A four-year-old boy opens the door, running back quickly to his mother when he sees me. Several young girls are sitting on a sofa and the armchairs in the room. Some are very pretty, very young and each has her own story that could easily be turned into a novel. These girls have all found shelter here. Each girl has her own nice and colourful room, with bedspreads and curtains made by the girls themselves. This place provides them with a home, heat, food, and social workers who offer advice and make them feel that they are not abandoned.
In the friendly privacy of the small apartment, will you hear powerful confessions. One story is that of a teenage girl, lacking experience and forced to raise her child on her own. The other girl sits before me, seeming less communicative when we met in the living-room. She is pretty, very sensitive, has a tremble in her voice, and her eyes are sad. She stares at some point and begins to talk. She had never opened her heart before. She is in fact the oldest in the group, only 16, as she announces with a sorrowful voice. She has had a “veritable career”.
“My story is a simple one she said”. I got pregnant and was on my own. I have a child. Shortly after giving birth, a friend took care of the baby, and I got a job. I found a place to live, but the rent made my financial situation very difficult. I was unable to cope at that point.
I met some friends who suggested to me to try to go abroad. I was thinking that I would have a job and something I can do for sometime to raise funds for my baby as well as make ends meet.
I never imagined that I would have been able to join my friends in this trip to settle my dreams. I was introduced an unfamiliar lady called Madam Italy. She promised us of sending us along to Italy to continue our education on scholarship schemes. Then the time came were I had to take the painful decision of leaving my baby behind to fulfil this trip with Madam Italy.
I finally got to Italy leaving my child behind with the same friend who helped me before I left. My choice to leave was a painful one, but even with a job here, I was living in a basement which was once a laundry room with no facilities.
Happy as we were, the feeling of hunger was satisfied with our whole experience on the plane. Days, weeks, Months passed by and our promise of getting an education never came to past. Scared as we were, no one could gather the courage of enquiring from Madam Italy who we saw coming in at dawn with fascinating and nude clothing’s we had never seen before.
Never did I imagine I would have to be a prostitute as I said to myself in a single breath, as if I wanted to relieve the burden from my heart. Dejected and feeling of taking the wrong decision left me useless as we threatened not exceed the gates of our rooms.
I could recount the noises at midnight were my fellow girls were singled out their rooms to meet visitors. You could hear the painful sounds of girls who had to endure the pain of loosing their virginity. Some screamed at top of their voices calling the names of their friends and Madam Italy. These sounds went on at break of sound of bells ringing from the parish.
I could also recall the tensions and tears of little girls who had gone through this pain and were given pain killers to relieve them of the pain.
Turns were made each day from the various rooms till it got our room. Huge and well built men came around to make choices. They touched our breasts several times and as to open up our legs. Anyone who refused was punished and locked in a tiny box for 45 minutes. As experienced as I was among the girls, because I had endured the pains of child birth before. I managed to endure with them as it was no news to me since I knew more about sex and I had my baby at the age of 17.
This practised went on for sometime as some got used to the idea others were beaten to death by clients and even their pimps. I submitted to working with them because I had hope of amounting wealth to raise my baby.
I was locked in a room, because this profession was not tolerated in Italy. I cried all day, and the girls in the room felt sorry for me. They collected 200 euro which they gave me after serving a client.
Hell broke loose when the police came and searched the house; they found out our hiding place and we arrested. We were sent to a juvenile prison in the outskirts of Italy. Here also I had to endure painful and difficult times in the cell as the night guards came in turns to consistently have sex with me since I looked more matured.
They devoured me as every night passed by in the cell. I finally could no take the pain anymore as fell serious ill. I sent to the authorities to examine me for an escort to accompany me to the hospital to run some tests.
I saw this as an opportunity in disguise as I lured the escort into having sex with me. Imprudently as he was, he could not resist my pranks and fell into my trap as I escaped for my dear life.
Yes, I am mad at myself for having allowed myself to be fooled by all kinds of promises and lies. Now I try being calm, and I tell myself that, I did what I did because I was desperate.
When I look around sitting I realize am mature, as the other girls were under 20 and I should have been more sensitive. I shouldn’t have let myself be fooled by all these promises made by strangers.
But people see only what is on the surface. They start talking to you, treating you like a rotten apple and they have no idea of what actually happened. But I still think I’m courageous, because I managed to get out of there.
It still makes me mad that I let myself be fooled. No one comes to you for generosity’s sake and says ‘I want to give you this’. Nobody offers you something for free.’
Virtually every sentence was left hanging. Each was uttered with pain, but also with a kind of relief. It is a bit like when you are a child, when you are feeling embarrassed and ashamed about something you have done and you are waiting to be punished. As soon as you realize what the punishment will be, you feel better.
Now “am afraid of the future” Yes, I am. This is because I know what it is like to pay rent for many years and my child was only one year old and I thought maybe I could put him in a good school so he would at least have something to eat and focus on achieving a dream for himself.
Suddenly for me as a miracle came from above under the tree were I was sleeping a Catholic mother picked me and adopted me to live with her in Australia. But I still recall and will for ever keep these words in my thoughts of the Catholic mother said to me.
“She is a child in search of her lost childhood. One cannot help asking how someone could do such a thing to a child. Could it be indifference? Could it be a lack of education, poverty and toughness that leads one to kill the innocence of a child? I cannot find an answer to this question, but together we might find a way to fulfil our destiny and our faith in Christ”.
Today is a new beginning and era for you. Tomorrow could also be a rising sunset for a child in the dark somewhere. My wish is that I would be able to get the education I you dearly wanted and you should fight as an ambassador for victims of child trafficking in the future.
Wonder how the colour black can turn into a rainbow. Who can work such miracles and how? You may well wonder.
