I was caught in £40,000 marriage scam…then I was forced into sex work in red-light district or my family would be killed
ILJA Abbattista was just 17 when she was taken to a gentlemen’s club in Rotterdam by a gang of pimps.
They told her to claim she was 18 – and, after being given a stage name she was put to work against her will.
A rape and sexual abuse survivor already, she said she was able to “dissociate” what was going on.
Earlier that day she had been given an impossible ultimatum: work for the gang for a week or lose her pinky finger – if she refused, the gang would kill a family member.
She had no idea how serious they were, but had never been so scared. One of the men was brandishing a gun.
Initially, she chose to lose the finger but when the blade touched her skin she changed her mind and agreed to work for them.
She would eventually come to realise that the pimps had hoped all along that that would be her choice.
“I’m thinking, I don’t want to do this,” she told The Sun. “But I’m petrified. I’m trying to save my family’s life here. I’ve got to do whatever I’ve got to do.”
Ilja is telling her story in an effort to encourage survivors of coercion and modern slavery to recognise the signs and help find a way out.
Support for victims of modern slavery
Ilja is an ambassador for UK charity Causeway, which supports victims of modern slavery and other crime.
Any vulnerability, such as poverty, conflict, addiction and discrimination can lead to modern slavery.
It can affect men, women, and children, and both from the UK and overseas.
It is estimated that over 50 million people around the world are currently trapped in modern slavery and exploitation, with more than 100,000 of those in the UK.
Criminal, labour and sexual exploitation are currently the most common forms of modern slavery in the UK.
You can find out more, including contact information, about Causeway here.
After agreeing to work for the gang, she was told to go back to her flat and pick up a cocktail dress, and within an hour she was at the club.
She had been born in the Netherlands but at the age of six-and-a-half her family moved to the UK.
Then, at age 11, her parents separated and she returned to her homeland with her mum and two brothers, while her dad stayed in Britain.
A traumatic childhood had seen her suffer sexual abuse from a young age at the hands of a family friend, before she was raped by a 17-year-old as she walked home from school in Rotterdam soon after her return.
Around this time, she was briefly shipped back to the UK before returning again, and by 14 she was in care in the Netherlands.
At 17 she was living in social housing and had begun a college course which she hated and was looking to quit, though had built up some debt.
A friend from care introduced her to the gang and she agreed to marry one of their associates so they could gain a visa, for a deal which eventually rose to the equivalent of up to £40,000.
They took her passport and phone book. She was told not to mention the agreement to anyone, but with little progress after several weeks she eventually confided in a pal and the gang found out, leading to the intense confrontation.
She said: “That’s when things got really ugly. I did actually give them my finger, which was incredibly scary.
“At that moment in time, I was probably the most scared I have ever been in my life. I was literally shaking inside. I obliged, and did what they said.
“I was adamant that that was the way I wanted to go forward, but when the knife was actually on my finger I hesitated. I said, okay, I’ll just work for a week. That’s when my life changed.”
On being dropped off at the club, she said “it was obvious what was required of me”.
The receptionist told her she needed a stage name but she couldn’t think of one.
“She made one up for me, and that’s who I became, and at that point I disassociated myself, and I became another person,” Ilja explained.
“That was an incredibly difficult day, but worse was yet to come.”
She described the club as “very luxurious”, particularly in comparison to later working red light district ‘windows’.
But this first experience took its toll immediately.
She said: “I’m walking down the street, and I’m utterly ashamed. I feel as if everybody can see what’s happening to me. I’ve still got this huge amount of fear, that’s kind of punched into me.”
She went on to say: “A lot of people that are in coercive situations often have had things happen to them much earlier, which leads them to be far more vulnerable to being exploited and to be a target…it started my understanding that that was normal behaviour.”
I’m walking down the street, and I’m utterly ashamed. I feel as if everybody can see what’s happening to me. I’ve still got this huge amount of fear, that’s kind of punched into me.
Ilja Abbattista
The gang had other girls on their books, one of which tried to escape and was gang raped to “teach her a lesson”.
They had all been coerced in different ways, including believing the pimps were their boyfriends.
Ilja began working from around 5 or 6pm to 4 or 5am at the club each day, and her flat was taken over by her bosses, who she recalls as all being fairly young men in their 20s or early 30s.
“I think that’s called cuckooing,” she said, referring to a police term for when gangs, often drug dealers, take over vulnerable people’s properties to continue criminal activities.
She quickly realised the one-week deal was a ruse, she was trapped and had no way out.
She was making decent money at the club – the equivalent of around £450 a night – but never saw any of it.
