Some nannies simply disappear
Young Albanian women come to Switzerland because they want to look after babies – a nice job in a safe country. But many end up in the clutches of human traffickers. Part 3.
Investigation and text: Adelina Gashi, Marguerite Meyer. Investigative collaborator: Vladimir Karaj.
What happened so far (Part 2): Women from Albania are lured to Switzerland as nannies and end up being exploited by human traffickers. Because they have been deceived. Just like Ardita.
Ardita, a young administrative clerk, was trying to rearrange her life after a messy divorce. At first, she was sceptical about the nanny offer. But the agent would organise the whole trip, she was told – and give her a proper employment contract upon arrival. Ardita relied on the image she had of Switzerland: a country with legal certainty for everyone. And so she flew to Zurich in high spirits.
Her first assignment with a family in Schaffhausen was disappointing, having been promised CHF600. Contrary to the agreement, she had to look after not only three small children but also the entire household. “I worked like a horse,” Ardita recalls.
The UN defines Human TraffickingExternal link as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit. Men, women, and children of all ages and from all backgrounds can become victims of this crime, which occurs in every region of the world. The traffickers often use violence or fraudulent employment agencies and fake promises of education and job opportunities to trick and coerce their victims”.
The vast majority of perpetrators are menExternal link. Women who become co-perpetrators have usually been previously exploited themselves.
She complained to her recruitment agent Qemal. He promised to move her to another location. In return, he took a “placement fee” from her and sent her to work as a cleaner in a Zurich club.
Within five weeks, Ardita was working for four different men. She mostly cleaned in restaurants and clubs. She was occasionally sent across the border to Germany to clean hotels. Someone took away her passport. She never got to see her money, contract or work permit.
Ardita protested and was told off. She got angry and insisted on receiving her salary, “otherwise I’ll go to the police”. “They’ll put you in prison for illegal labour,” one of the employers warned her.
Victims of human trafficking are usually in Switzerland illegally, through no fault of their own. The government has now drawn up a new “National Action Plan to Combat Human TraffickingExternal link”. The strategy paper is meant to create a basis for the authorities. Among other things, trafficked people should bear less of a burden of proof.
Mix of violence and shame
When Ardita complained to her abusers, she was insulted: “You stupid bitch, shame on your family.” However, the contract would come soon, they said. After a few weeks, Qemal put her on a plane back home. The promises all remained empty.
We have dozens of screenshots, voice messages and chat histories that confirm Ardita’s story. Her fate fits with all the other cases we have dealt with. They involve the same pattern of deception, delaying tactics and bullying. The victims’ self-worth is crushed – and with that, any sense of self-determination.
We learn about Mariana from a television programme on Albanian television. Her recruiter offered her a job as an assistant in a cleaning company via WhatsApp. “His condition was that I had to sleep with him once a week”, she says in the programme. Mariana refused the job. What sounds like a stupid line from a nasty man is actually a deliberate tactic. Traffickers use such remarks to test how desperately a potential victim needs money – and how far they would go to get it.
Another former nanny tells us that her employer suggested she could earn up to CHF1,000 a night “waitressing” in an illegal club. She apparently went along with it, but tells us: “I never did that. It’s not for me.” We do not know exactly where the truth lies.
This is how we feel in many conversations. There is a fog of fear, shame and taboo, so we stick to the known facts: court records and official statements from the victims. Even though we know the names and telephone numbers of the alleged perpetrators, we cannot confront them with the accusations without further jeopardising the women’s safety.
But it becomes clear to us: something that begins as a supposed nanny job can end in forced prostitution.
Odyssey is not yet over
The nightmare of trafficked people is not over when they escape their abusers – assuming they do. Survivors often return home with even less money and are traumatised. Out of shame they do not talk to anyone about their experience. They do not appear in any statistics. They were never registered as labourers in Switzerland. Not by the employers, and certainly not by the actual traffickers, who make a profit out of the ever-increasing demand for cheap nannies on the one side and out of the need and hope of women on the other.
“Since the free movement of people, it is of course easier to find legal work in other countries. However, it is a disadvantage for us that nobody is reported if they are sent back or return themselves,” says Brikena Puka, director of Vatra, an NGO in the harbour city of Vlore that deals with women trafficking in Albania. “This makes it even more difficult to identify the victims when they return from Switzerland.”
In Albania many people know of the possibility of working as a nanny in Switzerland and have heard about a cousin or a friend’s daughter. However, very few are aware that it is a form of human trafficking. Even the experts at Vatra are unsure of how to combat it. Puka is convinced that there needs to be more coordination in the international fight against human trafficking.
How are the women doing now?
Lirije, who was forced to work under conditions similar to slavery, has found new optimism after her ordeal. She received psychological care in a shelter and was accompanied through the court process. Today, she is still unstable but has been allowed to stay in Switzerland as a so-called hardship case owing to her difficult circumstances. She is currently rebuilding her life here.
Other affected women, such as Ardita, returned to their home country. She says she wants to give Switzerland another try. She hopes for better luck and to find a proper job. “I still can’t tell my family what happened to me,” she says.
Others were deported or disappeared mysteriously from the scene, such as Mariana and Shpresa. We have lost track of them. Perhaps they have fallen prey to traffickers yet again: a pattern that is often repeated in the vicious circle of dependencies. Simply because the victims need the money, for themselves and their families. So they try again – desperately hoping that things will turn out better this time.
This investigation first appeared in the Swiss magazine “Beobachter”. It was made possible with the support of JournaFONDS and the Real 21 media fund.
An Albanian version is available on the investigative platform “Reporter.al”External link.
The German version is available on “Beobachter.chExternal link”.
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