Brides for sale: European women lured for sham marriages

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Brides for sale: European women lured for sham marriages
By SYLVIA HUI and KAREL JANICEK

LONDON (AP) — Klara Balogova was 18, penniless and heavily pregnant when she rode thousands of miles from Slovakia to England to marry a man she had never met.

She knew he did not want her, or her child. He wanted her European identity card. The marriage was arranged so the 23-year-old Pakistani groom could gain the right to live and work in Europe.

Balogova was promised a clean place to stay in Britain and maybe even some money. But she says within days of arrival, she was moved from Manchester to Glasgow in Scotland, where she was kept in an apartment with her future husband. When he wasn't around, his younger brother would stand over her, and her identity documents were taken away.

"He didn't let me out at any time. He told me it was not possible to go out there," said Balogova, a shy, petite Gypsy woman who spoke reluctantly, never making any eye contact when she was interviewed. "Once a week we went out together. I was never allowed to go alone."

Each year, dozens of women like Balogova from the poorer corners of eastern Europe are lured to the West for sham marriages.

The men, who authorities say are often Asian or African, pay large sums because they want to live, work or claim benefits more easily in their chosen country and move freely within Europe. The brokers, often organized criminal gangs, take most or all of the profits. And the women sometimes end up trapped in a foreign country with nothing.

This relatively new form of trafficking comes at a time when Britain continues to tighten its borders, and politicians across western Europe are clamoring for tougher curbs to immigration. Illicit marriages to get around these laws are becoming more common, including direct arrangements between grooms and women as well as the sale of brides.

In Britain, one of several countries where the brides show up, the number of women suspected of being trafficked for sham marriages in 2013 doubled from the year before to 45, according to the National Crime Agency. And Europol last year identified this type of crime as an "emerging phenomenon."

Most brides get paid-for trips to Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, and some don't fully realize what they've gotten themselves into until they arrive. Women have been held captive until their marriage papers are signed, abused by their "husband" and his friends, used for sex and drug trafficking or even made to marry more than once, according to European authorities and charities.

"Depending on the case, a woman can be sold for thousands of euros," said Angelika Molnar, an anti-trafficking specialist at Europol. "I can tell you it is lucrative."

In Latvia, trafficking for sham marriages is considered so serious that the government is leading a European Commission-funded international program to combat it. Of the 34 trafficking victims lured abroad from the Baltic state recorded last year, 22 were for sham marriages, according to Laisma Stabina, anti-trafficking coordinator at the country's Interior Ministry.

The numbers are still tiny compared to the thousands of cases of fake marriages reported each year to Britain's Home Office, where brides agree to wed for money and are considered accomplices. But officials acknowledge that the trafficking of brides is hard to track.

"I think the problem is much bigger than we realize, because we only see a small percentage of the offenses being committed," said Phil Brewer, head of Scotland Yard's trafficking and kidnap unit. "There is still not a big understanding of the signs."

To understand why the women do it, you need only go to Balogova's village.

Balogova, like most women trafficked from Slovakia, comes from a destitute Roma, or Gypsy, settlement. It lies on Slovakia's border with Ukraine and Hungary, and is home to about 250 Gypsies, Europe's poorest minority group. Most of the tin huts have no plumbing, the lanes are muddy, the houses are grimy, and the water from a rusty well is contaminated.

Nicholas Ogu, a social worker, says he knows of several others from Balogova's village who were married in Britain. The trade, as he called it, is controlled by a Gypsy gang that recruits the jobless and poorly educated with offers of good earnings abroad. The women become bogus brides or go into prostitution, while the men typically end up in forced labor.

"They lure them, sometimes offer them a flight ticket, sometimes they go by bus or car," said Ogu. "They arrange the wedding ... when the men got what they need, they get rid of them."

The perpetrators are groups of Slovak or Czech nationals who live in Britain, while their crime partners do the recruiting back home, according to Miroslav Wlachovsky, Slovakia's ambassador to London. Scotland is a particularly popular destination, he said, likely because its laws allow marriage without parental consent at 16, compared to 18 in the rest of the U.K.

