On February 8, the World Day of Prayer and Reflection against Human Trafficking is celebrated. On the occasion of this day, the Sisters Adorers testify to Jasmine.
Jasmin is not the real name but designates a real heroine. A fighter who defeated the hell of trafficking and now forms an active part of that fight against this modern slavery.
A tragic story of poverty and marginalization as that of millions of women around the world. They descend into the hells of despair, the prelude to death because there was no dignity for them. One day in that hell a woman only offered to pray for her. That was the beginning of her liberation. Hand in hand with the Sisters Adorers religious, present in 25 countries, who have been working since 1856 under the inspiration of the charism of Saint Maria Micaela to adore God and free so many “Jazmíns”.
Jasmin
“I had finished school and started a course to get a job as a secretary. I had a dream of raising money so that I could marry my boyfriend. We had been together for four years and wanted to start a family, even though I was very young, in my mother’s opinion. But my mother got sick and that brought a lot of expenses for medical consultations. After a few months, her boss told her that he could not continue paying her if she did not go to work. After that, everything got worse.
I dropped out of my secretarial course and started taking care of a neighbour’s children so I could take care of my mother, but the pay barely gave us enough to eat and we still had to pay for her treatments and my younger brother’s school expenses.
A friend told me that she had seen on Instagram that they were offering a job in a hotel in a town that was barely an hour and a half away from my house. I contacted the hotel and they offered housing, food and pay that doubled what I made babysitting. It was quite close to my house, so on the weekends I could go back to help my mother and little brother.
The first days at the hotel were very good. I had to clean rooms and help in the kitchen. The movement of the place seemed a bit strange to me, some people seemed to live there, but we didn’t talk, it was the hotel’s policy that employees did not communicate with customers.
After completing my first week of work, when Friday arrived I wanted to return home. I asked for my weekly pay and they told me that they did not have enough collection and to wait for the following weekend. They asked for my identification documents for paperwork with the government and to register me as a worker, and they told me that they would keep them because they were waiting for an inspection. I had never had a job registered with the government so I thought that was normal.
But one night one of the hotel owners called me to a room, I had seen him before because he was my boss’s partner. He asked me to accompany him to another hotel, which was not far away because another employee had an accident and they needed help. That they would pay me a little extra for the inconvenience and that it would be a week or two before we would return. It seemed like a good opportunity to raise more money for my family. I imagined that I could even buy my nephew new sneakers, who needed them for school.
That same night we travelled. The trip took something like two hours. I was tired from the day’s work so I fell asleep and couldn’t see where we were going. It was a mistake that I recalled in my mind for the next three years. We arrived at another hotel, a little smaller, there were drunken people at the door, smoking and talking loudly, with some women around who caught my attention because they looked like prostitutes.
I settled in and slept, unaware that the worst nightmare of my life had begun. From there I was in a long tunnel of screams, mistreatment, and abuse. I had to sell my body simply to be able to eat. They charged me for food and a bed, but my work never finished the debt so that I could raise more money and return home. He had no phone and no documents. I knew that my family and my boyfriend would already be very worried about me. I wanted to get out of there to find help, and I realized that I couldn’t. Catalina, a co-worker, supported me like a good friend. She told me that if I didn’t want to die it was better to collaborate.
Weeks, months and then years passed. I was very skinny, had lost my appetite, and in the evenings drank a lot of alcohol with clients partly to get them to drink from the bar and partly to make the aftermath with them less painful. It was not me, just a body that barely survived. I wanted to die. I could never hug my mother and brother again. Neither starts a family. I knew I would leave my boyfriend behind, I was dirty for him and he didn’t deserve to be with someone as worn out as me. I knew the risks of diseases but somehow I wanted to catch one that could kill me at once.
One afternoon it was hot, the sun had not yet set and the customers would take time to arrive. I had time and I went with Catalina to smoke some cigarettes while we listened to music on the radio before taking a bath and getting ready for the night. Some middle-aged women approached us, they were wearing clean and neat clothes. They were not in their midst, they did not belong to the hotel.
