Twenty-First-Century Slaves: International People Trafficking

By Ernie Hasler

Nico and his sister, Maria, are orphaned in the fighting when a vicious new regime takes over their government. The siblings soon find themselves kidnapped, separated, and put under the power of evil traffickers.

Nico and Maria are now two of thirty million slaves who are invisible in this corrupt world. About half are sex slaves, and about half are menial workers. The rise in refugee numbers plays in to the hands of the people-trafficking gangs. This oversupply of young flesh makes life cheap, and slaves are discarded like any commodity in surplus.

Nico and his sister are separated, and the greatest fear is that they will never see each other again. They are powerless in this cruel organisation. Their predicament and pain are real, as it is for all these thirty million individuals. It is not merely a bad dream for them. Every day and night are the same hopeless grind.

The only answer is for us, if we believe in Yahweh, to make room for our brothers and sisters by pressurising retailers into proving that they pay for improved working conditions and access to healthcare and education. Tax laws should make everyone properly account for their wealth with no loopholes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546298212

Ernie Hasler

Ernie Hasler started working as an engineering apprentice in Scotland at the age of 16. He retired as a health and safety advisor after more than a half-century of work on some big jobs, also becoming the first advisor in Scotland to gain the specialist NEBOSH Diploma in environmental management. Hasler became active in the trade union early in his career and saw many improvements in health and safety during his time. These important improvements stemmed from the Health and Safety at Work Act in 1974, which led to slow but significant increase in worker safety and welfare.In his spare time, he ran a small charity, Plant Tree Save Planet starting women's tree nurseries in poor countries, mostly funded by himself and his two sisters, however, he closed it when due to poor health and age he could not effectively check out recipients. He continues to fund tree planting through Trees for the Future, and helping poor families start agri-forestry farms. He has funded the planting of thousands of trees and shrubs, and he continues to do so, year on year.He has been a voluntary trustee with Emmaus Glasgow for twenty four years, helping take it from an aspirational concept to a functioning community of up to twenty-seven previously homeless people. 75 years of experience has taught him that supporting people with needs on positive pathways is much more productive than punitive sanctions.

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© 2018 Ernie Hasler. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/20/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9822-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9821-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018911184

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

List of Main Characters

Introduction

Chapter 1 Descent into Hell

Chapter 2 The Journey

Chapter 3 Nico

Chapter 4 Maria

Chapter 5 Balkan Stronghold

Chapter 6 The Kitchen

Chapter 7 The Country Estate

Chapter 8 The Hotel

Chapter 9 Freda

Chapter 10 Charlie

Chapter 11 Herr Shoemaker and Harold Szirtes

Chapter 12 Valda and Senca

Chapter 13 Team Building

Chapter 14 The Boilers

Chapter 15 Preparations

Chapter 16 The Gathering

Chapter 17 Warlords

Chapter 18 Manhunt

Chapter 19 Dominance

Chapter 20 Felix Hienmann

Chapter 21 Prince Gets into Trouble

Chapter 22 The Challenge

Chapter 23 The Football Team

Chapter 24 The Cooking Competition

Chapter 25 Reunion with Maria

Chapter 26 Prince Is Sold

Chapter 27 Strategic Mistake

Chapter 28 NATA’SA Disappears

Chapter 29 Shoemaker Reports Back

Chapter 30 Football Play-Offs

Chapter 31 The Second Gathering

Chapter 32 Visit to Grandmother

Chapter 33 Preparing for the Journey

Chapter 34 The Train Journey

Chapter 35 The New Hotel

Chapter 36 The Boat

Chapter 37 International Football

Chapter 38 The Escape

Author’s Comment

About the Author

Preface

T his book Twenty-First-Century Slaves was conceived when I, a founder member and trustee of Emmaus Glasgow, a homeless charity, when attending Emmaus UK’s Annual Assemblies, heard on two separate occasions different refugee women speak of their harrowing experiences as trafficked slaves controlled by ruthless men.

Twenty-First-Century Slaves is an attempt to show that for most slaves like these women, their terrible circumstances are not of their own choosing, and they are just the same as you and me, laughing and hurting with hopes and dreams, though their few positives are usually diminished by sheer fatigue or drugs supplied and administered by their ruthless masters and mistresses.

They are always dependent upon and under the control of cruel men and women who exploit them without mercy.

This odious slavery occurs worldwide, and rich glitzy centres like New York, London, Paris, and Berlin exploit slaves on a huge scale, whether they are sex workers; low-grade menial workers washing kitchen work surfaces, dishes, floors, and soiled bedding; or labourers used for brutal physical tasks and suffering unsafe exposure to harmful substances.

