Dateline.
PRINCESS AND THE SEX SLAVES.
REPORTER:
Meggie Palmer
BEAUTY, FORMER SEX WORKER: It's so exciting because I come to meet new
people and sometimes it take away my pain.
A quaint village in Northern Italy, is an unlikely
location for a Nigerian disco. Once trapped - these girls are now free.
PRINCESS,
FORMER SEX WORKER: When you laugh, you dance, you're happy, you can never be
old, you cannot be sick.
They’re
all here – thanks to this
princess - A former sex slave from Africa.
PRINCESS: My name is Princess Inyang. I'm from Akwa
Ibmon State in Nigeria. I came here to Italy about 18 years ago. I came as a
slave but now I help the victims of trafficking. Some girls down here, and there’s another
place here.
REPORTER: Oh, there’s a girl there.
PRINCESS:
There’s girl there the left
REPORTER: On the left
PRINCESS: When we passed before she was not there.
Across Italy, roads like these hide
a dark secret. You don’t have to look hard to see dozens and dozens of girls
working. Most are sex slaves, tricked
and trafficked from Africa to Europe, sold for tens of thousands of dollars.
PRINCESS: See? The girl is inside the car.
REPORTER: She’s
in the car?
PRINCESS: Yeah!
REPORTER: Oh,
she is too.
Dotted all over ….chairs, a sign - a sex slave’s is on
duty. Princess once walked these streets
and knows how brutal it is.
PRINCESS: See another one here.
REPORTER: Another one here on the left.
PRINCESS: Yeah, another one.
REPORTER: This
man is just zipping up his pants. Busy, it's rush hour around here.
PRINCESS: Yeah.
She’s now running a not for profit called PIAM. Her
job is to check up on the girls and help those looking to escape their captors.
REPORTER: How
many clients would they normally have in a day?
PRINCESS: Sometimes they have 5, some have 10, some
have 15, it depends.
REPORTER: Are
there many minors working on the street?
PRINCESS: Many, many
now.
REPORTER:
What's the youngest?
PRINCESS:
Fifteen years, fourteen years.
REPORTER:
Fifteen!
Most
girls are from bitterly poor communities in Nigeria, they are promised well
paid jobs and a safer life but are then forced into prostitution. Each of these
girls represents a shattered dream.
REPORTER: There
they are, they are in the bushes.
Cioa, hi how are you?
Do you mind if I have a quick chat with you? What’s your name?
SARAH: I’m Sarah
REPORTER: When
you came here, how did you come here?
SARAH: I came here
with a boat
REPORTER: Did you.
How long did it take you to get here?
SARAH: 2 months
I speak to some of the girls off camera, they tell me
it isn’t safe to show their faces. So today I met a girl called Sarah who was
walking up here on the roadside, this is her patch here and when I was chatting
to her I realised that this is kind of where she hangs out when she is not
waiting for clients up on the road.
So generally the clients will pull over in their cars
and ask for some kind of sexual act, ask for a price, or a quote, and they will
negotiate from here and what I realised is that this is where she and her
colleagues hang out when they are not up there, so you can see that this is a
fire that the y light at night to keep themselves warm, there is a bunch of
rubbish and you can see there is a couple of lean twos they have created when
they are trying to hide from the elements... it gets quite cold here because
they are so close to the Alps.
The women work the streets here day and
night….weekends and weekdays. In the
past 3 years, there’s
been a 600% jump in the number of sex trafficking victims arriving in Italy by
sea. They’re part of the phenomenal wave of migration from Africa to Europe by
boat … It’s now the most deadly migrant route in the world.
It’s only when they arrive they’re told
they owe astronomical sums of money, to their horror, their ticket to freedom
becomes a trap into slavery.
PRINCESS: All the
girls have some debts to pay and the debts are much from 25,000 Euro up to
50,000 Euro before they are free.
At 5 euros per blow job and as little as
15 euros for sex, it’s almost impossible to pay off their debt. In the last two
years around
16,000 Nigerian women were forced into prostitution in Italy. This was
Princess's story. She arrived 20 years ago. But she will never forget the
things that happened to her.
PRINCESS:
So, after one week in the house two women came to buy girls… she bought me at
the sum of 13,000 USD and then she told me I'll pay 50. So, it was terrible and dangerous work you
know, because most of the time we met people that were bad people. That they
will kill us, you know, they kill girls for fun.
The first night was a nightmare. Terrible and
I was so afraid of entering people’s car I don't know and I was crying throughout the night.
And
then Princess's life took another unexpected turn.
REPORTER: Were there any clients that
you saw regularly that you really liked?
PRINCESS: Yeah, there
were some like…
REPORTER: Were there any in particular?
PRINCESS: Yeah, there was one from Iceland.
REPORTER (Translation): Ciao, Alberto. Good evening.
ALBERTO MOSSIMO,
HUSBAND (Translation): Welcome.
PRINCESS: The second one was
Alberto which become my husband.
ALBERTO
MOSSIMO (Translation): I was alone and I
saw this beautiful girl. I pulled over and asked her to come to the beach with
me. She got in the car, over two days
together, we got to know each other and from then on we started seeing each
other.
