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OF CONTENTS
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Pushing
Sex in Turkey
By
Rip Ritchie
My experience in Istanbul, Turkey
brought me
into immediate contact with the Eastern European/Russian sex slave
trade. I had learned about the atrocities associated with this
trade from a video entitled, “Dying to Leave”. Without knowing
it, I was coerced into a high-class brothel where I had the opportunity
to tenderly interview a trafficked victim.
The video, “Dying to Leave”, details the route that
sex slaves are trafficked across Eastern European borders. Women
are often kidnapped or tricked into the arduous trip. Some are
promised employment that never existed and are trapped into conditions
of enslavement. They sometimes pay for passage to another country
where employment is promising. When they get there, they are at
the mercy of their captors. They can be sold without even knowing
it. Others knowingly enter the sex-trade process because of dire
conditions at home. Either way, these women are taken far from
home where they have no contacts and ways to get free. Turkey is
a notorious “middle-man” for the whole trade. Some of the women
are destined for places further away, such as the woman from Moldova in
the film who was trafficked via Turkey to Italy, and some don’t make it
past Turkey. This has become a huge problem for women in the
region since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There is economic
instability and dismal conditions. This trade has now become big
business and accounts for multiple millions of dollars.
The woman that I talked to in Istanbul had arrived
there only a week earlier. Her name was Rita and she was from
Moscow, Russia, and had a friend that lived and worked in
Istanbul. Her friend called her and told her that there was a job
in Istanbul for her if she wanted to come. Rita graduated from
college with a degree in Child Psychology. I asked her why she
was not working in that field and she told me that she could not get a
job. She said that she worked as a dancer because she could go
anywhere and have a job. She was a beautiful girl and could earn
a lot of money in that line of work. I had a distinct feeling
that she was only telling me as much as she was allowed or could feel
comfortable telling me in her present situation. It was obvious
that she was imprisoned. There was an armed guard at the door in
a basement bar. She could be kept out of sight from
everybody. I am sure that she must watch what she said, out of
fear if nothing else.
The video says that it is common for a friend to call and
tell someone
to come join them. This often gets the victim to be willing, and
once they get there they are enslaved as sex workers. With a lack
of jobs, any opportunity might seem like a good one. Rita spoke
of her ability to travel wherever she wanted in that line of work as if
it was a daydream. What reason would she have to tell me the
truth? What would I be able to do about her condition? As
it goes, she was right. There was no reason for her to tell me
anything too accurate. I would not have been able to do anything
and it would have only been a risk of something bad happening to
her. Her body language and choice of words clued me in. It
concurred with the information presented in the video. She was a
trafficked sex slave.
It was hard for me to witness such a beautiful,
intelligent young woman in this condition. This case seems to be
a result of the lack of opportunity that was available to her at
home. There was nothing for her, so she had to leave to find
something. She was caught up in the horrible sex trade and became
stuck. The video showed little hope for these women to get out of
their situation. In some cases, families or loved ones back home
might have the resources to find these women, but most frequently there
is no way to reconcile what has been done. Rita’s life, as many
others, has been caught up in this horrible trade as a result of awful
global economic disparities. I was able to get out of my
predicament with the swipe of a card and the use of a few Turkish Lira;
if only Rita could do the same.
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