Yes, modern slavery is a very nasty business, all of it being under the counter and occurring out of sight. One hears of the often church-attending middle-class and rich people, male and female alike, who can easily hire a young woman or young man for sex in many of the glitzy hotels in big cities and towns. Many of these slaves are in bondage to ruthless agents who pay no attention to human rights.

I am haunted by a terrible image in my head, a real photograph of two very young children imprisoned in a wicker pet-carrying basket who are available for sale in a market somewhere. The basket is open weave, and you can easily see two naked and very frightened young girls waiting to be sold.

Previously published as House of Attila, Lost Children of the World, and No Rights, No Dignity by the author, and now highly refined through many rewrites, Twenty-First-Century Slaves is trying, against the current of self-interest, to represent the world’s twenty-seven million slaves.

List of Main Characters

Nico Sokota is the nineteen-year-old hero of the story. The brother of Maria, he is captured by people traffickers.

Maria Sokota is the eighteen-year-old heroine of the story. The sister of Nico, she is captured by people traffickers.

Harold Szirtes is an extreme Serbian nationalist eccentric and the head of a ruthless gangster empire based in the Balkans.

Imiri Szirtes is the twenty-year-old son of Harold Szirtes, the gangster boss.

Herr Shoemaker is the strange and eccentric personal assistant of Harold Szirtes.

Karl is the gang boss’s cruel enforcer.

Felix is the gang boss’s creepy intelligence officer.

Valda is the nineteen-year-old assistant cook at the House of Attila who becomes Nico’s friend.

Freda is the Harold Szirtes’s Hotel housekeeper who befriends and looks after Maria.

Senca is a beautiful twenty-year-old fashion model working for Herr Shoemaker at the House of Attila.

Miljana and Milinka are twins, now eighteen years of age, who were sold like pets in a wicker basket when they were only three years of age into slavery. Now working as servants at the House of Attila, they have survived unspeakable abuse but have clung to each other through episodes that would have broken others.

Introduction

T wenty-First-Century Slaves is a compelling and chilling fictional tale of crime and suspense about the evil world we live in.

Only because we need a place to begin to represent this universal abomination, we start the story in the hills above Sarajevo a few months before the savage siege begins in 1991.

The UN estimates that roughly 27 million to 30 million individuals are currently caught in the slave trade industry. About 14,000,000 of these are prostitutes, with a turnover of $186 billion. These are staggering numbers, yet someone pays for the services of these enslaved people.

Obviously, you need to have some surplus money to pay someone to do it to you or let you do it to them.

But let’s get back to rich people. After all, they are the ones who drive the trade.

In 2015 Oxfam said that if current trends were to continue, the richest 1 per cent would own more than 50 per cent of the world’s wealth by 2016.

Put another way, 1 per cent of the world’s population own more wealth than the other 99 per cent.

The Bible says that the Creator of this world gave Israel instructions in the Jubilee laws not to let wealth accumulate in only the hands of a few individuals, and yet it is Isaac’s sons, of whom I am one, who have led this selfish act of disobedience.

I am Scottish and British, a mongrel mixture of the remnants of the lost ten tribes of Israel better known as the Celtic nations.

There is ancient mystery and secrecy involving references to extreme violence and mild sexual references, typical of the readers’ own sexual experiences, woven into this very readable and exciting, suspenseful adventure story.

Twenty-First-Century Slaves is a work of fiction, but what it describes is happening in a street near you tonight.

Someone needs to cry out against this outrage, where money and property have more value than a human being and where we defend the status quo of the rich with nuclear missiles.

I was a speaker against child slavery for a time, but when I investigated it, I found that the universal advice of people working with child slaves seemed to be, Please don’t wreck their opportunities to work and earn for their families.

If you really want to help, put in place international standards of health, safety, and environmental management. And give all workers healthcare and access to education.

That was the unanimous opinion of representatives of the several hundred child slaves in several of the poorest countries, which ideas put my middle-class opinions into clear perspective.

Chapter 1

Descent into Hell

T he dancing was in full swing when suddenly there was the deafening crack of a single shot being fired into the barn roof as half a dozen soldiers burst into the New Year celebrations.

The young people were quickly separated from the adults, the latter of whom were brutally kept back by kicks, blows, and the ultimate threat of the soldiers’ guns. One of the soldiers shouted, Over there, you Bosnian brats! Keep moving, or you will feel the steel studs of my terrible whip!

