Revealed: kept in a dungeon ready to be sold as slaves

Revealed: kept in a dungeon ready to be sold as slaves ... the women destined for Britain's sex trade Girls as young as 18 are held captive in underground bunkers in Macedonia before being bought by pimps in western Europe. David Harrison reports from Skopje
The Daily Telegraph (LONDON) - November 27, 2005 Sunday

By: David Harrison

HIDDEN BELOW a shelf in the corridor of a run-down motel, a sharp-eyed police officer spots what appears to be a trap-door.

When he and his colleagues go down the concrete steps, shining their torches into the dark, damp cellar, they are scarcely able to believe what they encounter.

Cowering against a crumbling wall are eight terrified young women. Strewn on the bare floor are stained mattresses, a pile of discarded clothes and a few empty boxes. There is no heating, no light. The women, aged 18 to 24, are from across eastern Europe, lured from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria, with promises of good jobs as waitresses, au pairs and dancers.

Instead, they have been forced into modern-day slavery in western Macedonia, locked in the dirty cellar and only summoned upstairs by their masters to perform sexual services for customers who are usually drunk and often violent.

When they were found, the victims, some of whom had been "broken in'' as prostitutes in other countries on the way to Macedonia, barely knew where they were. They had no idea what the future held but knew that it was beyond their control.

In reality, they were likely to be sold on and moved to Western countries, including Britain, where their ordeal would go on - only with customers paying higher prices to their pimps.

But this shocking discovery is not an isolated case: at least two other groups of women trafficked from eastern Europe were found in cellars - and another in a filthy attic - during recent late-night raids by police near the towns of Tetovo, Gostivar and Struga, in western Macedonia, close to the Albanian border. The area is populated mostly by ethnic Albanians and, along with Kosovo and Albania, forms Europe's biggest human-trafficking centre.

The Mafia-like gangs who run the trafficking network have links to violent criminals, almost 1,000 miles away in Britain, who have muscled, threatened and shot their way to near-total domination of London's prostitution rings, according to Scotland Yard.

Britain is attractive to the sex traffickers because immigration controls are seen as weak, and prices and demand for sexual services are high.

A Sunday Telegraph investigation into human trafficking has recently exposed how women can be bought in Romania, a prime "country of origin'' for trafficked women, and how many victims are beaten, raped and sold on to traffickers in countries including Britain, Greece, Italy, Germany and Spain. But the latest disturbing results of our investigations reveal that women are being held in these shocking and degrading conditions in Macedonia, a transit country for women who will mostly be moved on to the West.

They show that urgent action is needed to deal with a crime that has exploded since the collapse of the Soviet Union left many newly independent states in desperate poverty and their people easy prey for traffickers.

The Macedonian police raids were recorded on video and the Sunday Telegraph was given exclusive access to the footage.

The films, compilations of the various raids, make for harrowing viewing. In one clip, a group of dazed, frightened women is seen emerging from a cellar, stooping down to pass through a small, carefully disguised trapdoor at the top of the steps.

A spokesman for the national police said the women had spent hours on end locked in the cellar without seeing daylight, and were given just enough food to keep them sufficiently healthy to satisfy clients.

"The traffickers wanted to hide their slaves in case the motel was raided and the cellar was also used to punish girls who did not do exactly as they were told,'' the spokesman said.

Other clips show the cellars and the attic where the girls were kept. One reveals a dark, concrete corridor leading to a room containing mattresses, boxes and clothes. Another shows a larger cellar used as a laundry area and storeroom for the bar where the girls "entertained'' customers.

Police officers can be seen milling around one of the bars next to a stage for pole dancers. The ceiling of another bar is riddled with holes from bullets fired by the traffickers and clients in alcohol-fuelled "celebrations''.

The footage also shows guns and cartridges found at a motel and the women's passports - confiscated to ensure that they could not escape.

The girls are filmed standing with their bags packed, preparing to be taken away by the police after being liberated from their subterranean prisons. Most have not had time to change and are still in "costume'', wearing short - or no - skirts and, in one case, bottomless trousers. One woman is wearing knee-length boots that do not match. Most of them come from poor families and, on film, they tell how they were deceived into leaving their homes. A Romanian, whose name has been withheld to protect her identity, says: "My situation at home was very difficult and there is no work in my area. I was offered work abroad by a man I had known for a long time and when he promised me a better life I believed him. But it was just a lie. He took me to Serbia and sold me and I ended up in Macedonia.''

Another woman was sold by a man who promised her a job in Germany as an au pair. "My hopes were crushed,'' she said.

Another Romanian victim, sold by a woman who promised her work in Italy, said: "I had heard stories about women being bought and sold like merchandise but I didn't believe them - and I never dreamt it would happen to me.''

Some of the traumatised women were taken to a shelter supported by the International Organisation for Migration, a Western charity, in the capital city Skopje, where they were given medical and psychological help and encouraged to testify against the traffickers. The police spokesman said. "It is hard to imagine what they have been through. It will take a long time for them to recover, if they ever do.''

Macedonian police say they are pleased with their success so far in cracking down on the sex-traffickers - but admit that they have "a long way to go and need international support''.

Helga Konrad, the head of anti-trafficking at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which works with 55 governments, described the treatment of the women as "a horrendous crime and human rights violation''. She urged governments to step up joint efforts to "break the whole criminal chain''.

The "cellar girls'' at least have a chance to recover. Many other women trapped in the bars and brothels - and increasingly private flats and houses - of western Macedonia, do not know if they will ever be free.

Posing as a businessman I gained access to a private club run by traffickers near the south-western city of Ohrid. The girls working there - from Ukraine, Moldova and Bulgaria - were imprisoned in the club and the adjoining hotel. Away from the eyes of her suspicious controllers, Svetlana, a 24-year-old trafficked by a "friend'' with a promise of waitress work, told nervously of her misery. A good day for her, she said, was "if I had a client who was not drunk, violent or crazy''.

Svetlana desperately missed her three-year-old daughter and her father, who had worked on the Chernobyl clean-up and was ill with cancer. As she was being led away - because our paid-for time with her was up - she said: "I just wish I could have a normal life.''