For nine years and I am twenty-seven. I am Romanian from Grozavesti. Some districts have no electricity or streets. Some houses have no bathroom. There are sheds outdoors in the fields to do it in. It was to let you know the area. We are at Craiova, in the south. I remember the first one who told me to get into his car, my first client. He was angry because I wanted to keep my jumper on. I was cold. I remember all those cars stopping. I learned to memorise the licence plates.
I noted the difficult ones on my mobile. They told us to do that because if anything nasty happens, they look for the man and get him. At first, I cried. Some of the girls stand in the rain with no umbrella, hoping to catch cold. But they send you out even if you have a temperature, or your period. They always send you out. One time at Christmas, they gave me a Santa hat. I never ran away because this is what I do.
One of our bosses likes me. I play games for him and he gives me spending money to go to the shops. People in my village? Sure they know about it. Everybody knows. How could they not know? Yet some women manage to get away, or at least try to. Out of thirty or so Romanian women aged from thirteen to thirty and liberated by police three weeks ago when they arrested sixteen Romanian, three Albanian and two Italian pimps, only one is still free.
The others have all disappeared to seek new protectors, refusing to collaborate with police and turning down offers of assistance. None sought shelter with a parish or an anti-trafficking association. Only one woman broke free. She is twenty-four and has now set out on the difficult path that could or should get her into a sheltered community.
But it might not happen. Tenacious deputy police superintendent Angelo De Simone led the investigation that discovered women being held prisoner, gang rape victims and prostitutes forced back on the street immediately after aborting or beaten up, their faces bearing knife scars.
