Experiences of an Indonesian sex slave

[WannaGo]

A while back, we had a lengthy discussion about whether prostitutes choose to do that work or are forced into it. This is a story from CNN about a woman who truly had no choice. The heartbreaking part is that when she escaped and went to people she thought would help, they victimized her even worse.

Jakarta, Indonesia (CNN) -- "People see me as a strong woman," Sunarsih says, "but I was broken inside. I was always crying but I don't want other people to see my cry."

Sunarsih is not this woman's real name. She doesn't want her identity revealed. No one, not even her family, knows what happened to her.

Her story starts 15 years ago, when she was just 17 years old.

"My family was very poor, I had to drop out of school," she explains. "Then I met many successful migrant workers and their stories enticed me."

Sunarsih's situation is not uncommon. Across impoverished villages in Indonesia, becoming a migrant worker is a woman's only chance for a better life.

But for some, the pursuit of their dreams quickly becomes a nightmare.

Sunarsih went to what she thought was a legitimate company. She received training in the basics of housekeeping, a passport for the first time.

"The company announced that an Arab employer was looking for a virgin, brown-skinned, tall housemaid," she remembers. "I was chosen among hundreds. I was so happy, it was like a dream come true. I was so proud. My friends told me how lucky I was to be chosen that quickly."

But two weeks after the Arab man took her to his home in Saudi Arabia, she said the horrors began.

"He was not my real employer. My real employer was his disabled father. The lower part of his body was paralyzed," she shuddered. "He would ask me to give him a massage using a vibrator on his penis."

At first she said no.

"He got very mad at me, he said that he wouldn't pay me," she recalled. "I didn't have the power to refuse. I didn't know where to escape."

She says his nine sons also molested her by groping her body and made her massage them and cook while they were naked.

Finally, one day she found the gate to the house unlocked, pretended to take out the garbage, and ran away. Eventually she ended up in a shelter run by Indonesians. She thought she had been saved; little did she know that the real nightmare was about to begin.

"They tricked me. I ran from a crocodile's mouth and ended up in a lion's mouth," she said.

She says she was sold to a pimp for about $1,300, made to work as a sex slave.

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[lvdkeyes]

This, of course, was not a case where she made a choice to become a prostitute.