Tatiana traveled with a few other girls. On their arrival in Turkey they were
forced into prostitution at a hotel. A week  later,  in the
hotel a police raid was carried out and the girls were
deported. When Tatiana arrived at the airport, the duty
police officer took her passport and gave it to the man who
had recruited her in the first place.

It later turned out that the recruiter was her brother. She was beaten a long
time until the girls agreed to travel back to Turkey to work off  their debts. 
There they were caught again by the police.

This time she was put on a ship with 24 other girls and taken to
Odessa in Ukraine. When the ship arrived in Odessa there were
already recruiters to whisk them away. The recruiters sent them to Cairo; from
there the girls were sold to Israel and Libya. By that time, her
"debt” had grown from 800 to 3,500 dollars. In Israel when she refused to
work, she was locked up inside a slaughterhouse in the forest without water
and food for 3 days. In Israel, the police found and deported her.

Arriving at the airport in Moldova, the same
police officer locked her in an apartment where he told her that she should
think about what would happen if she ran away again. Another girl in
the apartment told her that her younger sister was kidnapped.  She
would now have to pay $10,000 to get her back. Some days
later Tatiana was sent to Cyprus. There, she told the police
that she had lost her passport and she was deported to Moldova.
This time the recruiter told her that he would send her to a "civilized" European
country where she could easily pay off her debts and come back soon.

With a tourist visa, she traveled through Hungary and Croatia .
In Germany and Switzerland with the help of an Albanian suitor
Tatiana managed to escape. She went to the police and told the whole story.

Without her consent, the authorities contacted the Moldovan
government, who in turn informed the police in her hometown.
They contacted her parents saying their daughter was a
"desperate prostitute." Her parents were devastated.
When Tatiana called them from Switzerland they would not talk to her.
In early 2003 she returned again to Moldava.

ACTION:  Ask one other person to accompany us in prayer for these girls in Eastern Europe.

PRAYER

God, you are a gracious God and you care so much for your people.
Today we ask you to look after all the women and girls who find themselves in these intolerable and oppressive situations of sexual slavery.  Preserve that sacred place in women and girls so they can grow and heal when they obtain freedom and dignity! Guard this undestroyed place and help to open all of us to the needs in the hearts of the injured in countries over the world!

 
We pray for all who are caught in the web of crime either as perpetrators or victims or as silent bystanders. Show us ways to overturn every situation of negative force in our lives and make us advocates for freedom and dignity for all!

Petra Maria Tollkötter,  SND Coesfeld