A New Day for the Natashas

I've been reading Victor Malarek's The Natashas a little bit at a time, because it's almost too much to take otherwise.  I can usually only read a chapter before the brutality that he describes makes me have to put it down.  There is also so much information in this book that I'll probably be writing posts on it for months to come.

So it only makes sense that I start with the prologue--especially since that very prologue is making headlines around the world today.  The Natashas begins by setting the scene with nineteen-year-old Ukranian Marika, who has been promised a waitressing job in Tel Aviv that, of course, doesn't exist.  Marika is flown instead to Cairo, trafficked across the Israeli/Egyptian border, and smuggled across the desert by bedouins.  She eventually is imprisoned in a brothel in Tel Aviv and told that she had to work off a $20,000 debt for her travel to Israel.  The prologue says,

"While servicing the steady stream of clients, Marika found one thing particularly puzzling.  Most didn't distinguish between the girls' ethnic backgrounds.  It didn't matter whether they were from Russia, Moldova, Romania or Ukraine.  In the eyes of the men, they were all Russian.  Even stranger was the way that many of the men addressed them: 'They called us Natashas... to them, we were all Natashas... 

Natasha was my nightmare.  Marika was my salvation.  I never told any of these men my real name.

And they never asked."  

Much of the book so far has examined the sex trafficking trade of Eastern European women and girls--many trafficked straight out of orphanages.  What I've read has been weighing on me heavily, especially a particularly disturbing chapter called "The Breaking Grounds."  So imagine my delight when @notforsale and @eastmanj discovered this news story last night:

Tel Aviv Police Hunt Head of Women Trafficking Ring

"Tel Aviv police are searching for Jacky Yazady, suspected of heading Israel's largest women trafficking network, following a crackdown on what they say is Israel's largest human-trafficking ring, allegedly responsible for smuggling thousands of women from the former Soviet Union into Israel, as well as Cyprus, Belgium and England, and forcing them into prostitution. (....)

The gang allegedly recruited thousands of women from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Uzbekistan by promising them work in Israel as waitresses or dancers. The women were then flown to Egypt, and from there they were smuggled across the border by Bedouin. (....)

According to Chief Superintendent Pini Avraham of the Tel Aviv Police's Central Unit, this is the largest trafficking ring in Israel, and one of the largest in Europe.

'The suspects essentially went on a shopping spree for women throughout the former Soviet Union,' he said. 'We are talking about over 2,000 women who, we suspect, were forced to work as prostitutes via threats and violence, in Israel and Cyprus and, later, in Belgium and England as well.'" (Article by Yuval Goren, Haaretz Correspondent)

From the pages of this book straight to the front pages of worldwide newspapers: I think I can read a bit more tonight, because tomorrow is a new day for the Natashas.