After three weeks, there began to be talk of her being moved to the windows in one of the red light districts.
She refused – she knew how much of a risk working there would be.
“I told them I don’t want to… I’d already heard that it’s incredibly dangerous and not as classy and you’re not as looked after as you are in the club.”
Britain’s first ‘legal Red Light District’ where hook-ups cost ‘£5 & 2 cigarettes’ & prostitutes had 2pm sex in gardens
By Luis Regan
TAKE a look at the dark side of Britain’s first legal ‘Red Light District’ where sex workers offered hook-ups for “£5 and two cigarettes” .
Holbeck in Leeds was the country’s only “managed” area for sex workers until the scheme was shut down in 2021.
The Holbeck Managed Approach scheme launched in 2014 and was the only place in the country where on-street sex work was legal.
The programme allowed sex workers to solicit for punters at certain times overnight without fear of being arrested by cops.
Long-term resident Pauline Lawn told The Sun three years ago that she encountered a sex worker and a man having intercourse in broad daylight.
Pointing to a patch of grass by her front gate, she said: “They were up against the fence. It was only 2pm.”
Others say they feel the initiative destroyed their lives, with most having to constantly witness sex acts and finding used needles in the streets.
A neighbour of Pauline, who did not want to be named, recalled sex workers promoted “Friday specials” where a man could pay “£5 and two cigarettes” for oral sex.
“My husband has been offered business when he’s pulled up outside our house,” she revealed.
“He had our two kids in the car.
“My teenage daughter has been harassed by kerb crawlers.
“It’s a disgusting way to live and we have felt terrified to even go outside for years.”
The legally allocated zone was established in the hope of quashing sex crimes and making it safer for women but some locals objected, claiming the sexual activity encroached onto their streets.
Locals even alleged that women and children were approached by men looking for sex.
In 2021, Leeds Council and West Yorkshire Police announced they would scrap the scheme despite a £50,000 independent review carried out last year indicating it should continue without any cutbacks.
At the time, the council said it would continue to support sex workers, adding it was “committed to managing on-street sex work in the most appropriate manner possible in order to reduce harm associated with on-street sex work”.
Read the full story here
But with the gang in control of her flat and forcing her to work long hours with customers, before entertaining them and their friends at her home, she knew it was only a matter of time.
First, she was shipped off to work in unfamiliar flats.
Clients called a number, they were given the address and turned up.
“That work is extremely risky, it’s really dangerous,” Ilja said.
She would work in the flats from 9am to 5pm and then over to the club for the evening, meaning often 23-hour days.
“I would fall asleep on the job. My money would get stolen and I’d get beaten up,” she said.
The pimps were breaking her. “This was all to get me to accept that they wanted me to work.
“They were teaching me a hard lesson,” Ilja said. Absolutely exhausted, she agreed to work in The Hague’s red light district.
She was shipped out to the “cheapest place you can work other than the streets”.
She added: “It’s very dirty, it’s very ugly. There’s cockroaches. There’s stains everywhere, it’s disgusting.”
Ilja was forced to sell sex for around £3 a time there.
“The kind of people that came there had the potential to become very violent,” she explained.
“They often try to work without a condom, which is an absolute no. You end up fighting on a regular basis. The only protection I had was from the outside. If anything happened behind the curtains nobody’s to know.”
Slowly, Ilja was moved to higher end areas where prices were increased even more – on average £30 a session, still far lower than at the club, however.
“I’d have to work much harder and much longer in order to get what I needed,” she said.
She ended up earning them a “hell of a lot of money, probably more than most of their other girls”.
“I also learned techniques where I didn’t have to work as hard, but got more money, though I never saw any of it.”
On a good day, she’d be dropped off around midday and be picked up after maybe 10 hours.
She said she would often be given a target to hit over a shift. But even if she hit her targets early they didn’t let her stop for the day.
She said: “You couldn’t stop until they picked you up.”
On a bad day, no one came to pick her up at all and she slept in the window booth.
Even when the police came to see whether there were any illegals working in a particular house, not once did they say, ‘here’s my number in case you need me’
Ilja Abbattista
As she became more trusted as a moneymaker, she was afforded ‘runners’ who would buy her food while she worked. But she was dangerously malnourished, weighing just 35kg at her worst.
“I was incredibly skinny, I was all bone,” she said.
To make things worse, the girls were not allowed to get “too friendly” with each other, or they’d be separated. “The price is too great,” Ilja said. “You can’t trust anybody.”
The Hague has three red light district zones and Ilja was moved around to all of them, initially.
She soon realised the gang didn’t want her to get “too comfortable” in case complacency set in.