It was the first, dark hours of 1992 when Nico and Maria Sokota, brother and sister, were pushed and dragged across the snow and bundled roughly into the back of a lorry, along with eleven other teenagers, by the ruthless soldiers. Then they were driven before a lithe, bearded man cracking a multithronged whip. He shepherded around behind them on his toes like a trained boxer. The terrified youths cringed and scampered before him as they heard the loud cries and screams of terror of their parents and neighbours, who were in the now burning barn.

The residents of the little hamlet had hoped for a better year to come.

The charismatic leader of this raiding squad was not carrying a gun like his soldiers. Instead, he carried a curious sword with strange engravings on each side of its blade.

Chapter 2

The Journey

A s the youths lay on the floor of the lorry, the screams and shouting were suddenly overwhelmed by long, loud bursts from many automatic rifles.

Nico whispered to Maria, If we are separated, do not give up hope that we will find each other.

One of the soldiers kicked Nico hard in his crotch and shouted, Stop talking!

Niko rolled over, holding his nuts and gasping for breath. He was sorely winded by the cruel kick.

After a journey of about an hour, the lorry parked beside another lorry, and all the youths were roughly kicked and pushed out. Nico whispered desperately to his sister, Maria, if we get separated, I will find you.

As Nico had feared, the young women were separated from the boys and reloaded into the back of the original lorry, which then drove off. Two gun-carrying female soldiers were guarding the frightened and now tearful human cargo, most of whom were hardly into their teenage years.

The young men were loaded into another lorry, which followed the first lorry. On this one, two gun-carrying male soldiers were guarding the young and powerless victims.

Both lorries were now slowly heading through the bleak and cold winter darkness of early morning in an easterly direction, preceded by four moped riders scouting the roads ahead. The riders often stopped, reversed direction, and turned onto farm roads as they carefully avoided detection.

Neither Maria nor Nico was aware of the time or the fact that they hadn’t eaten for two days. They were ill with shock and grief.

Finally, the lorries, with their headlights switched off and running only their sidelights, approached an industrial area on the outskirts of a Serbian city and drove through the open gates of a factory yard. The gates were immediately closed behind them.

The young women were roughly kicked and pushed off the lorry and into a corrugated steel shed. The young men were incarcerated in another shed at the opposite side of the yard, and both sheds were locked with heavy padlocks.

The youths were left locked in the sheds all the next day.

One of the young men started banging on the door and shouting, Let me out! Let me out!

One of the soldiers unlocked the door and shouted at him, We do not tolerate troublemakers! With the butt of his rifle, the soldier hit the youth full in the face, breaking his nose. The soldier turned and left the shed, locking the door behind him.

Although shocked by the absolute violence, Nico and another youth bent down and attended to the injured youth. Nico said, Keep your head up. Keep your head up.

Fortunately, each of the two sheds had a flushing toilet with a washbasin, and cold water was available from its tap. Gently holding the injured youth’s head up above the basin, Nico used icy water from the tap to stop the nosebleed.

Later that evening, the doors of the sheds were opened briefly, and several big loaves of bread were pushed inside. The doors were then closed and padlocked.

As had happened earlier in the young men’s shed, one of the young women in the other shed shouted, Let me out! Let me out!

The door of the shed was unlocked, and two female soldiers grabbed the youth. One of them shouted, Stop making all that noise!

The youth continued to shout: Let me go! Let me go!

One of the female soldiers held her face down on top of a table. The other female soldier went out then re-entered, holding an electrical cable. After pulling the youth’s jeans off, she thrashed the young woman’s buttocks hard, until the captive was reduced to a sobbing, quivering object of misery. Then the two women soldiers roughly dumped the young woman on the floor and left the shed, locking the doors behind them.

Each of the sheds had an old wood-burning stove with a metal pipe leading the smoke out of the corrugated steel roof and plenty of logs. But the sheds were very cold, particularly during the night, as the outside temperatures plunged to well below freezing.

Nico and Maria tried to sleep in the insecurity and cold of their separate prisons, but they could not. The terrible scenes and sounds of the attack on the village were deeply etched in their young minds, and their thoughts were swimming in deep whirlpools of grief. They were both previously aware of the ruthless cruelty of the conflict, and both knew in their hearts that their parents were now dead.

Suddenly, Nico felt very cold. It was not just from the effect of the coldness of the winter temperature, but a coldness caused by an inner fear for himself and his young sister.

The next morning, before it was light, the young women were roughly loaded onto their lorry by their female guards, and the lorry doors were closed and locked.

Then the young men were loaded into their lorry by their male guards, and the lorry doors were closed and locked.

