After a car accident Rado is able to move only in a wheelchair. He does not have a close family and is wholly dependent on assistance provided in social care centre. Approximately one year ago, a man called Karol started visiting him in the centre. He introduced himself as his distant relative. Karol seemed trustworthy to Rado and so he agreed to move to Karol’s house. There were already two other disabled men - Marek and Ivan - living at his place. They both had their legs amputated. Marek had been homeless before and Ivan had recently come to Karol’s place from similar centre as Rado. Soon after Rado moved to Karol’s place, Karol invited all three men to go on a car trip.

The journey took more than one day and ended in Belgium. Karol forced men to beg and he took all the money they earned. They were sleeping in the car; Karol gave them only few cigarettes, some coffee and food. He mentally abused them; sometimes he beat them too. They were not able to resist. None of them spoke any foreign language; they did not even know for sure, where they were. They often travelled and changed the places. After few weeks two strangers approached Rado. They were polite to him, one of them spoke Slovak. Rado told them everything about Karol and two other disabled men who were also forced to beg. On the same day, when Karol came to collect money, those two strangers returned back, identified themselves as policemen and detained Karol. They found out that Karol had exploited more than 10 men for the purposes of forced begging and Belgian police had been interested in his activities.

Rado, Marek and Ivan were accommodated in a shelter of Pag-Asa organisation where they received the necessary care. Due to their testimony Karol was convicted of human trafficking in Belgium. Marek built new social relationships in Belgium and decided to stay there. Rado and Ivan returned to Slovakia under the IOM Brussels project for victims of human trafficking in cooperation with IOM Bratislava. They both started to live again in social care centre receiving reintegration assistance from IOM.

(Names of the persons have been altered for protection reasons.)

More information on IOM activities in Counter-trafficking in Human Beings.

Return and Reintegration Programme for Trafficked Persons is carried out by IOM Bratislava as the integral part of the National Programme of Support and Protection for Victims of Trafficking in Human Beings, which is financed by the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic.