Georgian Slaves in Greece (Part II)

How Did Georgian Illegals Arrive in Greece? 

 “Two young women froze to death in the Turkish woods, and we buried them at that place.  One of us fell into the ravine…”

Special Interview from Greece

“I was sold for four hundred dollars to provide men sexual favors for ten days at the Istanbul market."

“On December 20, we left Trabzon at four in the morning.  A man about forty took our documents when we drove off with him.  We did not resist him, and we arrived in Istanbul that night.  Only the driver had accompanied us from Trabzon.  He only spoke Turkish and did not stop the car at all on the way to Istanbul.  We were not well.  Thea was sitting next to him, and the rest of us, five in all, were sitting in the back seat.  I recall that the driver turned off the main highway on our way to Istanbul.  We asked him where he was taking us, but he did not say anything until we reached an unknown located.  There, having become fed up with our complaining, the Turk stopped the car and ordered us to get out.  But, there were only mountains around, so where could we go? …”

“Before we were taken to the hotel, we stopped in front of a tall building opposite a homeless shelter.  Some foreigners, including Georgians, were at this [meeting] spot.  A Turkish couple arrived and spoke with our driver, who handed him something in a plastic bag.  [In exchange,] they took our passports from him.  [The couple] spoke Russian and told us that they needed our documents to check us in at the hotel.  We did not object since we were very cold.  We were looking forward to getting out of the cold.  Finally, we reached the hotel.”

“The story might seem somewhat incredible, but the people who were to take care of us were nowhere to be found.  The problems we had in Trabzon happened to us again here, yet even worse.  The men whom we met and subsequently resisted not only shouted at us but also severely beat us.  We soon tired of defending ourselves, and the men burnt their cigarettes into our hands.  I still have a scar from a cigarette.  It was intolerable abuse.”

“Nobody invited us to have breakfast in the morning, and we did not know what to do.  Having no passports in hand, we could not leave.  We asked a member of the hotel staff for the address of the police, but she refused, saying that it was beyond her responsibilities and advised us to contact the hotel management.  Thea and I asked the hotel manager for an address of a shop, saying that we wanted to buy some things.  The manager did not lend a sympathetic ear, and instead, ordered someone to chase us away.  We wanted to call the police but could not.”

“Having bought some bread at a store, we returned to the hotel, having forgetten to ask a store attendant for the number of the police.  Before entering the room, we heard noises and thought we heard a Georgian was arguing with a Turk.  However, upon entering the room, a strange woman started shouting at us and tried to beat us.  Finally, we guessed what she was saying.  ‘I have paid 400 dollars for each of you. What the hell do you want from the police?’  She warned us not to leave the hotel.  She said she wanted to triple her investment.”

“The woman turned out to be one of the owners of the hotel.  She knew very bad Russian, and we could hardly figure out what she was saying.  She also said her husband worked for the police and that we could call the police at our own risk since we had no passports and they would immediately arrest us.  We looked at each other crying and said nothing to her. We resolved to escape secretly at night.  We were ready to do anything since we could not stand the abuse anymore.”

“Unfortunately, we could not carry out our plan because we were moved into another room.  The windows were barred, and there were guards standing at the door. We tried to trick them but to no avail.”

“That evening, the Turkish woman entered our room and served us dinner.  We drank the tea and passed out.  Nobody remembers what happened to them next… The same thing occurred the third night.  We gave at least three men sexual favors from eight in the evening to ten the next morning.  The men beat us so severely that we could not resist them.”

“We endured this [abuse] for eight days.  We had bruises on our bodies, and our faces were swollen.  The hotel staff averted their eyes [when they saw us].  We left the hotel and spent one night in a single-storied, tiled house in the country and set off [for Greece] the next day.  The Turk who accompanied us had promised to take us to Greece."

Thirsty for Death

"Initially we drove, then we walked, and then we finally drove again.  In one village, five other women joined us.  Three of them were Georgian and two were Armenians from Tbilisi. The Turk walked along the river, and we followed him.”

“We were in a field when it became dark.  We urged him to stop and start a fire somewhere, but he refused.  He seemed to know the trails well as it was dark and he had not lit the road.  It was freezing and raining, and the wind was blowing bitterly.”

