He squeezes his eyes tightly and shakes his head from side to side, refusing firmly: “No. Terrible. I didn’t know how to do it,” he says. “The thing is that there are 18-year-olds, younger than my son’s age…”. He arrived in Badajoz from his home country in March 2022. He had a good life, “very well paid”, but after the epidemic, the company where he worked began to cut back until his income dropped so much that he sold his investment. car and his house: ““I saw myself”he says. His financial problems, as well as the insecurity of the country, made it difficult for him to live abroad.
“I was with my cousin in Badajoz. He showed me what he was doing, that he got it right. As I saw it, it looked easy. I saw it as a joke that you make that person and take money from them. I agreed without knowing the size. “….
The speaker is a rape survivor. She spent three months in prostitution. First in a club in Miajadas and then in a chalet in Badajoz. His testimony is unknown because he knows that in the past he can hurt her in a difficult time already.
“His case is unique because he is one of the few who can get out,” says Marta Franco, Victoria Kent’s co-ordinator.where they went for help and where they could put a name to what they were going through.
to arrive
“I never thought of staying here to stay, my idea was to come with the little I had left to sell my house after it was stolen. So I decided to make money, go back, buy a house for my children and start a business.”, account.
The first failure was with his cousin. “They charged me almost the same price for the room as they did for the house.” “The thing is,” says Marta Franco, “he He was a victim of the smuggling of his trusted person. It’s not a big scam with a simple pimp and the mafia behind it. It’s a new model we get. “A very close relative manipulates you to get a profit, then in the end they take advantage of you.”
He was already in the yard. At the Miajadas club he repeated himself many times: “But what am I doing?” She told her mother that she takes care of the elderly. Alcohol served as his friend. “But I never used drugs. I refused. Many girls tried to stay awake, because it is better for others to show up at 8 o’clock in the morning.” “They also drink,” he adds, “because it’s a way to cope with certain situations.” Even when they arrive healthy, they eventually collapse. Then they end up in debt and, with huge debt, they can’t stop eating. “.
He remembers that when he asked about security at the club if something happened, they replied: “This is it: get your life.”
“That was terrible. “I lied because I was afraid someone would find out, because you never know what they will do, because in the end they pay for the work.”.
Of the money they earned, half went to the owners of the club. “Thank God I didn’t have any bad people. Nothing happened to me, but I saw drunks arriving, breaking glasses, a lonely club in the middle of the street… With the skinny old men, there was one who looked like my grandfather. Bad”he complains. “…they are dirty men who used to humiliate women.”
From there he went to a villa in Badajoz, where business owners kept 60% of the money they received. “There are all kinds of men, like those who go there in the morning before going to work.
Both in the club and in the chalet they shared space with much younger girls. “The more you live, the more you love it. And if you have the face of an angel, even more.”
From ‘psychologist’
“Sometimes I just play ‘psychologist’ because he just wanted to talk.” Yes, I know that’s what psychologists have, not me, but of course, they want a prostitute to listen to their problems.”.
95% are foreigners, mainly from Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil … “I have never met anyone who came after being deceived by the mafia and with an existing debt and their children are threatened, but I have heard many stories because they pay you a ticket, but they pay you double that is appropriate and this is done in clubs and rental houses.
The chalet operated 24 hours a day. This was the first time he knew about the existence of Victoria Kent’s team, which visits different houses in Badajoz where they know there are cases of rape. They bring them protective gear, help them with medical tests and explain that they can provide them with legal advice. It is currently estimated that there are between 20 and 30 rental houses for prostitutes in the city of Badajoz. Some close, some open… Some owners know the business that is set up in their house, others don’t,” explains Franco.
Promises
“For me, he saw in my face that I was new, it was very obvious, he realized that I was innocent,” he continues with his story. “The other girls told me: This one goes with the first one to tell him. Because men promise you that they will get you out of there, that they will give you a house….
