Gypsy brides sold into sham marriages by trafficking gangs

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A woman can be sold for thousands of euros': Gypsy brides sold into sham marriages by trafficking gangs

Criminal gangs increasingly targeting poor Roma women, who are sold to immigrant 'husbands' wishing to live and work in Europe

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 26 May, 2015, 9:13pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 26 May, 2015, 10:39pm

Associated Press in London

Klara Balogova, a Slovakian Roma, travelled to England to marry a man she had never met.Photos: AP

Klara Balogova was 18, penniless and heavily pregnant when she travelled thousands of kilometres 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. "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.

Balogova's family in her Slovakian Roma settlement.

The brokers, often organised 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 clamouring 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 realise 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 programme 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 realise, because we only see a small percentage of the offences being committed," said Phil Brewer, head of Scotland Yard's trafficking and kidnap unit.

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 settlement. It lies on Slovakia's border with Ukraine and Hungary, and is home to about 250 Roma, 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.

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

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 she had no idea how to find her way to her supposed home.

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. "It was a hundred times better for me in England."