Russian investigators recently arrested members of an international human trafficking gang that preyed on young women, luring hundreds of them into prostitution in Western Europe and Asia with promises of lucrative work abroad.
Police in the far east of Russia announced that three people had been charged with human trafficking as part of a gang made up of Russian and Greek citizens, following an investigation by Greek police.
ENTRAPPED
Investigator Yulia Volkova from the far eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a defense industry hub on the Amur River, related in detail the stories of some of the women entrapped into sex slavery, giving only their first names.
In December 2009, Darya, a 22-year-old student, and her friend Nina, both single mothers, decided to call an employment agency in the city that offered work abroad after seeing an ad on local television.
“We are looking for young women aged 18 to 30 to work abroad,” the ad said.
A recruiter, a seemingly pleasant woman in her 30s, invited them to her apartment and reassured them that they would not be forced to work in the sex industry, or intim as the sphere is slangily termed in Russian.
The women were assured that they could earn 1,500 euros (US$1,950) per month working as waitresses in a cafe in Israel or Cyprus, 10 times the average salary in their economically depressed region, she promised.
Both decided to accept the offer and to leave their children behind with their parents.
‘JOB’
In January last year, Darya and Nina landed in Athens, traveling on tourist visas arranged by the agency, which said that this would simplify the process.
They discovered almost immediately that their new “job” was prostitution and that in order to be released from their “debt” they would have to pay the traffickers 10,000 euros each.
After a few months, Nina managed to jump off a first-floor balcony and went straight to the Russian Consulate, which sent her home.
Meanwhile, Darya was locked in a cellar and beaten by her Greek and Albanian-speaking minders, who wanted to know where Nina had gone.
Finally, she managed to call a friend in Russia, who immediately contacted the police. During a Greek police operation, Darya was freed and arrived back in Russia last month.
Tatyana, 20, arrived in Cyprus a few months later after applying to work as a waitress. She found herself forced into prostitution, servicing up to 50 clients a day, until a Turkish-speaking colleague managed to alert police.
Another woman, Lena, was sent to work in a brothel in South Korea. She managed to escape, leaving a soft toy under the blankets of her bed to temporarily confuse her keepers.
The Russian probe was initiated after Greek police announced early last month that they had arrested 177 members of an international human trafficking ring. That investigation indicated that the ring drew most of its sex workers from Russia and other Eastern European countries.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Russian investigators seized hundreds of photographs of young women while searching the homes of the agency’s two recruiters last month, Volkova said.
To date, about 50 victims have agreed to testify. Some of the other women are still abroad, but the majority of those tracked down have so far refused to give witness statements, Volkova said.
Two of the recruiters were detained in Khabarovsk, a city close to the Chinese border to the south of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, said Ilya Gudkov, a spokesman for the local Investigative Committee of the State Prosecutor’s Office.
In Amursk, 300km to the north of Khabarovsk, prosecutors have opened an inquiry into another recruitment agency that is believed to send its victims to Greece, Japan and China.
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