Support victims of human trafficking in Serbia

 ASTRA’s client left our SOS telephone number to her friend who was exploited with her, and who helped her to run away. She told us that her friend needed help because she was living in very bad conditions. Soon after that, her friend contacted us. She is a single mother of three children, which traffickers used in their advance to lure her in the trafficking chain. They played on her hope to be able to provide a better life for her children. But she couldn’t predict a hell that was coming.

She and her children were most of the time hungry, because she couldn’t find a job for a very long time. After a while she finally found a job in a factory where her mother was already working. But that was not a good decision. She and her mother were in bad relations. Additionally, she experience mobbing on the job place. She tried to put up with it for a while, until she eventually left the job. The day when she quit her job, she sat in a nearby cafe trying to put herself together and to decide what to do next. While she was sitting there, an unknown man came to her and made her a promise of a better life. He offered a well paid job in casino in another country.

She accepted the job offer enthusiastically because she saw it as a way out of her current situation. When she came to destination country, they took her passport and other documents, and instead of job in a casino she received instructions how to behave and what her job really was. It was then when she realized that she got into a trouble. Since that moment, she was constantly trying to figure out how to get away. In the hardest moments she fantasized about seeing her children again, and that was her biggest motivation to run away as soon as possible.

While we were talking, she told us “I still cannot believe how strong I was back then, and how my children gave me strength to survive.” She managed to run away and save few more exploited girls.

Her friend told her about ASTRA and she contacted SOS hotline. After her telephone call, ASTRA’s consultants went on field action to meet her in person. This lovely young girl was too shy to ask for anything. ASTRA consultants wanted to do something nice for children because they live in poor conditions, so they bought them books for school and notebooks, so that they could be just like other children. Children were very happy and grateful for their gifts, and they were constantly showing their mother what they got. Since our client hasn’t finished secondary school and was very interested to continue her education ASTRA made it possible.

She is a strong woman. She continues to struggle and not to give up. The other day when we spoke to her she told us: “Every day is difficult for itself, but freedom and love for my children give me strength to fight. How do you feel knowing that you made a life better for someone, that you brought back a joy to someone’s life? You proved me that I am not alone. Thank you for that”.

Links:

• SOS Annual Report 2016.

A young woman contacted ASTRA for help. She was in a big problem and she needed someone to help her. She started talking, while tears were running down her face.

She told us her story, a story that seemed like it was from some fiction or a book. She was exploited for couple of years, and the only thing that kept her going was her son and her wish to see him again. "I can hardly believe myself how many things we can all endure". She was far away from her son, locked and tortured, her life depended on someone else, but her memories kept he going. She new that one day she would see him again. It all seemed like a bad dream that would end one day. And it did...

One day, she met a man who helped her escape and return to her family. She found ASTRA's phone number on the internet and she called. She was still afraid for her life, for her son's life, for everything that was coming her way, but she new that she couldn't be able to fight alone. She had a problem trusting people, even ASTRA and the police. She was informed about her rights, and what we can do to help her. At first she hesitated. After the first meeting she said she would think about it and that she would call again. We did not want to pressure her, because we knew what kind of trauma she suffered and that her trust in other people was violated. We knew she needed some time to think and reflect. After a month, she called again...

She said she needed someone to share with her fears and nightmares that have been torturing her. And that's how it all started. She was provided with medical and psychological assistance and other relevant institutions got involved to help in her protection.

She is coming to ASTRA on regular basis now, because she finds a peace and comfort here. Her life is stabilizing bit by bit and one day she will be able to continue where she left off, and a smile in her face will replace tearful eyes.  

ASTRA runs a Day Center for children from Residential institutions, where we organize different workshops for them. A 14 year old girl came to one of the workshops that we organized, it was her first time here. When we spoke with children about the work we do and human trafficking issue and how to protect themselves, she rose a hand and in front of everyone said: “ I am a victim of human trafficking”.

Fearing how other children could react, we invited her to talk in private about her experience. She said she was in a residential institutions for several months now and that she does not have anyone to talk to, and that she feels that no one understands her, that everyone are rejecting her.

Then she told us her story; how she met a boy on Facebook, who was much older than she was, how he promised to help her, but then she was faced with a cruel reality.  All he ever wanted was to use her, he abused her, beat her, forced her to do hard work. She found out he was planning to sell her in Austria. Luckily, she managed to escape.

We spoke to her for a long time, and explained her that she was not alone, that we are there to help her. She started coming to Day Center regularly, participating in various workshops and after that we were helping her to improve her reading and writing skills, we helped her studying in order to improve her grades in school. Her education was something that has been neglected for a long time, since no one ever paid attention to that, nor did they tried to help her learn. We worked hard with her and our biggest motivation was in the fact that we saw the improvement very fast.

The biggest gift we could receive was a New Year’s card she gave us where she said how lucky she was for having us, and how grateful she was. Some sentences are still echoing in all of us, giving us motivation to persevere with our work: “You saved a girl’s life and you gave her a chance to realize her dreams. I often tell myself: “You are not alone, you have ASTRA”. I hope I will be able to repay you for all that you have done for me. Thank you endlessly!”

