Not for sale

The livestock market

The girls started off across the border in a sprint. The elegant man had not mentioned how hard it would be to cross the terrain. Unable to see their own feet, they repeatedly tripped over sharp rocks and brambles armed with pointy thorns. By the time they reached the ridge, most of the girls had lost at least one shoe. All had deep cuts and bruises up and down their legs. Nonetheless, they managed to track the flashing lights and reached the destination with their entire band intact.

Now safely in Serbia, they piled into three cars and wove their way through a seemingly endless succession of mountain passes. They finally came to a remote stone house that seemed to be planted in the middle of a forest.

Upon entering the house, the girls once again merged with more trafficked victims. A dozen girls, also battered and bloodied, sat on the floor in the entry foyer, leaning their exhausted bodies against the walls.

The woman in charge—who appeared to be in her early thirties and blessed with gorgeous blonde locks—spoke in flawless Russian to the assembly gathered in the foyer. She seemed genuinely concerned with their condition and instructed her staff to bring hot, wet towels so that the girls could clean their cuts.

The Russian woman then divided the girls into groups of five or six and assigned them to an upstairs bedroom. As it was now well past midnight, she urged the girls to get some sleep. “You need your rest because you have a big day tomorrow,” she remarked cryptically.

The depleted girls slept to nearly noon the next day. Caretakers woke them up with loaves of bread, butter and jam, and steeping hot tea. It had been a couple of days since they had eaten a scrap of food, so Nadia and her roommates devoured the bread.

After their meal, the girls lay back down on their mattresses and shared details of their escapades. The Romanian girl with the deep blue eyes, whom Nadia had met at their last stop, was a roommate. Two girls told of their journey together from the Ukraine, and the fifth girl told of her trek from Bulgaria. Like Nadia, they had all been promised jobs in Italy.

The woman with the golden locks opened the door and interrupted their peaceful interlude. “OK, girls, I need you to perform well for me,” she sang out. “Downstairs in the parlor an important group of men is waiting to evaluate you. We’ll go down together as a team, and before we enter you will take off your shirts.”

At first Nadia thought she must have misunderstood her Russian hostess. “Sorry, but what do you want us to do?” she asked, trying her best to stay calm.

“Undress to your waist, with your breasts bare,” the woman said as casually as if she had asked them to kick off their shoes and walk in with bare feet.

“You must be joking!” Nadia said incredulously.

“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to you,” the woman said in an effort to reassure her. “It’s just a check. Your employers in Italy have sent these men to ensure that you are healthy.”

Noting their puzzled expression, she added, “Sometimes recruiters beat their cargo, and the girls are unable to work. We just need to prove to them that you are in good shape.”

Despite her misgivings, Nadia went along with the pageant. Her group descended the stairs and halted at the double doors leading into the parlor. They then shed their shirts while the Russian woman clucked, “Alright, alright, that’s it, that’s it. We’re ready. Let’s go.”

Passing through the doors, the girls spotted a dozen or so men seated in a circle around the four walls. The Russian woman asked the girls to stand apart from the pack one at a time, announce their names, and rotate slowly in a full circle. The men eyed them carefully as if they were examining livestock at the county fair.

Once this humiliating exercise ended, the girls returned up-stairs to their bedrooms, and rested. Within the hour, the Russian woman swept into the room and called out Nadia’s name and that of the blue-eyed Romanian. “You two will be leaving with your courier in five minutes,” she stated curtly.

The two girls hurriedly arranged their bags, wished their roommates good luck, and scampered downstairs. A slight-framed man with black, greasy hair awaited them at the foot of the stairs.

“You work for me,” the man said in halting Russian. “You go with me now.”

He led them out the front door to where a car stood idling. He directed the girls to the backseat and addressed the driver in a language that Nadia guessed must be Serbian.

They drove in silence for a couple of hours until they reached Belgrade. Their “courier” delivered them to an apartment located in a residential district. “You wait me here,” he instructed them in his broken Russian. “I be back in few minutes.”

Half an hour later, the girls heard the apartment door open. It was the courier, accompanied by two portly men, both of whom sported soiled brown leather jackets. The men eyed the girls lustily as they spoke to each other in a thick Serbian dialect. Once they appeared to reach an agreement of some sort, the courier grunted, “OK, you work now.”

“What do you mean?” asked a befuddled Nadia.

“You cost me much money,” he replied angrily. “You give good sex to these men.”

Both girls took several steps backward, and Nadia spoke strongly: “No way! You have the wrong idea about us!” Desperately searching for a way out of this mess, she offered an alternative. “We will work very hard for you in a restaurant, but we cannot do this kind of work.”

The Serbian man had no patience for negotiation. He reached inside the right side of his jacket and pulled out a flat instrument. Nadia could not make out what he was holding until she saw the blade flick out from its shell. He deftly grabbed her by the hair and pressed the blade against her throat.

“You show men good time, or I cut throat,” he threatened.

Shaking with fear, the girls went into separate bedrooms, where the portly men raped them.

Over the next month, this script was played out countless times. Four simple words—“You go work now”—transported Nadia into a living hell.