Also, if a girl was new to an area, she would suddenly have more potential customers as a ‘fresh’ commodity.
The higher end spots were cleaner, but the size of the rooms always varied. At best, she might have a sink and a bidet. And if lots of customers were going in and out, anywhere would inevitably get dirty.
The girls were made to wear underwear in the windows, but after a while Ilja refused and wore dresses over her pants and bra.
It turned out to be better for business, more clients arrived and she got more money, so the gang allowed it.
She began being moved around so much she could hardly remember where she was, including to Amsterdam, as well Germany and Belgium.
Mostly it was in windows, but sometimes topless bars, “which is horrendous, so degrading”, she added.
In order to travel abroad she and other sex workers would be marched to hospitals for health checks to get visas, but never once did any doctors give any indication they might help her.
“There’s like hundreds of girls all walking up to the local hospital,” she recalled.
“Even when the police came to see whether there were any illegals working in a particular house, not once did they say, ‘here’s my number in case you need me, in case you’re here not by your free will’.
“I mean, we couldn’t have taken that card anyway, but we could have memorised the number or something.”
AMSTERDAM
Her stints in Amsterdam were the worst.
“I knew a lot of British people would go there, and that worried me immensely,” Ilja said. “But they have total control.”
She said: “On one occasion when I was working there, there was a slight crack in the curtain where people could peer down and watch, and I knew it was a group of English people, and they could see everything that was going on in that room.
“And oh my God, it was just like a circus.”
Around 18 months into her ordeal, she felt like she had completely “lost control” of her life and one night she snapped.
In her Rotterdam flat she had a treasured piece of furniture that belonged to her grandmother, which was damaged when she was thrown into it.
She then realised someone had stubbed out a cigarette on it.
“That night, I just thought, no, that’s it. I’ve had enough,” Ilja said.
With her home full of gang members and strangers, she took an overdose and her main pimp’s brother took her to hospital to have her stomach pumped.
The procedure meant the oral contraception she was taking was removed from her body.
On discharging herself she was raped by her pimp.
“When I got home there was a change in his behaviour, and he had kind of said that I’m his number one girl and that kind of gave him the permission to have sex with me,” Ilja said.
“I got pregnant that night.”
Amsterdam's red light district
Women in lingerie dance in windows as hordes of worse-for-wear lads stumble past, ogling and desperately trying to decide if they have enough euros in their wallets for a quick stop off.
This is Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District, where an estimated 6,000 sex workers do their best to entice men – often on weekend stag dos – to splash their cash.
Over 20 million tourists visit the city each year, drawn by the city’s liberal stance when it comes to drugs and buying sex.
While buying sex is legal in the Netherlands as long as it is between two consenting adults, campaign groups have been trying to force changes for years.
Karina Schaapman, a former Amsterdam prostitute turned city councillor, said: “There are people who are really proud of the red light district as a tourist attraction.
“It’s supposed to be such a wonderful, cheery place that shows just what a free city we are.
“But I think it’s a cesspit. There’s a lot of serious criminality. There’s a lot of exploitation of women, and a lot of social distress. That’s nothing to be proud of.”
However, in 2013, Metje Blaak, who worked in the sex trade for 25 years before turning to filmmaking, argued closing legal brothels will push women out onto the streets.
“In the window is safe, open. You can see your clients. You can see everything,” she said.
In recent times, stricter regulations and restrictions have been slowly introduced.
Sex workers must register their businesses, pay taxes, and undergo regular testing.
Window brothels, sex clubs, and escort agencies must have permits from the City of Amsterdam to operate legally.
In 2019, then new mayor Femke Halsema proposed several different options for residents, sex workers, business owners and everyone else involved.
A report called ‘The Future of Window Prostitution in Amsterdam’ outlined changes to the district that would become under serious consideration.
“We must dare to think big – also about ending prostitution in the Red Light District”, said Mayor Femke Halsema.
“Unacceptable situations have arisen, and the council is ready to consider far-reaching solutions.”
Three months later, aged only 18, she suffered a miscarriage on the job “which was very unpleasant”.
Despite everything, she was still bringing in up to £1,000 a day. On one particularly profitable shift she even made around £3,500.
It meant, particularly after the suicide attempt and miscarriage, some of the rougher treatment stopped and she was often brought off shift earlier and allowed to sleep longer.
But it was simply to ensure she kept earning top money.
During a stint in Antwerp, the Yugoslavian Mafia – which Ilja described as the “most evil” of pimps – began circulating and hoped to snare her to work for them.
The hell she was living with her current bosses would have been nothing compared to if she was taken by this organisation. Effectively a death sentence. “Once you got into their hands, that was the end of the road,” she said.
