"And I just want to see the world, not just a little bit." "Anyway, I was born in a small village." "It's not interesting, you know everybody, everything." "Wherever you go, everyone knows everything about you... you feel like locked in a cage." "In order to go to Belgium, to be taken there," "I needed my father's signature on the contract." "I knew he wouldn't sign, so I took a chance." "I went to these men who selected the girls to discuss what I should do." "I had to leave, but my father wouldn't sign." "So they kind of suggested that I spend a night with them." "And I did it, so that I could go to Belgium." "I ventured to do such a thing perhaps I even knew that this could happen like that." "Not that I knew, but somehow inside I thought so." "And I surrendered to it easier than other girls." "So I went there." "I heard that there would be this screening, because I often went to Vilnius." "I attended dance classes for three years." "I learned that there was a screening in Vilnius." "A friend told me." "I went to the screening." "All I needed to do was dance a little bit, for maybe five minutes." "There were many girls, about thirty when I was there." "I danced." "Next day they called and told me to come and sign a contract." "Somehow they chose me so very easily." "I left." "We packed quickly." "We left within a week." "My friend Darija went with me." "I was very happy I was not alone." "The other girls were Russian;" "we didn't talk too much." "After all, I attended these dance classes together with Darija." "First of all we went to Cyprus where we spent a week." "These people, I wouldn't say they seemed very pleasant to me." "But I somehow thought it didn't matter." "Well, I just wanted to leave." "That was the only thought I had..." "I had to leave." "There was an incident in Cyprus." "They threw one girl out from the bus." "And beat her up." "It was not clear why, what for." "It just happened." "We all got very scared." "It was the first time that we saw that they could treat us any way they wanted." "Do what they pleased." "The passports..." "It was then I realised that I didn't have my passport with me." "I was in a foreign country, among those strange people." "All young girls and..." "At that moment I felt, I understood that I was helpless." "There was no way to fight;" "I couldn't do anything against them." "However the Russians tried." "They tried to escape, to go to the police, but it was hopeless." "In Cyprus they took us to a nightclub." "They had told us that we would dance in discos." "But now they told us that we would have to strip." "They showed us clothes and told us to choose some." "They said that we wouldn't be dancing go-go." "It would not be discos after all but nightclubs where we would have to dance striptease." "We spent a week in Cyprus like this." "Then they took us to Belgium." "Club 69." "There, they locked us up again." "There were several girls in a room." "The conditions were very poor." "Once again we were told that we would have to strip." "We would get some money for it." "In addition, we would have to convince the clients to buy us drinks." "We would get a certain percent for each drink and some money." "Then they told us that if clients wanted they could take us to a separate room where we would have to sleep with them." "My friends were angry with me." "And Darija too, we argued a lot." "Because she fought all the time, it was somehow unacceptable to her... that I liked what I did." "I didn't really like it." "I tried to get out of it but not like them." "That's how it was." "I liked it." "I cannot say that it was all fighting and nothing but." "Some clients were... we would have a talk, laugh." "Especially in that night club..." "We were in the club and Belgian guy kind of noticed me." "And he stared for so long that I finally smiled at him." "Not that I liked him or anything." "But I felt uncomfortable within myself that he was looking for such a long time." "Why?" "I smiled at him, and he was so arrogant, no smile or anything." "And then, little by little, he started approaching." "Taking another step, one more..." "Then I don't see him anymore." "As if you're nothing." "Then he takes a step closer, looks at me." "So how come you don't see me anymore." "Still closer." "So why don't you smile at me anymore?" "Something like that, with such an implication, at least that's how I understood it." "You pick me up." "You show the initiative and go first." "This is totally unacceptable for me." "Some nonsense." "It seems so unmanly and ridiculous to me." "I always thought, always hoped I would leave that nightclub." "Earn some money and start a new life." "Because I knew that I couldn't get a good job, me, a girl from Lithuania." "Besides, I could not work there legally." "Therefore, I had to pass something, to get somewhere." "So I hoped." "I was left alone." "I tried walking around looking for a job as a salesgirl in stores." "But all the people I met told me it was impossible." "Since I didn't have papers I couldn't work in Belgium." "I started missing home, Lithuania." "Everything seemed so..." "I saw the country through different eyes." "I saw that it was not that easy." "We were locked up in that club and somehow we did not see the country or what was