‘MAMA’ AND ‘PAPA’
Olga told us that occasionally there were “good clients” among the thousands of men she was forced to service. I pressed her to explain what could be “good” about men who were raping her. “They are good if they don’t beat you. They are good if they just have sex. Sometimes they bring me a present.” Other women told how “owners” frequently treat one slave better than the others, showering her with gifts and not forcing as many clients upon her. To survive, the woman becomes the pimp’s lover — and rises up in the hierarchy of Velesta’s brothels. The girls call the pimp “Papa” and his mistress “Mama.” “Mama” still lives with all the girls, but she’s “Papa’s” spy, informing on anyone who plots to escape.
Sometimes a mistress will enter into business with the pimps, who pay her handsomely to return home and recruit more girls with false promises of well-paid work in Europe.
DAWN RAID
Twenty-four hours after working undercover in the brothels, we returned to the Hotel Ekslusiv — this time with 100 members of Macedonia’s crack police squad. The Macedonian interior minister, Lubje Boskovski, launched a raid on Velesta after we told him the stories of the women held as sex slaves. In a dozen armored personnel carriers, the police crashed through the doors of several clubs and the Hotel Ekslusiv, which should have been packed with clients on a weekend night. The pimps and their girls, tipped off by local police on their payrolls, were long gone. As the sun rose over the hills to the east, our Macedonian escorts began to get nervous. “We have to get out before sunup,” the commander said, fearing the coming light would give the well-armed pimps an easy shot at his officers.
Meti, the pimp the police had come looking for, had escaped.
As the armored personnel carriers rumbled back to base, we remembered the words of Natasha, a young Moldovan once “owned” by Meti. “If I ever saw him again, I wouldn’t use words (to speak to him). I would use a gun.”