Valentina

"I had a nervous break-down. I wanted to escape from this place and asked a client to help me. He turned out to be one of them and I was beaten up by the owners. There was nowhere to run -- there were bars on the windows and bodyguards all the time, day and night."

Valentina, a 27-year-old psychologist and a social worker, arrived in Israel in August 1998 from Moldova expecting to work as a company representative. She was instead stripped of her travel documents and locked in an apartment for two months - forced to work as a prostitute.

"The conditions were terrible. One girl was kept to work in the basement for eight months. It was damp there and she got tuberculosis as a result. Most of the girls had different diseases - venereal and others related to their reproductive organs. I do not wish even to my enemies to go through what we went through."

Valentina eventually succeeded in escaping with another woman by jumping from the first floor of an apartment building.

-Amnesty International

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