September 7, 2005 (Birmingham, United Kingdom)

My name is Adelina Constantin, and I am now 20 years old. My father is a farmer in Purani. When I was 15 years old, I moved to Alexandria, Romania to go to school, this is normal behavior in my land. I shared an apartment with a girlfriend, Daria Balan.

We both attend school at Licuel Pedagogic Mircea Scarlat; it is the high school. In the summer I go home to my father's farm. During the school year, I live in Alexandria. It is a simple life; it is a quiet life.

There is a man, in the city, named Grigore Cojocaru, I know him from school. People say he sells women. I did not know this to be true. I know this now.

It was April 19, 2005; I was doing homework in my flat on Strada Carpati and at about 6 pm there was a knock on the door. I walked to the door and opened it, Grigore Cojocaru was standing there with a man I did not know.

I looked at the strange man and smiled. He was older Romanian man possibly 50. He wore a black leather jacket that was too big for him and blue jeans. His nose was a bit crooked on his face, and he had one long fuzzy eyebrow.

They walked into my flat and Grigore asked me if I wanted to go to a party. I declined due to homework that I had to finish. That is when the strange man banged my head into a wall and demanded I put my coat on.

I was holding my head where it hurt, and the strange man threw my coat at me. I noticed that Grigore took my bag from the table. I tried to ask what he wanted with my bag, but the strange man just said to shut up, and they guided me out of the flat.

We walked down the stairs, and to outside. When we were outside, we got in Grigore black van, and we drove to a house outside of the city. I could not see where we were driving from the backseat of the van. The strange man was blocking my view.

When the van stopped, I was forced to get out and go to a party. The house had no neighbours, and there was a big cooking pit in the yard. There were many men making meat on the fire. There was beer and music. I could see that the house was somewhere off of Highway 52.

Grigore took me by the arm and pushed me into the house. He put me in a bedroom and made me do things with him. I don’t like to talk about it, but he made me sleep with him. When I protested or cried, he hit me.  When he finished, he left me there.

I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I sat on the wooden bed looking out the window. Soon the strange man came back, and I said I wanted to go home. This made him angry, and he began to beat me. He removed the black leather belt he was wearing and began hitting me about my breasts and shoulders with it.

I lay back down on the bed, sobbing quietly. That is when Grigore returned with another man I did not know. They forced me to sleep with this man as well. It was horrible.

For three days they kept me prisoner in this house. I heard the strange man called Sorin, I learned he was the father of Grigore. They did not feed me much, or give me water during those three days. But soon they gave me a new passport, with a new name and birthday. I was now 21 years old Adriana Popescu. Grigore told me he was taking me to England to work in a hotel as a cleaning girl. In the night, he pushed me back into his van and drove me  Bucharest.

When we got to the bus station at about 3:30 in the morning. We met a woman there she smiled and me and said her name was Elena. Elena was also Romanian, she was short like me, about 1 meter 50, and had shoulder length dark hair. She was older than me 45 or so. She was dressed nicely in a blue dress and high heeled shoes.

Grigore handed her my bag, with my passport. She laughed and took me by the arm. We walked towards the bus; Elena whispered in my ear not to say anything; everything would be just fine when we got to England.

The bus left at 4 am and for two days we drove. On April 24^th we arrived at Birmingham bus station. Elena took me to a house in the city; I do not speak English so I could not read any of the signs. But I know that it was only 10 minutes from the bus station. We walked to the house.

In the house were other Romanian girls. These girls wore nothing but panties, and there were men.

 That is when I knew why I was in England.

Sincerely,

Adelina Constantin