The gates of the yard were then quietly opened, and the two lorries drove slowly out and onto the road.

The lorries came to a junction with a major road. One lorry took the road to the south, and the other lorry turned onto the road leading north. Both lorries were cattle transporters, so the youths could see through the ventilation slits. They were alarmed and filled with a chilling fear when they saw that the lorries were going in different directions.

Chapter 3

Nico

N ico felt very cold and small as he silently thought about the things that had happened and the fact that his younger sister was speeding away from him. The tears rolled down his cheeks in absolute hopeless grief and confusion. He felt weak and unable to get up from the straw on the floor of the lorry.

Nico finally fell asleep and then awoke to the hard bumps and jolts of the lorry. Although he did not know it, in his subconscious, he was growing up very fast. Through this mental grief and confusion, the one thought and image that fixed in his mind was of his sister, Maria. He thought repeatedly, regardless of how weak and powerless I am in relation to our adversaries, my commitment to my sister is absolute and greater than the power of their guns. Regardless of his grief and misery, Nico clearly knew he must try to find his sister.

All the young men in the lorry were running a fever, shivering, and huddling closer together to keep warm on the floor, which mercifully had a deep covering of new straw.

Nico, like the others, was running a fever. Time had no meaning as they made very slow progress, stopping frequently and making long detours to avoid areas of conflict and groups of soldiers whose alcohol-fuelled actions were unpredictable.

Nico began to hallucinate, and his imagination took him back to the recent past. He thought he could see his mother, father, and young sister all living a happy family life on an idyllic small farm in the hills overlooking Sarajevo. They all worked in their spare time running the small farm as an assurance against the harsh winds of change that were so often experienced in this volatile corner of Europe. However, the family had been unable to foresee the terrible changes that lay ahead, including the fiendish hatred stirred up in the hearts of previously good friends, neighbours, and customers.

In his hallucination, Nico drove an old tractor that pulled various farm implements on the sixty-three acres of good fertile land. Anything that needed moving, lifting, or transporting on the farm was Nico’s job.

With his father’s constant encouragement, he enjoyed working on the farm year-round. It also built up his muscles. Their father had taught his whole family well, repeatedly saying, Good fortune doesn’t just come to you. You have to work for good fortune and play hard for your luck in every situation you find yourself in.

Nico’s father took great delight in quoting Proverbs 14:23, which supported his pet philosophy, by far his favourite subject: All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

This was often rewarded by family members with, Oh, here we go again!

This principle of sticking to it and winning had ingrained itself and become part of Nico’s character even at his early age. This strong personal characteristic had made him captain of the school football team, and his determination, physical strength, and leadership had been significant in winning many a difficult game for the team and the school.

Football was his greatest personal preoccupation. Nico would get up early in the mornings to get his farm work done before going to school, to give him free time to join the local informal football games played almost every evening during the summer. He just loved playing football. It was where he was totally alive and in his element.

Suddenly the lorry stopped, and the back door was opened. The guards ordered the young men to get out, roughly pushing and prodding them towards the exit.

They were in the enclosed sheds of a cattle auction market with a small auction ring surrounded by twelve men at the circumference. Each youth was paraded in front of the auction goers, who engaged in serious bidding for particular youths as they were inclined.

Nico with his good physique inspired quite a bit of bidding and was finally bought by a big burly character in a bloodstained army officer’s uniform with long black hair.

A label with Major Szirtes printed on it was tied round Nico’s neck, and then he was returned to the enclosed shed.

After the auction the big burly character came to the shed with his young teenage son to collect his newly bought property. The army officer looked at Nico straight in the eye and said coldly, You are a displaced person without any identity and without any human rights. You are my property now. You work for me, you depend on me, and without me you will die. If you work hard for me on my farm, life will not be too bad. However, if you give me cause for anger, your life will be short and painful. Do you understand?

Nico, still in a state of grief, with his head bowed, nodded and quietly said, Yes.

The man smiled a cold mechanical smile and said, My name is Harold Szirtes, and this is my son, Imiri Szirtes. Come. We have a long drive in front of us.

Chapter 4

Maria

M aria was very frightened as she sped along the road in a lorry like the one Nico was in. She, too, had noticed the lorries driving in opposite directions at the road junction, and she now felt very alone. Terrified and in a state of shock and grief after what had happened, she could not really comprehend the loss of her parents.

She was a real family girl. The farm her father had built up was a haven of security, where she and her mother spent many happy hours together keeping alive and practising the old country domestic skills and winning many awards for their farm produce at local country products shows and festivals.

