Beyond the Bars Part III

The Women......
Its Wednesday, September 30th and we are interviewing 5 female inmates, awaiting decision if whether or not asylum was granted to them. I am introduced to Ana. She is a 26 year old mother of 4 from the Honduras. She has been incarcerated for 5 months. It is very difficult for her to relax. I notice she fidgets her hands and constantly pulls at her hair. She doesnt make eye contact and I have difficulty hearing her. I ask her to look me in the eye, and she replies that she cannot. When I ask her why, she shrugs her shoulders and withdraws into herself. I ask her if she wants to leave, she shakes her head"No". After a few moments of silence, she said that I am her only visitor and the first person who has spoken to her as if she too were a human being. So, I ask her what would she like to talk about and she says her kids, she really misses her kids. She doesnt want to give their names or ages, but she starts to cry. She apologizes for her "very very poor English..." But I try my best to assure her that she speaks just fine. I then ask her a very tough question. How and why are you here? She finally makes eye contact with me. She says that she had met a man that had promised he could take her to the "Estados Unidos" and look after her and her children. When I asked if the man was a friend or relative, she starts to fidget with her hands again. She looks down at her hands and nods "No" he was "traficante". My heart beat slows a bit. I had watched the documentary "Which Way Home" and had read about all the horrible things that have happened to some immigrants when they put their trust in el traficante. She told me that he usually charges $4,000 to take women to the states. When I asked why so expensive, she said that women are usually slower than men and it takes twice as long. She told him she didnt have the money to pay him, so he made a deal with her. She would "work" for him, to pay off the balance and then if she wanted, once they got into the states, she could still work for him and he would bring her kids. She pauses for a second and then asks me a sad question. "You are not going to tell him I told you, right?" I explain to her that everything we say is between us and if she wants me too, I will change her name. She smiles a bit and bluntly says, "He" told me that if I ever told the police or gave any information about him, he would kill me and my family. I dont know if he has my kids. I dont know where my kids are. She cries, but this time there is a difference in her tears, they are tears of fear and anguish, not of shame. She says that she has done things, unforgivable things, to her body and she is afraid that the Virgin Mary will not hear her prayers and she will burn in hell for her sins. She then goes on for 10 minutes straight about being forced to become a drug mule and a prostitute in hopes of a fresh new start in New York City. She pauses then looks to me and says, " Have you ever been to Nueva York?" Im torn between a pretty lie and ugly truth. I say to her, "No, I havent, but I hear its really nice there." I didnt want to tell her yeah, sure many times, I even live there and I didnt have to sleep with anyone to get there. She then talks about how she was only supposed to work for him for one month before he took her to Nueva York. She was to work as a drug mule and travel with some men and "take care of them" if needed. I asked her what did she mean "take care of them" then she starts to fidget again. She says, "sex them" and then she turns a bit pale, as if shes going to throw up. When I asked her how long was she really working for him, she replies " 2 years". She says even when she got pregnant, he even made her continue working. I asked her, are you allowed any type of birth control? She looks bewildered at me and simply says "No, Im a good Catholic...." So no condoms, no birth control, no idea who is the father(s) of her two youngest children. So finally el traficante comes to her and tells her that they are to make the journey to Nueva York in 2 days.He comes to her house in the middle of the night, and they are off. She says he looked at her oldest daughter and smiled. "Pity shes not coming with us" he says, "I could get a lot of work for her..." She says she had never been on a plane before and that he had taken her to get her hair and nails done, and bought her some nice clothes and shoes. She said she was so excited that he was keeping his word. But they are not flying into Nueva York, they are flying into some place called Philadelphia. He explains to her that its easier to get to New York from there. She starts to really get nervous because the traffickers demeanor changed. He was very cold and mean, as if he were mad at her, no longer nice and sweet. His tone was harsh and authoritative, no longer smooth and complimentary. And when they arrived, they got into an old beat up blue car with 2 other men and drove for about an hour. When she asked him where they were going,the man that was in the back seat with her punched her. Hard. In the face. She says that everything went black for a moment and when