"The scheme is almost always the same," he said. "They tell them they can work here, in restaurants and so on . It's always promises of a better life, or promises of big and fast money."

Pregnancy is considered a bonus that boosts a groom's chances to stay.

In November, police said they uncovered a trafficking ring where a 38-year-old Pakistani groom had paid up to 15,000 pounds (US$22,000) to a gang for a 20-year-old pregnant Slovakian woman. The woman believed she was going to visit her sister, but was met by a man at Luton airport and taken to an apartment instead. She married her "groom" in July, in a ceremony presided over by a self-proclaimed imam in a house in Rochdale, a town near Manchester, police said.

The woman, who is also Gypsy but cannot be named for legal reasons, was regarded as a more "significant commodity" because she came pregnant, according to Rochdale detective inspector James Faulkner. But once the husband had his legal documents, a woman posing as the victim's sister took her to the hospital for an abortion.

The victim, who had a learning disability and spoke no English, did not realize what was going on until an interpreter spoke to her.

"She thought she was going for help as she had abdominal pains," Faulkner said. "She was absolutely appalled."

Sometimes the women are lured with promises not of money or jobs, but of love. In one case, a Lithuanian woman met a Pakistani man in Britain after he wooed her for months on Facebook, according to social worker Kristina Misniene. The man claimed persecution in his home country, and even told the woman he loved her.

Then he snatched away her passport, so she felt she had no option but to marry him. She didn't have the money for a return ticket, and she was raped twice by an "uncle" of the groom, Misniene said.

Another woman from Latvia went to Britain because her boyfriend wanted to sell her off as a bogus bride to offset his gambling debts, according to Gita Miruskina, a lawyer with the Latvian non-profit Shelter Safe House. When she changed her mind, she was locked in a room, and her captors cut her arms with scissors.

"It lasted for 10 days and that's when she agreed she would marry," Miruskina said. "She was under 20 years old."

What happens to the women after the marriages is not clear. Some find their way to shelters. Others are cut loose when the men get the residency rights they wanted.

Many of the women are also more vulnerable because they may have troubled lives or little mental capacity. Only a handful of such cases have led to convictions, because they cross country borders and the women are often scared or unable to testify. Also, to the frustration of social workers, some are so poor that they would rather be exploited abroad than stay at home.

Balogova, now 22, was to get married after she gave birth in Britain. But hospital authorities grew suspicious about the identity of the child's father. They also discovered that she had no idea how to find her way to her supposed home, just a few blocks away.

In the end, the groom was deported before the wedding. Balogova, who was never paid, stayed at a shelter and returned to Slovakia two years ago with the help of social workers. Her baby, a girl called Aisa, was put in social care in Britain, where she remains, because officials believed she would be unable to take care of her child.

Yet Balogova admitted that she would be willing to take her chances in Britain again.

"I didn't want to come back," she said flatly. "It was a hundred times better for me in England."
___

Janicek reported from Slovakia. Rayyan Sabet-Parry in Riga, Latvia, Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Pablo Gorondi in Budapest, Hungary, contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-05-26

[Berkshire]

Wow, another way to exploit the desperate. This sentence was pretty striking...."to the frustration of social workers, some are so poor that they would rather be exploited abroad than stay at home."

Seems to be a lot of that going on all over the world.

[harryfrompattaya]

I think Old Englishman should learn from this and married these poor European Women better deal than marrying poor Thai

[JockPieandBeans]

Sham marriages are nothing new in the UK. It has been going on for decades.

When authorities started getting wise, bogus education started.

It has only moved full circle.

[Pete Beale]

Good old cultural enrichment.

[boomerangutang]

Females seem to be made to be exploited. Here's a sideline dynamic, taking place in the US: Every big city has at least one big shot pimp. He is always a black man. His women are black or white or mixed. Here's the clincher: Every pimp treats the women like crap, and doesn't pay her more than pocket change. If there was a pimp (black or white) who treated his women half-way decent, he wouldn't have women working for him. The pimp needs to treat the women like crap in order for the business to work. The women (accepting being treated like crap) are part of the equation.