The great love of Maria’s life was her beautiful pony Prince, a large white stallion, a present from her father on her twelfth birthday for doing well at school.

She spent time with Prince every morning and every evening, and they took part in many pony club events together.

When they were together, Prince responded to every thought that Maria had, sometimes almost before she formed the ideas in her mind. He also visibly responded to everything she said with absurdly comical expressions made with his big eyes, his ears, and noisy expulsions of his breath.

Maria experienced deep pain worrying about what had happened to Prince during the terrible ambush. She wondered where he might be now. Silent tears rolled down her face. She was so miserable that she began to think she would be better off dead. However, she knew that her mother and father would expect her to make the best of whatever circumstances she found herself in.

Suddenly the lorry stopped, and the back door was opened. The guards ordered the young women to get out, roughly pushing and prodding them towards the exit. This time, remembering the cruel example back in the shed, they were submissive and offered no resistance.

After they were in the enclosed back yard of a hotel, the young women were herded through the back door of the hotel and marched along a corridor on the ground floor before entering a small dining room.

There were two men and two women in the room. They proceeded to examine the young women in a quite offhand way, making jokes and laughing a lot.

The two men and two women were suppliers of illegal hotel workers and prostitutes to the international hotel and brothel trade.

None of the young women had any form of identification or proof of nationality.

Maria was physically a slow developer and still looked like a young girl, so she was initially destined to be one of the many illegal hotel workers.

The two groups of young women were escorted into two separate rooms and were told to select two complete changes of very cheap clothing. They were instructed to wear one set and pack the spare set in a travel bag.

When the young women were dressed and ready with their packed bags, two female guards came in to the room. One of the guards announced loudly, "Listen very carefully to what I am telling you. You are now displaced persons with no means of identification or human rights. You are illegal immigrants in whatever country we place you in, and most local people passionately hate illegal immigrants. You now belong to and are totally dependent on a very powerful international organisation that does not tolerate dissent from any of its people.

Anyone who does not cooperate with the organisation will be severely punished, and anyone who goes against the organisation will be killed. These are the basic rules. There are no exceptions allowed.

"You are now being taken to a local hotel to work for a while where you can be assessed and trained for work in other countries. Although you will never have any human rights or normal freedoms, and although you may not particularly like what you must do, if you apply yourselves and are useful, life can be reasonably good in this almost invisible international organisation.

For your own sake, clearly understand your absolute powerlessness and your dependence on pleasing your immediate supervisor. Otherwise your life will be full of pain and possibly very short. The choice is yours.

The still severely shocked young women were led out and loaded into two minibuses. There were six young women, two guards, and a driver in Maria’s vehicle. It was only four o’clock in the morning as the people carrier drove along the deserted road and headed towards the lights of a built-up area just visible in the distance.

As they drove along, Maria noticed a road sign indicating that the vehicle was heading south-east.

The people carrier stopped at the rear of a medium-sized hotel and adjoining leisure complex. The young women were quickly and quietly ushered inside.

An elderly woman greeted the young women with words softened by a big smile.

Welcome to the world of the lost souls of the House of Attila.

Maria felt an involuntary shiver as she heard the description the lost souls.

The woman led them to a crowded bedroom containing six single beds with a lavatory and shower. There was little room for anything else. The elderly woman said simply, This is your bedroom. It is up to you to make the best of it for each other. Leave your things here and quickly come with me. I will explain what you have to do.

She then led them downstairs and into a large laundry room where there was a large worktable with eight wooden chairs around it. The room clearly doubled as the staff room and equipment store.

The woman pointed to some mugs hanging on hooks above a marble work surface and said, We only have twenty minutes before we have to go to work. Make yourself some tea with boiling water from the urn. There is sugar and bread in that cupboard, and milk and cheese in the fridge.

When they all had tea and sandwiches, they sat round the table. The woman said, My name is Freda. I am the housekeeper. My job is to make this hotel’s cooking and cleaning go smoothly. Your job is to help me do that. If you don’t help me, you will be immediately taken away. I do not wish to think about your fate if that happens.

After a pause Freda continued. Let us try to find out who is good at what. There are basically two areas of work, cleaning and cooking. First, who is good at cooking?

Maria was the only girl to put her hand up. Freda said, You are very young. What experience do you have?

Maria replied, My mother …

She broke down as she remembered her mother; however, she gathered herself with great difficulty and said, My mother and I won many awards in the local country products shows and exhibitions for our farm food products.

Freda smiled at her. "Well, that’s settled. You go to the kitchen and tell the