happening." "It seemed that when I got out, there would be possibilities for me." "I would have a job and so on, find something more." "But when I was left alone, free, all to myself," "I saw that it was not so easy to get a job." "Especially without working visa: it was illegal." "My friend Darija and I came to the screening after reading an ad." "They took us to a stage in some kind of hall." "Started the music and told us to dance." "They selected over ten girls who would go to work abroad." "We were given contracts written in Greek." "Several of us discussed the contract." "Of course, nobody understood what was written there or anything." "We had maybe several hours to look at it." "And then they called us in one by one for signing." "I said I would not sign, said I needed a day to think." "They started threatening me." "They said I better think fast." "Otherwise, who knows what might happen?" "I left this culture club with my friend." "We met a foreign journalist on our way." "From Belgium, I believe." "He talked very fast, said he didn't have time to finish the conversation." "Handed us his business card and asked to meet us later in a café." "We promised to go." "On our way home we dropped by Darija's." "Her parents and her brother were there." "We told them about the situation." "There was a scandal at home." "Her brother was crying, he said, "don't go it will be bad"." "The journalist told us that these people were buying and selling girls." "By the time I arrived at her home the next day Darija's mother told me that she left for the so-called headquarters." "They were all there already." "The gilrs were supposed to leave from there." "I went there." "There was a room, no, a big hall, with beds, a dozen beds." "And all the girls were sitting with their things packed." "Waiting for somebody to pick them up from here." "I somehow tried to convince my friend to change her mind, to run away." "Then one girl came up to me and told me "it's none of my business," "I was interfering where I shouldn't"." "And if I wanted, I was free to go, of course, nobody will say anything." "And then I got into a fight with her." "I knocked her to the floor." "Suddenly, a big guy came in." "He separated me from her and dragged me out of the hall." "And then, then he killed me." "Killed me, dropped me into a container and covered it with wreaths." "We all gathered at the bus." "I waited for my friend to come but for some reason she didn't show up." "Only my brother came to see me off." "I said goodbye to him, got on the bus and left." "Our first stop was Cyprus." "When driving in Cyprus, the guys stopped the bus, came up to one of the girls and said: "You're getting off"." "Took out a gun and started threatening all of us." "We got scared." "We didn't know what was happening." "They took the girl out and beat her up." "And, finally, killed her." "Then we were taken to a nightclub in Cyprus and realised that it was a striptease club." "Well, well." "I was stood at this and told, "come on, dance!"" "Yet nobody told me how to dance." "So, I took my top off." "Then I asked if maybe I could do it somehow differently?" "No, no, they needed striptease there." "But, I said, one can dance striptease artistically as well." "I went to the dresser and asked for a scarf made from feathers." "I put that scarf here, then here." "I danced nicely, artistically, stripped off." "Everything was nice, tasteful, and suited them." "They didn't say anything." "I believed everyone could do that." "Well, perhaps they wouldn't have let everyone, of course." "But..." "At the time I really hadn't noticed anything bad, anything happened." "However, the next day I learned that my friend had been raped." "And one of the guys told us that all of us would have to have sex with the clients if only they wanted it." "After some time, my mother came with my uncle to Belgium." "They found the club where I was working and came to me." "They saw the surroundings, the situation." "And she told me that these were the same guys who killed my best friend Kasia." "Somehow, I couldn't believe it." "My mother asked me when I was coming home." "I told her that my contract is over in a few months and I would stay there for a while." "Some time later I got an order, a client in a hotel who wanted two girls." "I was one of them." "Me and the other girl went to the hotel." "She was with the man first." "Then it was my turn and he asked me to satisfy him orally." "But I didn't know how to do such a thing." "Unfortunately, I puked up on him." "After the incident, my pimp beat me up, broke my arm, and left a huge bruise on my face." "Then another pimp told me" "I had lost my looks, and that I couldn't work anymore." "I couldn't dance either." "Nobody would take me." "It seemed there was nothing much they could do with me." "I returned to my room and it was then I realised that all the money I saved during that time was gone." "I could neither return home nor work." "One Lithuanian girl who was doing fine lent me money for the trip home." "I took the money and came back." "Came back to Lithuania, to my family." "I found everything exactly as I left." "My father was still drinking and yelling, and my mother was crying." "I distributed gifts." "Then I went to my friend's grave."