Three Typical Stories
The following stories are all based on authentic events and are intended to provide an impression of the typical experiences of these women. However, there are stories that are less severe, as well as others that are far worse. The accounts below are merely examples.

Maja, who comes from a place in Lithuania, has been abused throughout her entire life.

Maja has been subjected to abuse for almost her entire life. First, she was abused by one of her family’s neighbors. Later, she was abused by some of her classmates. Ultimately, she ended up being abused by human traffickers in Denmark.

Maja and her sisters were abandoned by their mother when Maja was six years old. She was left behind with an alcoholic father. She was raped by a neighbor of the family. She became pregnant and gave birth to a child, whom the authorities removed from her care shortly thereafter.

Maja was subsequently sent to a boarding school, where she was exploited by other students who sold her to men. Maja never received any money from this. In July 2004, she was sold to human traffickers who transported her to Denmark, where she was placed and locked inside a brothel. For Maja, daily life in the Danish brothels was absolute hell. She faced death threats involving a gun, endured daily abuse, and was subjected to regular rape. Threats and violence became her everyday reality.

One day, Maja was suddenly liberated from the brothel by the police, after two other girls—who had themselves been enslaved in the brothels—managed to escape and contact the authorities. Maja decided that she wanted to return home to her village. Shortly after Maja arrived at the airport in Lithuania, she was pulled aside by a human trafficker who was waiting for her.

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Maja was held captive in Lithuania for four weeks, until the man who had captured her found a new buyer. Maja was then sent to a German brothel, where the whole ordeal began anew. There, she was subjected to such extreme violence that neighbors, who heard everything, eventually called the police, leading to her release. Today, Maja is constantly on the move, traveling from place to place while she testifies in cases against human traffickers.

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Until the legal proceedings conclude, she cannot move forward with her life or re-establish contact with her son. Maja was a sex slave in various European cities, and she remains on the run, attempting to escape her traffickers.

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Diana: Drugged, Abducted, and Raped

20-year-old Diana was drugged, kidnapped, and raped before ending up on the streets of Copenhagen. Diana was a 20-year-old woman from the Czech Republic. She had no formal education, was unmarried, and had no children. She lived with her mother and worked as a skilled seamstress at a factory during the day.

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One day, on her way home from work, she met a charming man who invited her for a drink at her favorite bar. Unbeknownst to Diana, the man slipped a drug into her drink. She soon began to feel unwell, and the man offered to drive her home. But instead of driving her home, he took her to another city, where he handed her over to a Czech couple.

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From there, the couple took Diana to another city, telling her along the way that they now owned her. Subsequently, Diana was locked away and forced into prostitution. The couple threatened to have her family killed if she tried to escape. One day, she was arrested by the police; however, fearing for her family’s safety, she dared not reveal anything. Consequently, she was quickly released—only to be immediately picked up by the couple again.

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They then transported Diana to Norway, where she was once again locked away and forced into street prostitution. In Norway, she was frequently raped by clients and remained under the constant supervision of the couple. All the money she earned from these sexual encounters was taken from her. Furthermore, she was denied any opportunity to contact others. She was a slave until her "sponsors" decided she had earned enough.

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After some time, the couple took Diana to Denmark, where the cycle repeated itself. Eventually, Diana managed to escape from her traffickers in Denmark. She contacted the police, who took her to a safe house for victims of human trafficking. Diana was a slave in Denmark—alone and abused every single day.

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Kidnapped in Nigeria

Nancy was held captive by her kidnapper for three full months. Ultimately, one of the kidnapper’s associates sold her to human traffickers in Europe. Until recently, she worked as a street prostitute in Copenhagen.

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Nancy’s story begins with her becoming an orphan at the age of 10. She was raised by aunts and uncles who kept her as a domestic slave throughout her childhood. At the same time, she was sexually abused by a family friend. He told her that he would kill her if she told anyone else about the abuse.

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At the age of 16, she got a job at a small café. There, she met a man whom she later visited at his home. He raped her multiple times while holding her captive as a domestic slave for about three months. One of the man’s friends told Nancy that he could help her escape and move with him to Europe. Unaware that the two friends were working together, Nancy believed that her luck had finally turned.

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“It’s easy to find work in Europe,” said this new acquaintance, who very quickly sent Nancy to Oslo, Norway. Upon her arrival in Oslo, she was told that she had incurred a debt of 25,000 euros to cover transport, documentation, and various expenses along the way. The debt had to be paid immediately, and the only way she could obtain such a sum was by having sex with strangers every night. In this way, she was forced into prostitution.

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Nancy, now 22, managed to escape her traffickers in Oslo, eventually ending up in Copenhagen. However, she had no money. On the streets of central Copenhagen, she was quickly spotted by a Nigerian "madame," who became her new "boss." This woman demanded 50 percent of Nancy’s earnings. By chance, Nancy was spotted by the police and subsequently placed in a crisis shelter.

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She is now on her way back to her home country. With no family to return to, she faces a future of hopeless poverty—and, quite possibly, a new exploiter.