But the gang was able to shield her as its “most valuable asset”.
Ilja estimates 99 percent of sex workers in the various red light districts are not there by their own free will.
“I rarely met somebody who was there by choice,” she said.
Most of the profitable ‘assets’ were teenagers or in their early 20s.
Once a girl was no longer making money, or became hooked on drugs, they were dumped, sometimes in a foreign country without their passport.
She said: “One girl working with our group was in Germany with me. She started using drugs.
“She actually got left behind. That would have just been really, really horrendous for her.”
Ilja also recalled one woman, probably in her late 30s, who worked the windows by choice. The older women were put in cheaper areas and made much less money. And Ilja knew others who worked in porn. “I would have been grateful to do that,” she said, though it wasn’t a possibility with her ‘employers’.
But Ilja, despite being scared every day, never gave up her desire to escape the life she found herself in.
“I always wanted to leave, I just never had the guts to do so,” she said.
There’s no guidelines as to how you’re supposed to deal with this. There’s no way of saying do this or don’t do that. Everyone’s story is different. But by telling mine I hope to help others.
Ilja Abbattista
She was given more and more leniency.
During one trip to Antwerp, she was even given her passport back and her usual minders didn’t check up on her as often.
Ilja said she made some “friends” whilst in the Belgian city and they forged a plan for her to finally get away.
She knew as a high earner, she could persuade her bosses to allow her to get enhancements at a clinic.
ESCAPE
Claiming she would get injections to increase her breast size, she was able to sneak out of a back door at the doctors without getting the procedure done.
She had observed the patterns of the minders and she hid amongst some scaffolding and dust sheets for hours.
“I didn’t have anything with me other than a little bag,” Ilja recalled. “We had to wait until it was dark.”
The new friends then picked her up in their car and she was driven back to the Netherlands to stay at their flat.
She attempted to return to the same work but said she couldn’t physically bring herself to do it, while also worrying she would bump into her former pimps.
“I just wanted to earn some money, just to make up for all those years of working and not earning any money myself,” she said.
Then she took a major risk.
“I went on a day off to Rotterdam because I wanted to find out some answers…Why this had happened to me in the first place,” Ilja explained.
How you can get help
Women's Aid has this advice for victims and their families:
- Always keep your phone nearby.
- Get in touch with charities for help, including the Women’s Aid live chat helpline and services such as SupportLine.
- If you are in danger, call 999.
- Familiarise yourself with the Silent Solution, reporting abuse without speaking down the phone, instead dialing “55”.
- Always keep some money on you, including change for a pay phone or bus fare.
- If you suspect your partner is about to attack you, try to go to a lower-risk area of the house – for example, where there is a way out and access to a telephone.
- Avoid the kitchen and garage, where there are likely to be knives or other weapons. Avoid rooms where you might become trapped, such as the bathroom, or where you might be shut into a cupboard or other small space.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, SupportLine is open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 6pm to 8pm on 01708 765200. The charity’s email support service is open weekdays and weekends during the crisis – messageinfo@supportline.org.uk.
Women’s Aid provides a live chat service – available weekdays from 8am-6pm and weekends 10am-6pm.
You can also call the freephone 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
She tracked down her former boss’ mum and visited her at her home.
At one stage, the pimp returned but Ilja was able to get away when his mum forced him to sit down for some food.
Ilja did not want to give details of her saviours, but admitted eventually things turned nasty when she told the leader of the group about her trip to Rotterdam.
“I got beaten up to nearly losing my life that night, and two dogs saved me,” she said.
“They kept jumping in and pulling the owner off of me. It was just absolutely incredible.
“Then he calmed himself down and said, ‘okay, we can’t do this anymore. You need to leave. You’re getting on a boat. You’re going to the UK now’.
“I got on a boat. I had about five bald patches on my head. I had scars on my arms. I made my way back to the UK.”
She was able to get in touch with her estranged dad and he picked her up in Oxford. She was 20. It was late 1993.
Ilja went to stay with her cousin. Rebuilding her life, she has gone on to launch multiple businesses and work alongside charities like Causeway, which helps survivors of modern day slavery.
Ilja, now 51, has two children and a grandchild and still lives in Oxfordshire.
She has returned to the Netherlands multiple times since her ordeal, but said she can’t bring herself to return to Rotterdam.
She said: “There’s no guidelines as to how you’re supposed to deal with this. There’s no way of saying do this or don’t do that.
“Everyone’s story is different. But by telling mine I hope to help others.”
Ilja added: “If I was a victim what a waste of a life that would be. I have been a victim in the past but I’m not now.”