They greeted us kindly, I thought they were looking for an address. Strangely they stopped to talk and introduced themselves. They were calm in conversation, they even seemed happy. I was sure they had no idea what we were doing there, they were ladies and they had nothing in common with us. But they weren’t hurting and they weren’t at risk by standing there. They said they were nuns, from the church. I got a lump in my throat remembering when I went to mass as a child with my grandmother Lola.
I was sorry that they thought they could help us. We had no future, and neither did God’s forgiveness. We had turned our lives into fear and sin. Many mistakes and bad decisions that we could never change.
They kept coming to talk to us. Sometimes they brought us fresh fruits or some bakery bun that they cooked. They did what my mother did: they smiled, they listened, and they shook hands. One day Sister Marta, when I cried with her telling her about my family, told me that she would pray for me if I agreed. I thought that no one deserved a prayer like me and I told her so. To which she replied that they and God did love me. It was just one sentence but I went back to my room and burst into tears for months I had not cried.
The fight began. My soul ached and a knot tightened in the pit of my stomach. Should I have hoped that something good could still happen to me? I couldn’t uselessly delude myself, I wouldn’t hold on.
One afternoon Sister Marta told me that if I wanted she would take me with her. It gave me joy and terror. And if they killed her? What if the police stopped us and took us to jail? What if they came with my family? Would anyone other than the Sisters believe what happened to me? I didn’t even have identification and my health was not good. I didn’t look good either, thin, with prostitute clothes, ruined hair and excessive makeup to hide some blows I received.
For a few weeks, the sisters planned how I could run away with them. We agreed one afternoon Catalina would take care of keeping the boss busy so that I would go out quietly. One block from the hotel the sisters had parked their car. They took me to the police station, and they spoke for me. I was terrified, I was afraid of saying something that would ruin everything. Then we went to the sisters’ house, where there were more people. A doctor examined me and gave Sister Marta some instructions, I think about remedies. Another sister led me into a room, the bed had clean sheets and my size clothes were on it. I spent more than two hours in the shower, I wanted to wash my body and soul, but the stains on my soul could not be removed even if I cried. The fear of being found did not leave me.
I fell asleep in bed without eating. The sisters let me rest as much as I wanted. I think I woke up in the afternoon of the day after arriving. A young sister was waiting sitting at the door of my room with a book in her hands. She smiled at me trying with her look to assure me that it had not been a dream, that I was safe at home. I couldn’t speak, I just looked at her and followed her to a dining room where Sister Marta was coming and going setting the table for the snack.
After a few weeks, my health remarkably recovered, and I gained weight again. I felt stronger. Somehow the sisters got back my ID. I didn’t go out into the street, I was terrified when the doorbell rang and the door opened. When I was better, they invited me to participate in the workshops they gave to other women who, like me, had been rescued from hotels. I learned a few things about utility, sewing and bakery. They had found my mother’s phone number, and they allowed me to talk to her as many times as I wanted.
But I noticed that my mother was in worse health. I asked Sister Marta, with grief because I had already put her in a lot of trouble for rescuing me, to please help me get back to my house. And so it was about four and a half years after having gone to work at the hotel loaded with illusions, I returned home.
Ten years have passed since that day. I did not marry my childhood boyfriend, but I did marry another good man who was a customer of the small bakery that I was able to start as a business. We had two children, with some difficulties in the pregnancies because my health was never the same, but they were born strong and healthy. I continue to visit the Sisters, and sometimes girls stay in my house who, like me, needed the Sisters to have an opportunity. With my husband, we are proudly an Exit Home, a transition home between the Sisters’ house and the insertion into a new life. I thank God, whom I learned to believe deeply because everything I have lived has made me the strong and firm woman that I am, a mother, an entrepreneur, and who can also support and accompany other women to get out of their prisons.
Sisters Adorers
More information about the work of the Religious Adorers in the world is HERE.