Victor Malarek - The Natashas

PENGUIN CANADA

THE NATASHAS

VICTOR MALAREK has been a journalist for more than thirty years. In 1971, he broke a front-page story that set the stage for his move into the world of investigative journalism. It involved the tragic suicides of three teenage boys in a mismanaged Montreal juvenile detention center. In 1976, Malarek joined The Globe and Mail, where he garnered three prestigious Governor Generals Awards for meritorious public service journalism. From 1990 to 2000, he was host of CBCs investigative documentary program the fifth estate. His work on the show earned him a Gemini Award as Canadas top broadcast journalist in 1997. He is the author of four books, including the bestselling Hey Malarek!, and is now an investigative journalist on CTVs current-affairs show W-FIVE.

Also by Victor Malarek

Gut Instinct

Merchants of Misery

Havens Gate

Hey... Malarek!

THE

NATASHAS

THE NEW GLOBAL

SEX TRADE

V I C T O R

MALAREK

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada),

a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc., 2003

Published in this edition, 2004

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright Victor Malarek, 2003

Author representation: Westwood Creative Artists

94 Harbord Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1G6

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Manufactured in Canada.

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Malarek, Victor, 1948

The Natashas : the new global sex trade / Victor Malarek.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-14-301259-2

1. Prostitution. 2. Child prostitution. 3. Forced labor.

I. Title.

HQ117.M34 2004 306.74 C2004-903906-7

American Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data available

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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For my daughter, Larissa
With love

Authors Note

These women and girls are victims of rape.

They have suffered enough. To ensure

that they do not endure further humiliation or

embarrassment, their names have been changed.

OH , NATASHA! NATASHA!

Marika was hit by a blast of hot, dry air as she emerged from the aircraft at Cairos international airport. The tall, green-eyed, nineteen-year-old blonde looked around, bewildered. Exhausted and nervous, she shuffled into the customs line. An olive-faced officer thumbed through her passport, shot a cursory glance in her direction and stamped an entry visa onto a blank page. When she emerged into the jammed arrival area with her one piece of luggage in hand, she was met by a burly Russian. He grunted her name. She nodded and he grabbed her firmly by the arm, escorting her briskly to a tan, dust-covered, four-wheel-drive jeep.

Crammed in the back seat were three other womentwo from Moldova and one from Russiaall in their late teens. The girls were silent. They looked pensive and frightened. The driver shoved Marika into the front passenger side and wedged his beefy gut behind the wheel. We have no time to waste, he bellowed in Russian. I have to get to the rendezvous point in two hours.

With a furious lurch, the vehicle lunged forward. The ride was bumpy and deathly quiet. As the jeep barreled deep into the hard-baked, scorching desert, Marika closed her eyes and silently prayed.

Weeks earlier, a garish, rotund woman at a recruitment agency in her hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine, had spoken excitedly of the job she had arranged for Marikaa stint as a waitress in Tel Aviv. At first, Marika had been apprehensive. She had heard of young women being lured away by jobs that didnt exist only to be forced into prostitution. The recruiter, though, was adamant, swearing up and downgoing so far as to invoke the names of Jesus, Joseph and Marythat this offer was on the up-and-up.

Marika was the perfect dupe. She was desperate for work. Her mother was sick and her father was an unemployed, miserable drunk. Her two younger sisters were wasting away. The job offer was her only chance to make things better. It was a risk; she felt it in every fiber of her body. But it was one she knew she just had to take. The unsettling twist in the job offer was the unusual travel arrangementa serpentine route that bore the earmarks of an espionage novel. She would be flown from Kyiv to Vienna. There she would switch planes to Cyprus, where she would board another plane for Cairo. Once in Egypt, she was be driven overland to Tel Aviv. Marika voiced her suspicions but the recruiter was persuasive, telling her it had to do with saving huge amounts of money on airfares. Now, after shed spent two days traveling, Marikas dream of a new job was fading by the mile.

The jeep ground to a stop outside a sun-baked village. The driver leapt out and approached two armed Bedouin men. They exchanged a few words. He handed them an envelope and ordered the women out of the vehicle.

For the first time that day, Marika spoke up. I said I wanted to go back home, she recalled. The Russian pig hit me across the face very hard and told me to shut up. My mouth was bleeding and I began to weep.

The driver got back into the jeep and drove off in a cloud of dust, leaving Marika and the other women in the custody of the Bedouin guides. The men were eerie figures, wrapped in tawny robes and scarves with rifles slung over their shoulders and long, curved daggers dangling from their waists. The girls watched in wonder as the men mounted their camels. They barked out an order in Arabic and waved menacingly at the women to follow. The tiny caravan set out across the Sinai Desert, the women scurrying behind the camels on foot.

It was so hot and we were so very thirsty, but the Arab men taking us across the desert did not care. They kept shouting at us. I have no idea what they were saying. They just yelled, Marika recounted.