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"He
knocked at the door. It was the fifth floor of an
apartment block. He was tall, in his early seventies,
better dressed than the occasion would have called
for. Beside him in the hallway was an attractive blond
woman in her early thirties. Also rather better dressed
than one might have expected. Suddenly a bit of light
shone from the peephole. He put his face in front
of it. The door opened. He stood back slightly to
let the blond woman enter before him. The stocky middle-aged
woman at the door huffed: "What's this". Women did
not enter this apartment unless they worked there.
"I am a prostitute, and this is one of my clients.
May I please speak to your boss." The woman held the
door so they could not advance further. Looked over
hr shoulder at someone inside. There was the noise
of a chair moving and maybe a desk being moved out
of the way. A muscular looking fat man pulled the
door open. He had long black hair, could have been
a Gipsy or just a Spaniard from Andalucia. They were
in Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest other-end
of the country. He said, "So?" Alana answered in her
heavy English accent, "I have regular clients in Santiago,
but I was put out of my apartment t. If I can bring
them here, you can charge them and give me my part.
I have at least five clients every day." Her voice
trailed off, inviting him to answer. The man looked
at R, the client, calculating an amount. "Fifty Euros
and you get twenty." This was over the going rate,
and her cut too low, but she said, "Yes", without
hesitation. The fat man sat at a metal desk while
R and Alana entered the brightly lit entrance. The
woman closed the door behind them. As it swung closed
it revealed three young girls lounging on a small
couch. They appeared to be no older than seventeen,
maybe as young as fourteen. The man had his arms on
the desk, palms up. "Give me the money", he said to
Alana. And you, he addressed R, "Show me everything
in your pockets, we canīt allow anything dangerous."
Alana, who had moved between the woman and the young
prostitutes, began to fumble in her small purse. R
took out a cellphone and bent toward the seated man
as if to offer it to him. The giant cathedral bell
could be heard nearby, ringing the mid-day hour. Instead
of giving the man his somewhat odd-looking cellphone,
R grabbed the man by his hair and jammed the phone
into his neck. The man reached for something in the
open desk drawer, but the cellphone made the large
crackling sound of a stun device and the manīs eyes
rolled up into his head and he slumped onto the desk.
Alana meanwhile had been performing the same procedure
on the woman, who fell onto the couch. The girls scattered
in panic. Alana assured them they had nothing to fear,
"We have come to rescue you and get you to a better
life." As she felt in her bag for the syringe she
asked how many other girls were in the rooms. Two
of the girls were too frightened to answer, but the
third, who had the look and complexion of a South
Asian child, said there are three girls back there
and three men with them. Alana then
gave the two adults an injection to keep them asleep
while the three volunteers and six rescuees made goood
ther escape. Alana had entered each room and in an
authoritative voice announced that: "Police will
be arriving at any minute. Men, please leave at once;
girls: come with me".
The girls were taken to a faclity of the
Little Sisters of Charity .
Lastly, we set about to raise frunds to cover ther
cost of keeping the girls, and returning those who
wanted to go back to their famlies.
Thus
ended our expirament in direct intervention. We have
no plans to repeat this for the time being.
There were repercussion - in spite of having taken
precautions, hiding identies, etc. We now know that
to free the girls by ourselves we place our volunteers
and therir families in grave danger, plus we aelienate
the ultimate weapon required to stamp out this form
of slavery: the police."
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