Loreta was prostituted from age 15 to age 19. After escaping her abusers, she lived at the Klaipeda Social and Psychological Services Center in Lithuania—an Equality Now partner—for a year, where she was provided with holistic survivor-oriented services to help her regain control of her life. Here is her story.

I was born near the Lithuania–Latvia border. Since my alcoholic parents were incapable of caring for me, social workers sent me to a state-run children’s home.

When my 15th birthday finally arrived, I was very relieved because I thought nobody would ever again have the right to hurt me, boss me around, or punish me. I left the home without any idea that this was only the beginning of a very difficult road.

That night after I sold my body, I felt repulsed. I wouldn’t get out of the shower until I washed everything away. I felt so humiliated. I heard my friends crying too.

When I turned 17, the madam told us that a pimp was selling us abroad. One girl was sold in Poland, two in Budapest, and the rest of us were taken to Ravenna, Italy. When we arrived, we were sold to men whose language we didn’t understand. They took us to a brothel filled with women aged 14-32, trafficked from Belorussia, Poland, and Lithuania. We had to take care of our clients in the public restrooms within 15 minutes. Pimps prevented us from escaping and used violence to force us to work in the streets.

After two weeks in Italy, I had an older client who understood Lithuanian. I took a risk and begged for his help. His friend took my friends and me to the Italian police. I was so surprised by how well the police treated us. They helped us get documentation so we could return to Lithuania and helped us change our names and appearances so the pimps couldn’t find us. We were sent to an Italian organization that worked with victims of human trafficking and were granted refugee status. We spent around four months in protective custody until our identification documents were sorted out and then were brought to Vilnius, Lithuania where social workers took care of us. We lived there for about a year. A social worker worked with me a lot and helped me realize how I had been exploited.