‘’I was a 22-year-old single mother, desperate for work when I left my son with family and travelled to Osh to find work. I didn’t have a Kyrgyz ID, or a university degree so it was hard to find work, until a woman told me about a waitressing job in Bishkek.

When I arrived in Bishkek, it wasn’t as it seemed. They held us in an apartment and took away our passports. They told us that we’d be photographed again for our new employment documents, to be registered as waitresses. It felt strange, but we believed them.

We were put on the plane without passports and told that a pilot will bring our passports back to us. When the pilot came with our documents, we realized that the passports were not ours. They were fake.

We travelled to Dubai and were taken to another apartment full of women. “Great, fresh arrivals, we’ll work much less now,” the women said. We were to be sex slaves and do whatever the clients wanted. The next day I was sent to a nightclub and told that I would have to earn at least $10,000 by the end of the month.

For 18 months, this is all I did. We were never allowed to go anywhere unaccompanied. I could not bear it anymore. One night I walked out of the nightclub and saw a police car approaching. Instead of running away like the others, I stayed put and let them catch me. I was deported back to Osh, and since my ID was fake, I spent a year in jail. I filed a police report, and three of the traffickers were captured.

Once I was out of jail, I was on the streets, ashamed, and unemployed. I went back to the sex industry. I was working in local saunas when the outreach workers of the organzition Podruga found me. They offered me work. I wasn’t sure that I would fit in, but slowly I began to trust them. For the last two years, I am working with Podruga as an outreach worker.

I got married again; my husband knows everything about my past and does not judge me. “Go forward,” he says, “and don’t look back. We are a family now, that’s all that matters.”

Every day, I go on outreach missions, visiting saunas and other places in Osh where sex workers may be. I deliver condoms and talk to women about the dangers of contracting HIV, informing them about health and safety measures, legal aid and providing other support.

I often meet girls who dream of going to Turkey and Dubai, to earn more. I tell them, please don’t go. I tell them how I was sold to sex slavery. I did not earn much money, I only collected occasional tips with which I could buy cigarettes and other small things and send some money home. All the money we earned went to the pimps who abused us. One of them was fond of using a hot iron on us. There is nothing good for you there.

My job with Podruga is to make sure that the girls stay clean, that they are safe and if they are in pain I take them for regular hospital checkups. But to stop trafficking of women and girls, we have to inform people about the full consequences of human trafficking and how to detect the signs. It is critical to start raising awareness about this in schools, starting young, so that they do not become victims. At the same time, there’s dire need for legal aid and psychological support for returnees.”

*The name has been changed to protect the identity of the individual

In UN Women

“I started working in a supermarket, but life is so expensive here. My family would never take the money if they knew. It’s a big secret. This work is really terrible. I think that in three months I will have earned enough and will go home.”

*The name has been changed to protect the identity of the individual

In The Sidney Morning Herald

“Luckily, when I started crying, he didn’t touch me, but he didn’t release me and instead found another man interested in a virgin like me.”

*The name has been changed to protect the identity of the individual

In The Sidney Morning Herald

“She told me I was not going to babysit, but do prostitution. She said I must pay her, or I will die. She said I owed her 600,000 naira [$1,656]. I told her I cannot do prostitution because she lied to me. She said I have to do it. Several times she threatened to send people to kill me. She took me to a club and sometimes I would stand in the streets in Dubai. I told her I can look for other work and pay her, but she refused. Even when I fell sick, she made me work. She said, “If you die, you die.” She starved me, she beat me, insulted me. I was not allowed to call home. She took away my passport.”

In Human Rights Watch

“I left Moldova when I was 19 years old. We needed a lot of money, after my parents and sister arrived at the hospital. We were asked for a large amount of money for my sister’s back surgery. That’s how I made the decision to go abroad.

Initially they told us that we were going to Italy to clean, but they took us to Turkey and later to Dubai. We were several girls and they promised us that in Dubai we would work at a hotel. When we got there, suddenly they took our passports and that’s how I ended up being a prostitute…I told myself that I would be strong to help my family. We had to dress nicely so that we would attract men. I ended up having 9 and 11 customers a night. When I had my period, I had two days off and the other days I worked. I could make 10,000 or 15,000 euros per night. All the money that the customers gave me, I would give to the manager, and she would give it to me once a week to send home.”

In Dorin Galben Interview

“I didn’t ask any questions because she told me she is trying to help young women and I thought, ‘She is a kind person.’”

In ICIJ