transcript: Italy, a country of romance, culture and history.
One of the most desirable destinations in the world for those lucky and wealthy enough
to call themselves tourists. But in the past few years Italy has also become the first
wealthy destination for those who trade in the darker side of desire.
We were sold and bought, sold and bought. Of course we were told in Albania that there
is no use for you to go to the police, because they will only sell you again. And in Albania
I was bought by the man who brought me here. There are laws that clearly prohibit slavery,
but in fact they are slaves, and there isn't anyone who'll tell you they're not. Because
really they live the life of a slave. As extraordinary as it sounds, these local
police, the Carribinierri, are fighting a losing battle against the 21st century's most
visible form of slavery. The vast majority of these foreign prostitutes
are not here willingly as economic migrants, they've been forced through fear of reprisal
to themselves or their families, to work the street. This is their nightmare world of Mafia,
pimps and fear. Come, come .. bring her here ... Calm down
... Calm down. I'm your friend. Come here. Do you speak English? Okay ... Okay ... Do
you understand Italian? We won't do anything to you. Don't be afraid.
The police know the details of this highly organised trade, but can do little more than
mop up the victims. The girls are recruited from many countries
in eastern Europe -- Bulgaria, Moldavia, Ukraine, Russia. And the girls are bought ---- literally
bought --in specific apartments in Podgorica - Montenegro and in other locations in Albania.
Then they come to Italy in inflatable boats or in other ways and they are introduced into
the prostitution rings, both on public roads or in nightclubs.
Hundreds of thousands of women are thought to have been forced to take that route in
the last few years. As a result prostitution is transforming the industrial wastelands
of western Europe. There are as many as seventy thousand on the streets of Italy alone. Most
have no documents, leaving them at the mercy of Albanian pimps.
He told me that if I run away or find an Italian boyfriend, he knows my address, he'd find
me in Moldova and kill my whole family, myself included.
Do you have any documents?No nothing, nothing.Where are you from?I am RussianCome here please
... come here... don't worry. Don't be afraid his is the human face of what is considered
to be the fastest growing and now by far the most profitable organised criminal activity
in the world. Each girl is said to be worth tens of thousand dollars a month for her owners.
In Italy, the police are not the only ones on the streets. Don Oreste Benzi is on personal
crusade against the sex slave trade. My name is Don Oreste Miriena: I am
Do you know me? No I am a priest. Are you from Albania?
Sit in the car... Yes. Sit in the car and I'll sit down next
to you. His weapon is naturally enough the Bible,
but he also offers one of the few real escape routes.
In the last ten years Don Oreste has helped nearly three thousand young break free from
the pimps. His network of foster families is the last hope for girls like nineteen year
old Natalia, a frightened new arrival after more than four years on the street.
Do you have a passport? No.
Okay, we'll arrange the documents for you. so they took all your documents?
I never had them never? No. You went form Bulgaria to Macedonia?
To Greece? To Greece. And how old were you?
I was fourteen and a half How long were you in Greece?
Almost two years. And they force you to workindoors, not in
the street. Yes you can't do it in the streets there.
And you ended up in Albania? Yes.
Don Oreste's church is the streets. During the day, the 75 year old priest raises money
pushing 200 kilometres an hour from one meeting of disciples to the next, hoping to spur the
state and galvanise the faithful. It's the fault of the police, it's the fault
of the caribinierri, it's the fault of all those Catholics who sleep rather than wake
up as one and put a stop to this whole thing. But there is one other Catholic who's heard
the call. Don Cesare Lodeserto is a frontline campaigner for illegal immigrants. His refugee
centre on the southern coast of Italy takes in anyone who washes up. Casa Regina Pacis
is just forty four nautical miles from Albania. We run serious risks because the Albanians
don't like interference from the people who want to save the girls. But we can't be afraid
of the Albanians or any criminal group if we want to respond to the desperate cries
for help from these poor women. Two years ago, Don Cesare built a special
separate annex for victims of the sex slave traders. But by helping them, he's created
a prison for himself. The threat of execution by the Albanian Mafia is now a daily reality.
