From Budapest to Toronto: Timea Eva's True Story of Slavery

by Amanda Kloer · 2009-09-06 09:00:00 UTC
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This story was collected from KMBC.  Timea Eva's experiences as a trafficking victim are common.  They're so common that situations like her's --  a young, Eastern European woman tricked into the commercial sex industry -- have become the norm for mainstream coverage and examples of human trafficking.  But this situation was real for Timea Eva and thousands of other women from Eastern Europe from the 1990s to today.

The summer Timea Eva Nagy was 20, she decided to take a summer job in Canada.  It was far away from her home in Budapest, Hungary, but she would earn money and have an interesting international experience.  Shortly arriving in Toronto, however, she was kidnapped and forced to strip and sell her body for sex.

During her captivity, Nagy desperately wanted to leave, but her traffickers threatened to harm her family back in Hungary if she tried to escape.  They starved her to keep her weak and thin.  She tried to find help. She eventually even tried suicide.  But it seemed nothing would release her from this nightmare.  But despite it all, Nagy suppressed the urge to panic and break down.  She stayed calm and went into "survival mode", determined to finally find a way to break free.

Finally she found a way out.  Nagy managed to use a Hungarian-English dictionary to explain to a DJ and a security guard that she was being abused, and that she wanted to leave.  They helped her escape her captors and find safety.

Nagy's story has as happy an ending as such a story can have.  She now tours the U.S. talking about her experience and educating people on the reality of human trafficking.  She has even written a book called "Walk with Me: A Memoir of a Sex Slave Worker."

Photo credit: Mysi anne

Amanda Kloer is a Change.org Editor and has been a full-time abolitionist in several capacities for seven years. Follow her on Twitter @endhumantraffic
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