It didn’t have the first one, but it had one of them. “I remember that I traveled for a week in Madrid with one of the girls from the chalet, she helped me a lot, because I was often worried about the wrongness of what I was doing. When I came back, I thought I should go with that ‘client’,” he says.
However, when he returned, he could not find her and returned to the chalet. “From there we established contact again. Then I took off with him.”
“At first, good,” he says. He looked for a house in the village for them to live in together. “I tried to repay him by helping him at work in everything he told me, in whatever way I could, because I was very grateful.because I was able to send money to my children.” After a few months and he started to settle down, he spoke to Victoria Kent’s agency to start preparing his papers.
“And I wanted to bring my children, and they paid 900 euros for tickets for each of them.”
But it was there that the problems started. “They argued a lot when they were together, it was very difficult.” “And he used drugs, like many who went to the chalet.”
loneliness
He continues: “I didn’t know anyone, and I trusted him a lot.” They didn’t let me have friends, I was alone. It was as if he made everything for me, he believed that I was human. to him because he removed me from there.”
That loneliness, not being able to count anyone in the neighborhood, a friend, a neighbor… is something he always repeats when telling his story.
One day he went to Victoria Kent to hold the papers and suddenly burst into tears: “I told Marta how I felt.”
At the meeting he told her that, although he did not touch her, she was fighting him victim of violence against men and women by that man. “They tortured me mentally, I couldn’t take it anymore.”
However, he continued for another month. “If it wasn’t for him, I would still be in that life,” he says. But the second corrected himself: “Well, I don’t think so, but I thank you for giving me a house at that time.”.
Marta Franco said:
She didn’t want to explain, however, the agency managed, because of her difficulties, to give her six months’ rent and a house to live in with her children. Thanks to that resource he was able to leave the house in the countryside that he shared with his ‘client’. “What I wanted was to work. But the problem is that My university degrees were useless to me. Even as a waiter they asked me to hold the tray, and I couldn’t do the training because it was for people under 30 years old.”he is giving an example.
He signed up for everything he could to avoid being handed over. And when he was about to throw in the towel, an opportunity arose in the field of administration, which he dedicated to him in his country. “I couldn’t believe it.” Disappointingly, the job was only part-time. Translation, 600 euros per month. “I immediately started crying because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing with my life. Because I was going to give up the 780 euros I received at that time because of a job that didn’t earn much. The social workers congratulated me for getting the position, for accepting it, and told me it was very important, but I couldn’t stop crying because of what was happening to me. Because my rent subsidy had already run out, I had to pay the rent I was supposed to collect.”
And there it goes. Also, looking for another house because the one in it will be sold. “I use the money I have left as much as I can, but I have two children who spend money.”
Current
How much money did he get for the chalet? “In just one week 3,000 euros. Just imagine…”. Now he feels that he is shaking again, he knows that the situation is difficult, but he is clear that, despite everything, “he will not go back to that world.”
But they are being reformed: “I am honest with you. If I didn’t have children, I would go back in three months and pay off my debts. Why not? Look how I am and it wasn’t my fault.”.
- The Provincial Immigration and Border Brigade of Badajoz is a group that, from the National Police, is involved in the crime of human trafficking for rape in the province of Badajoz. In order to intervene judicially, it is necessary to prove the evidence of the system of coercion and slavery. However, as stated by various organizations that work with female victims, beyond trafficking, rape exists since the threat leads to prostitution as the only option.
- In this sense, the role that various non-governmental organizations have in reaching out to victims through their psychological support skills is important.
- In Badajoz region, Apramp (Association for the Prevention, Reintegration and Care of Prostituted Women), MZC (Women in Conflict Zone) and Victoria Kent work mainly. From the end, their director in the capital of Badajoz, Marta Franco, explains that they look for these girls through websites that “advertise, where they leave their phone number.” “We call them and the first thing we do is give them some protection. From there we get closer.”
