Trafficked
Despite the pain of leaving her children behind in Madagascar, Janine (not her real name) was full of hope for the future when she arrived in Mauritius to begin a new career in the restaurant industry. Instead she discovered she had been trafficked into a brutal world of prostitution and sexual violence. This is her story.
How do you greet a victim of sex trafficking? I mean, what words do you use? "Hi, how are you doing?" seems entirely inappropriate to open a conversation with someone only recently rescued from the horror of forced prostitution. This was my first thought when I arrived at the shelter where I was to meet Janine, who had bravely agreed to speak to me about her experiences of trafficking.
In the end, a bland "hello" was all I could manage as I entered the small room where Janine waited, clearly nervous. A petite woman in her early thirties, she was so softly spoken that I had to ask her to speak up as she began explaining the horrifying course of events which led to our meeting.
Following the breakdown of her marriage, Janine had been a newly single mother struggling to make ends meet in her native Madagascar. Despite the support of her immediate family, life felt impossibly hard in a country where the average salary for domestic workers was still less than two euros per day. "We were so poor," she told me, "I just didn't know how I could support my children."
In search of opportunities for a better life for herself and her children, Janine took a trip to the capital of Madagascar, Antananarivo, to look for work. There, she met the person who would change her life forever - while in a shared taxi, she got chatting with a woman who told her about overseas job opportunities. According to the woman, there were plenty of well-paying jobs in restaurants and factories in Mauritius. The salaries were so high that someone could earn as much in a couple of months as they could in a year in Madagascar.
Although intrigued by the idea of earning that kind of money, Janine immediately dismissed the idea; she couldn't afford to feed her children, let alone buy expensive flight tickets to a foreign land. But the woman told her she knew someone who could lend her the money for the flight, and Janine could repay the costs from the salary she would earn. It seemed like an opportunity Janine couldn’t refuse.
Arriving in a new country is always an anxious time, especially for someone with as little travel experience as Janine. So, it was a relief to be greeted at the airport by the friendly-looking woman who was to help her through the first few days until she found her feet. "She told me she was there to help," Janine explained as she recounted that first day in Mauritius. What she didn't realise was that day would mark the beginning of the most traumatic period of her life.
"I thought we were going to a hotel, but when we arrived, it was just a house," she said, stumbling as she spoke. "That is when they told me there wasn't a job in a restaurant; I had to work with men." Unable to even say the word "prostitution", ‘working with men’ was how she described what happened to her in that house. And that work began on her very first day on the island.
"They told me what they were doing to me wasn't illegal in Mauritius, but if I didn't do this work to repay them for my flight ticket, then they would take me to the police, and I would go to prison because not paying such a debt was illegal here," She explained. "I didn't know that wasn't true, I believed them. I was so afraid, so I did what they told me to do."
And that was how Janine became a prostitute, finding herself helpless in a foreign land, unable to speak the language, with no understanding of local laws or how she could seek help. Everything she ‘earned’ was taken to repay her debt to the traffickers. They told her she owed thousands of euros when in reality, the flights likely cost a few hundred. "I came here to make a better life for my family, and now it is so much worse," Janine told me, through teary gulps for breath, as she relived the trauma she had experienced. "My mother and children had to move because they couldn't afford to stay in our house. I earned all the money in Madagascar but haven't sent anything since I arrived here."
Violence was an everyday risk for Janine. Trafficked women from poorer nations like Madagascar are the lowest rung of the limited hierarchy that exists in the world of prostitution. As long as they pay the required fee, customers can do pretty much what they want. "I can't stop thinking about the men who abused me," she told me. "They are like the devil. There was so much violence; they were brutal to me."
Even her rescue was traumatic. After rumours had circulated about the brothel where she worked, police raided the house and arrested the gang which operated it. But Janine was still under the impression that it was illegal to have an unpaid debt to the traffickers and panicked that she would be sent to prison. Only later did she learn that everything she had been told was untrue.
Since her release, Janine has struggled to come to terms with what has happened. "I had a mental breakdown; I just couldn't cope any more," she said as she described the days immediately after the police raid. "I have been seeing a psychiatrist, which has helped, but I still can't make sense of it all." Even months after her rescue, the mental impact is still apparent. "I feel like I'm losing my mind when people speak to me, but I immediately forget what they say. I don't trust anyone anymore."
As she spoke, Janine subconsciously played with her hair, running it through her fingers and curling it like a parent might comfort a child. But she isn't able to comfort her children; she hasn't talked to them in months. Such is her sense of shame; she hasn't been able to bring herself to speak to her family about what happened to her in Mauritius. As far as her children are concerned, she has been working in fancy restaurants all this time and simply left them behind. It is guilt which she lives with every day.
Listening to Janine speak, I was in awe of how brave she was, telling her traumatic story to a total stranger she had only just met. And yet, I was also struck by her vulnerability - she seemed so tiny, sitting in the corner of a sofa, unable to manage more than a few stuttery words at a time before the tears and fear returned. Most of all, I found myself thinking that all this brutality happened in the middle of an average suburban area. People will have walked past that house daily as they went about their lives, completely unaware of what was happening inside.
Trafficking is the conversation we should be having but aren't. Every year, thousands of people around the world fall victim to trafficking, of which 50% are subjected to sexual exploitation. (Source: UN 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons). Janine's experience of trafficking is not isolated. Her story is a stark, in-your-face reminder that trafficking happens every day, in every part of the world, even in Mauritius, which tourist brochures around the world call an island of paradise.
The social stigma associated with being a victim of trafficking, especially sex trafficking, is such that many are reluctant to even talk about their experiences, fearing they will be judged as somehow complicit in their trauma. Even now, Janine is unsure whether she will ever share the truth of what happened to her with her family.
No victim should have to feel that way. As a society, we have to do better. We need to learn the signs to recognise a victim of trafficking so that we can offer protection. And we need to prosecute those who perpetrate these crimes. Otherwise, many more thousands will continue to be exploited.
Since we met, Janine has returned to Madagascar to begin the long process of trying to rebuild her life. It won't be easy, but despite all she has been through, she is still looking forward. "I feel like I've been in chains," she told me as she spoke about her hopes for the future, "but now I'm breaking the chains."
I believe it is time we all commit to breaking the chains of trafficking.
Note: Everything this article recounts is a true account of the experiences described to me; however, "Janine" is a composite of three victims I spoke with. All three were of similar ages and backgrounds; all were single mothers, and all described similar experiences of being promised work in Mauritius, only to discover they had been trafficked. I chose to combine their stories to protect their identity.