REPORTER: How long have you been
married for?
PRINCESS:
13 years now.
ALBERTO
MOSSIMO: When I marry Princess. I did a
big mistake, because it's the African culture. If you marry one, you don’t
marry one, you marry all the Tribe. You have to provide for all the tribe.
REPORTER (Translation): When did you know that you had fallen in love with
Princess?
ALBERTO
MOSSIMO (Translation): In love is a
big word. I was certainly very interested in Princess, partly in her, but also
in that whole world she represented. Africa, Nigeria, the world of
prostitution. Then over time as we kept on seeing each other, I also fell in
love. But when we started talking, I began to see that something was not right.
She wasn’t only beautiful, reminding me as she did of Africa. Bit by bit, I came
to see that she was beautiful but also a slave.
Princess
and Alberto began secretly dating, raising money to pay off her debts, freeing
her from slavery.
PRINCESS:
You want to taste this one?
REPORTER: Who's the better cook,
Alberto, you or Princess?
PRINCESS: I'm a good cook.
Like
so many sex slaves trapped here, Princess left her children behind in Nigeria.
Her eldest son has now joined her in Italy. Princess and Alberto also have a
young daughter together.
REPORTER: How long was it in between
seeing your children?
PRINCESS:
It was about ...say five years. Yeah it was very hard for
them. They couldn't get good attention as a motherly attention or love. It was
not the same.
ALBERTO
MOSSIMO (Translation): You take a bit of yam,
dip it into the sauce and eat it. That’s Afro-Piedmontese.
REPORTER (Translation): The two go together?
ALBERTO
MOSSIMO (Translation): We tried it out o a chef here in Asti and now
he is serving it.
REPORTER (Translation): Really?
ALBERTO
MOSSIMO (Translation): It
works well. This and that go together.
REPORTER (Translation): A mix.
Instead
of turning her back on her past, Princess is trying to help other girls who are
caught in the same trap.
REPORTER (Translation): Hi Beauty, it’s Meggie. Hi, thanks.
BEAUTY (Translation):
Hi!
REPORTER (Translation): Hi, I’m Meggie.
BEAUTY (Translation):
Hi! Please come in.
REPORTER (Translation): Thanks for having me.
Princess
and her team have rescued more than 250 girls. Beauty's one of them. Beauty or
Beauty 1 as she's known, lives here with her friends, Beauty 2 and Tina.
BEAUTY (Translation):
That’s it, well done!
After
two years in Italy, Beauty's made this her home.
REPORTER: Are
these yours?
BEAUTY:
Yeah, they are mine. I saw them in the market and I loved the colours,
so I got them for Valentine. Okay, welcome to my bedroom.
REPORTER:
Nice!
BEAUTY:
This is my favourite one.
REPORTER: What
is it?
BEAUTY: They call it lace. It’s for a very expensive
occasion.
REPORTER: How would you wear this in Nigeria?
BEAUTY: You have to put it around your waist.
REPORTER: You
put it around my waist, okay. So what did you do in Nigeria before you came to
Italy?
BEAUTY:
Hairdressing
REPORTER: You
did.
BEAUTY:
Yeah, yeah.
REPORTER: Wow!
BEAUTY:
I’m from a polygamous home.
REPORTER: You're from a polygamous
home?
BEAUTY:
Yeah, my dad with 19 children.
REPORTER: 19
children.
BEAUTY:
And four wives, he is the only one I have left.
Beauty
was trafficked from Nigeria to Italy by boat alone. She never saw her mother
again.
BEAUTY:
Before she died, she told me. She told me, my child whatever you see in
life, take it as a fate, don t give up, she told me,
be very strong because I am as mother very strong. I never give up on you.
REPORTER:
Can you explain for people who don't understand, who don't know that most of
the girls on the streets are sex slaves, can you explain to them what that’s
like for you living with that?
BEAUTY:
First of all the most terrible part of it was when I was on my period. I
had to take a very thick piece of rag and put deep inside of me, sorry, so I
can, so the men can penetrate me without seeing the blood. Just imagine the
pain, your pushing that tissue inside your womb. It’s so painful, all because
of…Sometimes you don’t even
get 20 Euro you have to pay, they tell you 15 Euro and sometimes the money that
they pay you, they still got to beat you before
you collect the money, so much pain.
Beauty
and the other girls I spoke to all said that they and their parents had no idea
what would happen to them in Italy. But Alberto tells a very different story.
He says the parents knowingly send their girls to a life of prostitution and
slavery.
ALBERTO
MOSSIMO (Translation): By now almost all
of them know. They know, they know…What they are not aware of, are the
conditions. Many of these young girls think, “I’ll go and be a prostitute in
Europe.” They imagine themselves in
grand hotels, or Casinos or Las Vegas where everyone is rich and the men hand
out expensive gifts … a bit like a movie star. They do not realise that
they will be on the streets selling themselves for five Euros and getting
beaten up. The clients, pimps, traffickers, slavery, police raids, girls who
escape. It is a very… a very complex world
Human
trafficking is the world's fastest growing criminal enterprise, its illegal
profits making an estimated $200 billion Australian globally every year.
