leave, we wanted to escape from winters with little or no heat. We left to escape scavenger hunts for food and the overnight lines for milk followed by early morning work schedules. We longed to escape the secret police that stood outside on the street watching people's comings and goings. Our desire for a better life proved strong enough to leave family and friends to seek one out.

These women also hoped for a better life. For this, they were being treated like dogs. The injustice of it nearly strangled me. I arrived at the police station like a coiled snake ready to strike.

"Where are they?" I demanded before the door closed behind me.

The officer at the desk shrugged his shoulders and picked at his fingernail before answering, "The whores are in there." Without looking up, he pointed down the hall and to the right. When he made no move, I grabbed the keys hanging off his desk and stormed down the hall by myself.

I opened the cell but couldn't see anything in the windowless room. I fumbled for the light switch. A bare bulb hung by a wire revealed the room. Is this room empty except for a table and chairs? When my eyes adjusted I saw a blanket-covered mat on the floor in the far right corner. The blanket concealed three little mounds. One by one, each of the mounds stretched out.

They were girls! What are they doing here? Why are they dressed in short skirts and tiny tube tops? This has to be the wrong room.

"Where are the prostitutes?" I yelled down the hall.

The officer got up and walked toward me. "That's them on the mat."

"Doamne Fereste! (God Forbid) Who did this to them?" Although their hair was matted and their faces smeared with makeup, it was their bruises that horrified me. One girl's eye was swollen nearly shut. Another girl had a big bruise on her left arm. The last one tugged at her short skirt, but not before I saw the line of raw cigarette burns on her upper thigh. Her bare shoulder was black and blue.

I sucked in my breath. "These are children." The police officer watched me take in this scene. "Why didn't someone tell me?" I shook my head and stepped around the officer.

"Where are you going, Iana? Aren't you going to take these whores off our hands?"

"Stupid police," I muttered and stomped down to the office of the Director of Social Services. The receptionist sat at her desk, placed to block his office door. It was meant to keep people like me out. "Iana, you can't go in there. He's on the phone." I ignored her and entered anyway. "How can you call these girls prostitutes? They're children. They're victims."

Silviu Sabau (Director of Social Services) pointed to the telephone in his hand as if that were supposed to send me away. Instead, I planted myself on a chair. Mr. Stubble Face can call his brilliant police officers to come and get me if that's what he wants. He won't look good if my friend at the newspaper writes about it. I might need to remind him of this.

He glared at me, and after a moment said into the telephone, "I'll have to call you back. There's a disturbance in my office." He put the receiver down and picked up his pipe.

Silviu sighed heavily. "What is it now, Iana? With you around, there's a crisis every day. How is it you end up getting involved in things that aren't any of your business?"

I refrained from reminding him that the police called me.

"Silviu, there are babies in your holding room down the hall."

“Iana, you and I both know those aren't babies. They've spent two years prostituting themselves with the Macedonians and the Turks. They stopped being babies when they became whores." Silviu banged his pipe on the side of the garbage can.

I gritted my teeth and let out a loud huff, ignoring all the "build a bridge" training I'd learned. "They're minors!" I shouted. "They should come under the protection of Social Services. Keep them in the orphanage while I get their paperwork sorted out." He's so stubborn;he wouldn't know what to do with a bridge anyway.

Silviu shook his head hard enough to screw it off his neck. "I can't do it, Iana."

I folded my arms across my chest. "Then what's to keep their pimps from hurting them? Without documents they don't exist. Nothing done against them can be prosecuted. If they disappear, all the better. The pimps won't have anyone to testify against them."

He looked away. I continued. "Give me a week to get some ID documents for them. Let them stay at the orphanage until then. That way, there'll be an official record of these girls."

Silviu's face turned red and his voice rose to a decibel level that matched my own. "I said no, Iana. I'm the Director of Social Services— not a magician. The orphanage director refused them. She said they would be a bad influence on the other children. You take them or they'll be on the street for sure."

A vein on his thin neck throbbed. He picked up a pile of papers and sorted through them as if I wasn't there. I leaned in closer over his desk, until my face was close to his face. He put the papers down.

For a moment we stared at each other. Then, forcing a calm I didn't feel, I made my appeal. "Silviu, I want you to come and look at these girls. At least hear what they have to say."

He sighed again. "Iana, I have no interest in those girls. But, to get you out of my office, I'll go with you."

He picked up his pipe, lit it and inhaled deeply. Then he blew smoke in my direction. I lit a cigarette and we sat there for a while, blowing smoke at each other.

Finally, he followed me down the hall.

The girls were sitting on the mat. I motioned for them to come and sit in chairs. "Hello, I'm Iana, a social worker. This is Mr. Sabau, Director of Social Services. Can you tell us why you are here?"

Louisa, the girl with the cigarette burns on her upper thighs, didn't bother to pull her skirt down as she sat on the chair across the table from us. "We're prostitutes. We came back from Macedonia, and now we want to stay in Romania again."

"I know you're prostitutes. I know you came from Macedonia. How did you get to Macedonia? Who took you there? How did you get back?" Silviu asked.

"That's a lot of questions." Louisa looked over at me. She didn't smile. "First of all, we hitched a ride to Macedonia. No one took us there. Second, we came back because we wanted to be back in Romania. We got back the same way we left."

Silviu and I looked at each other. "So Iana, I guess this is just a waste of time. They're self-admitted prostitutes who don't fit anywhere. They don't belong in the orphanage. They won't tell us where they came from, so we can't send them home. If we put them in the streets, their trafficker will come after them."

He paced the floor while he talked. "As long as these girls are alive, no one wants to care for them. Yet, the minute there is a dead body, suddenly their existence is recognized and all kinds of public interest arise. Pressure mounts within the European community for us to do something about the girls coming out of here.”

"It's a damned deal. People want to know that the streets are safe for them. Dead bodies anywhere are offensive. When it's found that the pimps and the girls are from Romania, we're directed to stop the flow. As long as no one is dead, everyone's supposed to look the other way and get on with our lives. These prostitutes..."

I held up my hand, "Did you mean, 'these victims'?"

He ignored me. "Anyway, they need to be responsible for themselves and live decently." He shook his head. "They should have cared for themselves better than to get involved with the pimps. They didn't."

Silviu leaned in toward the girls. "If you tell us who you left Romania with we can possibly do something to see to it that you don't go to jail or back to the street."

Louisa leaned her head back and laughed out loud. "Right, you'll just run right out and put him in prison, and we won't have to worry that we'll be found in Macedonia somewhere, hanging upside down from a tree, or in a ditch with our throats slit."

Her laugh was horrible and hollow, unlike any I'd ever heard come from a fourteen-year-old. "Like I believe that!" She spat on the floor and shook her head. She paused for a moment. "Send us to the orphanage and be done with it, okay?"