“It was already midnight when we reached a small shack in the forest.  The man stopped, took off his bag, drank tea and served it to us.  But, when one of us, a fifty-year-old woman, tried to start a fire, he slapped her, and she fell back.  We did not speak because the Turk had warned us not to say anything unless we wanted to be arrested.  He said the police were everywhere.  The man forbade us to even dream about fire.”

“We walked the entire next day and night before finally reaching a swamp. We did not know to cross the swamp. The Turk ran and we followed him. We got out of the swamp, and then we went through a forest and crossed many rivers.”

“None of us carried bags at that point having dropped everything along our way as we became tired.  Our clothes were shredded into pieces, and we  looked like beggars.  Nobody had food.  The Turk occasionally threw pieces of bread at us, though it was not enough for everyone.  It was night when an Armenian woman shouted that her relative and another girl had been left behind.  We signaled to the Turk to wait for them, but he refused.  We insisted, or else we would cry loudly.”

“We saw them… The young girls were shivering and could not walk.  We stopped.  It was night and pitch black.  We fell asleep there.  At dawn, the Turk roused us. We did not know what to do since [we realized] the two girls had died [that night].  Crying, we buried them so that the animals would not disturb their bodies.”

“We continued on our way.  It was still dark when we reached the field.  The Turk made us gather money and give it to a shepherd.  We crossed the field and reached rocks.  We had to walk along a narrow path.  The Turk warned us against holding onto sand and roots because they were not safe.  We dreamed of death, but we felt sorry for our families who would not be able to see our bodies.  We had no way out but to cross the place.  We could hardly move because of hunger, cold, and shock.”

“A young woman fell into a deep ravine, and we could not look back.  If we did, we would have also fallen into the ravine.  The girl who was behind her screamed so loudly that we nearly fell into the ravine ourselves…”

In Greece we were tied up and raped …

“It was night when the Turk gave us a sign that we were approaching the Greek border.  We could not move anymore and sat down and fell asleep.  Some police dressed in civilian clothe s woke us.  They had guns and demanded our passports.  The Turk was not there.  The police searched us there and found our passports with the Turkish visas in one of the bags.”

“We got into a car and they drove us across the Greek border without visas to the city of Alexandroupoli.  We were put up in a house there, and Greek woman looked after us and gave us food.”

“On the third day, some of us were allowed to leave the house and found our way to Saloniki.  Four of us stayed back.  The next day, the four men who had brought us to the house returned.  We could walk, but our health was very poor; we were sick and coughing. Without asking our permission, they tried to have sex with Thea, two other girls, and me. We resisted, but they took us down into the basement and locked the door.  At least our hostess did not stop feeding us.”

“The next evening, we found ourselves in a similar situation that we had faced in Turkey.  People demanded sex from us and paid money to our ‘owner.’  We were so sick that we refused to do anything.  Then they tied us up and raped us.  We left the basement after this happened.” 

“They finally allowed us to go, but we had no money to even get to Saloniki.  We had heard that it was easier to get a job there, but we did not know the way.  Two girls parted with us, and Thea and I continued on our way together.  We [eventually] met a Georgian woman from Kaspi District in Georgia in the suburbs [of Alexandroupoli].  She worked as a nurse for a Greek family.  She helped us to spend several nights in a house and promised to find a job for us.  We did not care about how much we would be paid.”

“We finally found jobs.  I was caring for a sixty-year-old woman, even though I needed medical care myself.  The woman died three months later, and I went to Saloniki with the money I had earned.  I have been looking after another old woman since I arrived here.  Her children pay me good money, and I live in her house and do not have to pay for food.”

“…I have poor health.  I continue to send the extra money I earn to Georgia.  My brother has already grown up and is a manual laborer.  My mother has become very old and cannot work anymore.  I definitely want to return to Georgia, but I would like to take some money with me and open a shop there.  I would never wish anyone to go thorough the same ordeal that I have.  This is the first time I have spoken about my misfortune.  I have not even told this to the members of my own family," said Maia.

Looking at her, you would hardly believe that she is still a young woman of twenty-nine.

Gela Mtivlishvili