I believe I am not a free man any more, but I sacrifice my freedom to set these women
free. The Albanians have a reputation for particular
cruelty. We shouldn't generalise but there is a marked difference between their way of
performing their criminal activities compared to our own criminals.
The last man who bought me told me that he once had a Romanian girl and he ran over her
with his car because she found herself an Italian boyfriend. He said that's what I'd
get too. Twenty one year old Anna Maiskaya was dumped
in the sea when the boat speeding her to Italy was intercepted. Anna is now an illegal immigrant,
but she thinks she's lucky. She's now working in the refugee centre laundry -- like all
the rest she was heading for the streets, working for her Albanian owner.
Either I would have killed him or he would have killed me. He was such a nasty person.
I don't think I would have stayed with him. I would have found a solution. The front door to Western Europe for most of these women is the narrow stretch of the
Adriatic between Italy and Albania. In the past year the local coast guard have
run more than five hundred rescue missions and pulled nearly three and half thousand
people out of the sea. They're well equipped but like the police they're overwhelmed. They
have no hope of stopping the powerful small boats used by the Albanian Mafia.
They don't want to land with these small craft and about one hundred ten or twenty metres
from the coast they put away people and go back at full speed.
And sometimes these people drown do they? Sometimes these people are not able
to swim and so we have problems. This stretch of water between Italy and Albania
has become one of the busiest gateways in the global trade in sex slaves. Ten of thousands
of women are transported across here every year against their will. For many of them
Albania is just a transit point, but in Albania itself the disappearance of thousands of young
women has become one of the least discussed and least understood of the Balkans atrocities. Religious expression is not the only thing
to flourish in Albania since the end of communism. In 1992 Albania replaced its isolationist regime with a form of criminal anarchy, and
it's been downhill ever since. Crime is the only law and no one feels safe.
A few years ago some communities began to notice their girls were disappearing.
In our area we have many girls but some of them have left without saying anything to
anybody. When the girls left we didn't have any protection from the government and the
police don't help us. We don't have any protection from the police. We don't feel very safe.
In 1997 aid agencies were reporting that as many as ninety thousand Albanian girls had
vanished. Since then the trade has exploded. Most girls are simply kidnapped and sold by
local Mafia but in some cases parents are even selling their own daughters. Aid workers
in the remote villages have even seen the transactions first hand.
It's true in certain villages where they have nothing -- no water no electricity and well
what can we do. Okay, I have five girls, I sell one, .but I am sure they don't understand
what they are doing. I know a family and I was there when they sell this girl and I ask
them what's happened, but even there when I see with my own eyes and they say no it's
not true she's going to Italy for study. And what happened? Money changed hands? Yes. How much? Two hundred dollars. It's nothing, two hundred dollars.
This is desperation I think. In the tiny village of Zadrima a cross marks
every missing girl. The young people here are fighting back, against the kidnappers
and against social mores in their own culture that make it almost impossible for former
sex slaves to be accepted back
into the community. We aim to return to Albania and start a new
life My lovely sister. Every day we are hearing
about you outside the country. We are worried. We know how much you are suffering and we
know the pain you are feeling in your heart. This group is writing letters to the street
girls in Italy hoping to convince them to seek help from people like Don Oreste. But
apart from these local initiatives, nothing has been done to free these women from their
sexual bondage. Without a European political will nobody can
do anything. Because the problem starts here but it's a problem that you can see in Brussels,
Paris Rome, London because these girls where are they going? They are going in Europe. On the streets and in refugee centres though there's no sign of a changing political will.
But the victims have been changed forever. It's effected me strongly. I've stopped trusting
certain people. Maybe not all the people but I keep my distance now. Before I trust anyone,
I think a lot.
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