ASTRA-Anti Human Trafficking Action is an organization that arose from the need to provide assistance and support to victims of various forms of exploitation, which at the time when the organization was established were not identified, nor by the system, nor by the society. Human trafficking, a phenomenon almost as old as society, but in Serbia legally recognized only in 2003. A few years before the introduction of the crime of human trafficking, it starts our struggle which is not slowing down for fifteen years. The only thing we never lacked during all these years is the desire and energy to help the victims, to enable them to recover into society after a traumatic experience and the return of faith in a better tomorrow. Like every social problem, and human trafficking, and addressing this problem requires a comprehensive coordinated work of all relevant actors in society, how to eliminate the consequences and to provide all necessary forms of assistance to victims, and prevention of problems and creating a social climate in which human trafficking is not happening.

Failures are parts of life and we eventually learn how to deal with the failures and most importantly, to learn from them and to stand up even stronger. We provided help and support for over 480 victims of human trafficking. Different life stories, different circumstances, diverse characters of individuals, but one thing is the same, the trauma that has survived. Each victim is our loss, the decline of society and the state that failed to provide them with the basic requirements for a decent life, but also our failure, because we are part of the society that we are trying to correct. We provide all kinds of assistance to victims of human trafficking including legal, psychological, medical, alternative accommodation, food, clothes and shoes, etc. Material things is not difficult to obtain, but the battle for finding continuous funding is more difficult, but it is important not to give up. However, trafficking is a betrayal of all that is good and decent in human relations. The trafficker deprive the victim of her humanity that is very hard to catch up after one of the caused damage. However, our biggest falls are seen in situations where clients from a variety of reasons return to her/his trafficker, which means that it is not fully empowered to move forward, to continue their lives in freedom.

Our biggest loss was when at the end of a strenuous struggle, which lasted 10 years, and the trafficker won. In fact, one night we had a call from a police officer from the nearby municipality. The girl was detained with big black eyes, who was shaking with pain and fear. She was detained because of the possession of narcotics, but they realize that there are elements of human trafficking. She was forced to sex work, and forced to drug use. They beat her every time she did not want to do what they asked for her clients. She tried to escape, but did not prosper. We gave her first direct assistance, but after that we tried to reintegrate her into society. That night, when she had nowhere to go, we put her in our office. She was terrified. We told her she was secured. She cried in the silence. As the night wore on, she began the story admitting that she was sold by her boyfriend and that she was abused by him and his friends, and other men. We tried to help her and to provide her accomodation and better life, but we did not succeed. She reurneed to his boyfriend who countinued to force her to sex work. Again her hell started. All the same, there is no change.

Experience teaches victims of human trafficking harsh lessons about the inherent cruelty of other human beings. "My wounds are inside, you have not seen," say the women who survived human trafficking chain. Us, as assistance providers, this definitely strengthens the desire to heal these wounds. Sometimes we succeed, but sometimes not. Failures are there, but we're not giving up in the fight for victims and in fight to bring the smile back on their face and the will to live. The hardest part in this constant struggle, is to reintegrate them into the system, without additional re-traumatization. The system only recognizes the problems that are visible. Our intention is to provide support to these people and to jointly fight to regain their rights, in order not to become victims again.

Many times we wonder why we do it, it is exhausting, difficult, and we hear terrible life stories that have to leave the consequences for ourselves-members of the organization. But there is only one because. Because we need them. They need a place where they feel safe, loved, protected and understood. We may be regarded as the black sheep of the degraded society, but we will continue to work on our mission. Dr. Michael Korzinski says that the victims are members of society whose problems represent memories of suffering, violence and pain in the world that society tends to forget. We do not want to forget, we want to make up for the suffering, and despite all the obstacles they are into, continue in their attempts to prevent this problem, and protect the victims who survived the experience of human trafficking.

One night, while our client, young mother of a 5 year old child, was putting her daughter to sleep, someone throw a large stone on her window,  that flown right next to her child. She looked through the dark and saw faces of trafficker and his collaborator, from whom she escaped few days ago. They found her family house and decided to take revenge and scare her in order for her to return to work for him. They broke the door of her house, went straight in, yelling at her and threatening to kill her whole family. Luckily, they just wanted to scare her that time so they left threatening that they will return.

Terrified for their lives, she run to local police station, but police officer who spoke to her did not recognize seriousness of the situation, he made fun of her, telling that she has to find help somewhere else, because such thing as human trafficking does not happen in their town.

She tried to find help on the other place, so she looked on the Internet. Luckily, she found ASTRA Hotline number and called us saying: "Please do something! I have no one else except you".

ASTRA consultants contacted relevant institutions in order to protect and assist this young woman.

Soon after, they went all together to the police once again, but this time to the chief of the police to file a complaint. He reacted fast because he realized that the police made a mistake the first time. They started investigation and our client received necessary protection for her and her family.

After that, still under impression of everything that happened she told us:

 “I have to admit something... I was so desperate, in one point I was thinking to return to him or to kill myself just to save my innocent daughter. She doesn’t have to suffer... But you saved me! Thank you, thank you. You are not aware of what you have done for me. Now, I finally gained some strength to keep on going and to fight against trafficker. I couldn’t have done that without you. You saved me, I will never forget that”.

People, who are not familiar with the issue of human trafficking, are often prone to bias and stereotypes, which brings even more harm to trafficking victims. After victims leave the trafficking chain they are often discriminated by very same persons that are supposed to help them and protect them which expose them to secondary victimization and makes their recovery even harder. Because of that, it is important that they have someone who will be there for them and who will give them support when they need it the most, listening them with open mind, without judging them, but understanding the difficulty of the situation victims of human trafficking can be.

Links:

• http://www.astra.rs/?lang=en