ALBERTO
MOSSIMO (Translation): These
young women are the first step in this huge Nigerian Mafia ring because in this
massive enterprise the Nigerian women are cash-flow.
When
the Nigerian mafia work alongside the Italian mafia, it's an almost
impenetrable criminal network.
ALBERTO MOSSIMO (Translation): How
they do it? Voodoo superstition is one method. The girls take part in a magic
ritual in a sacred place where, during a pagan ceremony, they must swear to
respect their trafficker and their Madam and if they break their oath, they
will die or their family will suffer misfortune, pain and death.
With
very few victims willing to testify against the Nigerian mafia, the slave trade
looks set to continue despite the Vatican and the Pope declaring eliminating it
a key priority in this Catholic heartland. Princess's work never stops. She's
back patrolling the streets with her anti-trafficking team, trying to save
others.
PRINCESS: Hello…hello
GIRL:
Ciao, bella
PRINCESS: Hello, baby girl. Come, come, come near. But please use condom.
Before you know you done you catch HIV. You don't know where...So you have to
use condom always.
On a
rain-soaked train platform in Asti, the latest rescue arrives. Queen has been
walking the streets as a sex slave in central Italy for two years.
QUEEN, FORMER SEX SLAVE (Translation):
Hello, how are you? Fine!
FATIMA:
Okay Queen, you are welcome.
QUEEN (Translation):
Thank you.
We
can't show her face because she fears her traffickers will recognise and
possibly harm her. Accompanying Queen is Fatima, whose role is to help the
transition to a new life.
FATIMA: In this house there are rules and
regulations. One, we don’t fight. This is your room, this is your bed. This is
where you are going to stay. Hello
girls.
Queen
will be sharing this 2-bedroom unit with five other rescued girls.
FATIMA:
This is your room- mate, she is called Tessie and she is called Yvette.
QUEEN:
I swear to god I will never go back to the streets again.
Queen
left behind her 7-year-old son, her mum and her sister died recently. This is
her family now.
FATIMA:
Precious, are you ready.
PRECIOUS:
Yes, just a minute.
All
the girls are given a safe house and money for food but there are strict conditions.
They have to follow the rules and promise not to work on the streets. In fact,
they can't work anywhere until their residency papers are finalised, so they
hang out, they study Italian, and they go through job training. praying that
their visas will come through to open up the next
phase in their life. Princess did more than help Beauty get off the streets.
She helped her rebuild her life and her skills.
BEAUTY:
Mummy.
PRINCESS: Ciao Beauty.
BEAUTY:
I love them so much and these smiles on my face are because of her.
PRINCESS: Do you work in the kitchen too?
BEAUTY:
Yes.
PRINCESS: Were you there when they make this?
BEAUTY:
Yes
PRINCESS: Good,
BEAUTY: She’s
my boss and when I came here and met her and she told me, ‘ I
like this one, I want her to work with me.’ And this is May she is my work colleague too. I feel happy, encouraged that I could work
here with white people which I've never dreamt of. So exciting.
REPORTER: And
how much money are you making here?
BEAUTY: When compared to Nigeria money, it's high.
It's high. Yeah. Better than what we use to see when we work in the streets.
A lot
of the other girls haven't got jobs yet or still aren't allowed to work. They
say Beauty's lucky or making her own luck.
REPORTER: Are you proud of
her to see her working here?
PRINCESS: Of course yeah. We're
so happy to see her now working. And at least other girls, seeing her working,
might be encouraged, you know.
BEAUTY:
When I came here I never thought there was going to be an opportunity to
work because the belief was like there is no hope for people like us here. We
thought it was all going to be in the street, on the street, on the street. But
when we met her, they had to make some change for us. Now I'm working. I'm a normal
person here. All thanks to them.
REPORTER:
Everyone say…Princess.
ALL: Princess.
BEAUTY:
How do I look? A little different
now?
TINA: Wow! You look beautiful. Fantastic and
the rest of that.
BEAUTY:
Are you serious? I think I'm gonna get a new boyfriend today.
TINA:
Yeah.
These
days, instead of getting dressed to work the streets, Beauty and her friends
are getting ready to have fun.
BEAUTY:
Ah, let’s go, I can’t wait.
I
came to Italy knowing I'd be meeting human trafficking victims. I thought I'd
leave overwhelmed by the tragedy of it all but instead here I found a story of
resilience and transformation. Beauty, Princess and the others don't want to be
defined by their past.
BEAUTY:
I want to be a source of joy to people, I want to be like Princess.
They
feel lucky to be rebuilding their lives and they're going to give this second
chance everything they've got.
PRINCESS: Oh, my dream if I wish
we can make the trafficking in human beings stop and I can help all the victims
in the streets to liberate them from their depression because I believe that
most of them have things in their mind but they don’t have someone to talk to
but I wish we can let them know that we are there to save them.
reporter
meggie palmer
story producer
kylie grey
camera
lee ali
associate
producers
stephanie stafford
pema dolkar
story
editor
simon phegan
fixer
sabina castelfranco
translations
domenico gentile
10th April 2018