here - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

C H A P T E R I VL i v i n g a n d w o r k i n g c o n d i t i o n so f t h e v i c t i m s a n d t h e m a n a g e m e n ts y s t e m o f t h e e x p l o i t a t i o n4.1 Start and management of the exploitation:living and working conditions of the victimsFirst impact and start of prostitution activityThe women trafficked, once arrived in Italy, are delivered to the Italian madamand taken to the apartment where they will live. Often it is the apartment of themadam, but there are also houses in which only other victims are present, or wherethey live together with a figure who acts as a “guardian” (the so-called controller),employed by the owner. Normally it is a woman who has extinguished her debt andis accumulating the money necessary to buy a girl and to start herself working as amadam.We have also collected the testimony relating to a madam who directlymanages a pair of women and administers another nine on behalf of a man, who isslightly higher up in the criminal organisation. He comes to Italy several times amonth to collect the profits and make his authority known, often resorting tophysical violence on the victims.In many accounts, the arrival of the victim in the lodging is described in apositive manner: finally they have arrived at the destination and the receptionoffered gives the illusion to imagine a rosy future in Europe. At the moment of thearrival often the lodging is empty and the new arrivals go to rest ignorant of thefact that when they awake they will find a totally different scene: the illusion isdestined to crack with reality. There follows a reaction of being displaced anddifficulty in understanding what is happening.“When I arrived at the house there was no one, towards ten o’clock at nightthere was no one (...) I arrived and I said: «Is it still possible to register, do itquickly before the registrations end at University». (…) I woke up we werethirteen. Then I saw that they were counting money, then when I saw that they hada prophylactic in hand I said: «But what is it?» They said: «You are new, how oldare you?» «Seventeen». «Welcome». I said «but what do you mean?» I looked,then I had not even had a boyfriend, imagine ” (Interview Victim No.10).