"This might be a little unusual. But I'm here with this foreigner and he is interested
in taking a girl home for the holidays. You know Christmas, New Year's Eve. What do
you say?" I said.
"So he wants her for a couple of months? Okay. Nice. Call me the 'Dwarf'. Friends call
me this. We could do good business. Come inside. I might have something for you," said
the short, bearded fellow, pointing to a narrow corridor.
We followed him into a small, dark room that had no door but only a curtain leading off
it. We were told to wait, until the Dwarf re-appeared from another room with a blonde
girl in a miniskirt.
"Ask him if he likes her. She has no marks, no plagues. Tell your friend to touch her
breasts to see they are firm," he said, slapping her bottom. The blonde did not say
a word, though a bitter smile flashed across her face for a moment. I felt the poor
girl had been humiliated enough and told Dwarf to go outside to discuss business. He let
the girl return to the other room.
In the meantime, a taxi driver, who had parked his company cab in front of the house,
came in and followed her. He was there for what Dwarf called a "quickie".
"You know what? Your friend can try her, too. I tell you she's good," Dwarf said,
describing what she was capable of doing in graphic terms.
We had heard and seen enough. We told Dwarf we would return with money. But back in the car
we found our battery, wires and recorder were not working, so that we had only poor
quality images and sound on the mini-DV tape. We would have to go back. This time a third
RCIJ member accompanied us, posing as the landlord of the apartment that the foreigner was
renting and claiming he also wanted to see the girl.
Dwarf agreed and showed us the girl again.
"Hey, me and my wife have decided something. We are going to give you the girl for good.
We're going to sell her to you for 300 US dollars. You pay the money and can do whatever
you want with her," he said, looking straight into my eyes.
"Well," I hesitated. "Let me ask my friend. We could be interested." I enquired about her
age, where she was from and whether she had identity documents.
"What do we do if the police question us about her? How do we take care of her? You need
to tell us," I said. "We're beginners and could learn a lot from you."
Feeling proud that he could teach us something, Dwarf started talking and this time the
electronic recording equipment was working properly.
"If anyone questions you about the girl's age, you just say she's 18 and she has no
documents because they were stolen. Just feed her, keep her in your apartment and don't
let her outside unaccompanied. You'll have no problems. I didn't have any problem so
won't have any either," the trafficker insisted.
After a further lecture about handling the girl, we told him we'd go get the money and be
back in no time. As Dwarf and his wife approached our car, another RCIJ member - who had
not left the car - got into conversation with Dwarf, asking if the girl he wanted to offer
us was the one standing next to him.
"No, this is my wife," Dwarf replied coldly. The tension eased when I asked if he wanted
payment in Romanian lei or dollars. He said it did not matter.
"Just don't make me wait too long," he said. "I'm not going to offer her to clients for two
hours. This means I lose money if you don't come back." We took off and left Matasari. We had
no intention of coming back.
It was still December, and we spent the next few days investigating in other parts of
Bucharest. We talked to pimps, and almost every one had girls for sale.
A trafficker in the main Bucharest railway station wanted to sell us a girl for 1,000
dollars - indicating the price with broad marks sketched with his foot in the thick
snowdrift.