she came to, he was on top of her, raping her in the backseat.The trafficker and the driver were laughing. They were making jokes like " Wow, you cant wait, prison was that bad?" She passed out again and when she woke up she was in a room which she later figured out was a basement. She had not eaten or had anything to drink since the airplane ride and she says her private parts really hurt her. She had a headache and could still taste blood in her mouth. She says she doesnt know how long she was there for, but according to her plane ticket roster and the time the house was raided, it had been almost 6 weeks. She said during that time, she was kept in this dark room and men would come down and do "things to her". From multiple rapes, to sodomy, she says she was treated worse than farm animals. She was made to go to the bathroom in a bucket and only allowed to bathe herself with a small garden hose that was attached to a sink in the basement and paper towles. She was fed maybe twice a week and was beaten constantly. She said the trafficker told her if she ever tried to escape, he would kill her and then go back to her home in the Honduras and rape her young, pretty daughter. She said there were other women there and they were forced to "make drugs in a pot" and prostitute themselves to whomever came to the basement. She said she never knew men could be such dogs. They urinated on her, defacated on her. Made her do things with other women and to themselves. She said one man even used his ring ( that had his initials) held a lighter to it, and then burned her with it. He had told her that she was now "branded" and that she was his property.
She says that every day she wanted to die. She no longer had a desire to live because she was afraid and ashamed of what had become of her. Her desire for a better life had actually led her to her demise. She said one night one of the girls had tried to escape and was caught. She says she could hear men upstairs beating her and beating her and raping her until the young girl had stopped screaming. She believes they killed her, but no one knows. Miraculously someone in the neighborhood tipped off the police that a particular house on the corner was being used as a meth lab and was raided by the police. She said she thought she was saved. When taken to the police station, she kept asking for water. It took 3 hours before someone brought her a glass of water and that officer said to her" Jesus you stink. Instead of drinking that fucking water, you should use it to wash your ass!" She said other officers laughed at this and agreed with smiling faces and accusatory eyes. She said she began to realize that they despised her and she was not being seen as a victim, but as a perpetrator. They were going to charge her with prostitution. The women that were held there did not get medical attention until the next day. She was kept in the hospital for a few days and was treated for severe anal lacerations and tearing ,bruised ribs, infected 2nd degree burn on her upper inner thighs and a urinary tract infection. She also had a yeast infection in her mouth, and was later diagnosed with Trichomoniasis and genital herpes. A social worker from the hospital came to talk with her about what happened and how she got these scars. She told her everything. When asked if she could identify the assailants and if she was wiling to testify against them, she refused. She was afraid for the life of her children back home. One of the other women who was held in the same house, agreed to testify, in exchange for asylum. Ana later learned that the woman got asylum for her and her family. She does not know her whereabouts. She said while in the hospital, INS agents came and placed her under arrest. They said it was found she was in the country illegally and is set and due to be processed for deportation. Ana breaks down in tears and says if I go back, they will kill me, I think they have already killed my family. One officer asks her why does she think that? And she says, no one has seen my family for two weeks. No one answers the phone. They're dead.
She says that her social worker has contacted Amnesty International and they are working to locate her family and are fighting her deportation. I asked her does she think the trafficker had anything to do with her daughters/familys disappearance and she starts to fidget again. She looks up with swollen eyes and said " All I know is, because of my ignorance, because I have disgraced my body, because I have sinned against The Virgin Mary, my family is paying for my sins. I am paying for my sins. I do not deserve mercy. I do not deserve forgiveness, but I pray for it anyway. And wherever my family is, I pray that they are safe. I pray that they are alive and well, even if they are in hiding. I pray they can forgive this misery I have brought to them." I reach under the bars and grab her hands and pray with her. The usual stern guard that wrapped the glass at me for shaking Joshua's hands yesterday does not move. He does not say a word. When I look up at him to see why, I realize, its because he was crying and praying too.....