Now, back to the OP situation in jolly olde England: Perhaps it's the same sort of dynamic: treat females badly, and the manipulating men are more likely to get what they want ( slave and a sex object). Conversely, treat the women decent, and the ruse doesn't work.

P.S. I had a Thai hill tribe friend who married an elder Italian man. He kept her locked up in his apartment each day - when he went out to work fixing time-pieces for 9 to 11 hours. .....for 15 years, until he died, and then she inherited 2 million Euros.

Women seem to made to be exploited. Not all women (not the ones I've helped raise, fersure) ....but women in general.

[ABCer]

The moral of this touching story ( actually there are more than one) could be:

1) There is no such a thing as a free meal in Europe even if you come from East to West.

2) EU membership may be still of value to Third World bottom feeders. But by the same token it must become a burden to West Europeans.

3) The dream "from dirt to riches" is still alive and going strong.

4) When all the willing, capable and enterprising Easterners will relocate to Europe where will all the Europeans go?

5) Being an old man I have one ambition left - I want to see a Politically Correct politician Lynched by a mob.

[Lokie]

Amazes me how they all get in? I frequently get a tug by Manchester UK Borders & Immigration on both outbound and inbound from LOS, oh I just remembered, I happen to be a white middle aged working man with no criminal convictions who pays all his taxes and has never had nothing from the pot,

I honestly believe if I was of another colour or race then I would not have been tugged several times as they would not dare... Good to know our borders are being protected by this type of racial profiling obviously they know what they are doing and using the resources available to best deployment...

[MAJIC]

Sounds like the Slovakian woman knew knew that she was letting herself in for illegal activities,sorry I don't feel sorry for someone who finishes with this statement:

Yet Balogova admitted that she would be willing to take her chances in Britain again.

"I didn't want to come back," she said flatly. "It was a hundred times better for me in England."

[ABCer]

I think we could leave England out of this controversy and speak about EU.

It was born in my times and I watched its formation.

Some ideas were good. Some other ideas were bad. (IMHO)

But if we forget about ideas and look at realities - nothing's good at all!

Questions like

* What can Germany do in bed with France? or Greece? or Bulgaria?

* What are 45 million Muslims doing in EU? ( What they do in bed we all know. If in doubt - ask the Swedes).

* Which parts of EU exploit other parts of the same EU? What is the real benefit for all these parts?

* When 'euro' replaced 'millelira' in Italy did Italy become richer? Or did Italians become happier?

* And so on...

- remain unanswered. Often not even asked.

Against this background the case of poor pregnant Balogova by God knows who from unfortunate Slovakia is just a sloppy story for the fainthearted. Sorry.

Oh, yes! BTW there are also beautiful brides for sale from Ukraine, Russia, Romania and so on... "Buyer beware" rules still apply.

Edited May 27, 2015 by ABCer

[AlQaholic]

Wouldn't it be fairly easy to follow up on the foreign men who have married in let us say the last few years, ask to see their wives and if there is no wife investigate further and then revoke the documents for staying? Also preventative measures before people get married like an interview with both beforehand?

[JockPieandBeans]

If anyone is in any doubt about the scale of the Sham Marriage merry-go-round of the UK.

A sham marriage 'every hour' in the UK: More than 7,500 fake ceremonies reported but just 90 people thrown out of the country

• More than 7,500 fake weddings reported in Britain last year, figures reveal
• But despite huge scale of problem, only 90 people deported from country
• Means that for every 85 sham marriages, just one person thrown out of UK
• Labour believes Coalition is 'presiding over broken immigration system'
• Immigration spokesman David Hanson says 'people want rules enforced'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2562615/A-sham-marriage-hour-UK-More-7-500-fake-ceremonies-reported-just-90-people-deported.html

There is a Political theme to this report. It is only one of many.

Sham marriages were common knowledge 25 years ago. And has been going on ever since.