Transcript
When I think about everything that happened — I've been living here in Spain, in Barcelona, for 15 years — sometimes I feel like Alice in Wonderland, because I still can't fully take in all the wonder I find here, but I also can't take in the things we left behind there, under communism, things that were very beautiful, and that some people, who wanted more and more and more, ended up destroying — an idea and a project that was good for all the people.
Here, aside from four years at Casa Eslava, I'm a writer — I write all these stories that life brings me, and I think it's a shame, a pity, not to put them down on paper, because tomorrow people will forget all of this. And I also do happiness coaching. To be able to bring others closer to happiness, first you need to walk a path without happiness. And then you have to know many kinds of happiness, and also of unhappiness. The conclusion of all this is that we are all happy in very similar ways and we are unhappy in very, very particular ways.
A few days ago, a request reached my heart from a group of people from Casa Eslava to repeat an intercultural outing — because we organize outings where people from other backgrounds also participate, and sometimes it happens that even local people tell us: «But I didn't know this place in Barcelona.» And then we feel very proud, because we give a little piece of happiness to people from here who didn't know it.
So this group from Eslava told me: «We want to repeat the visit to the Liceu.» And I felt… because if you offer someone from here «let's go visit the Liceu,» it won't make them happy because it'll be something so normal, so everyday. But for these people, who now have to work double shifts… because I invited many people to come, and they told me: «Those who work almost work double, and those who don't work are so depressed they don't feel like talking about this topic or even listening.» And that's why it's not so easy today.
So these people see the Liceu as something out of a fairy tale, something wonderful, because a ticket to the opera is so expensive they can't afford it out of their own pockets. And there's no social support so that people can experience Catalan culture. And I wish some political party would start thinking about this. To integrate, to coexist… I prefer the word coexist over integrate, because in the end we have to integrate: you all into us and us into you, because Catalonia has to belong to everyone, and we have to make it so flexible that all cultures can fit in.
So, to coexist, we need to know each other's cultures. And to know Catalan culture, sometimes you need time, which we don't have, and money, which my people don't have either. And we need to think about making it accessible in a way that isn't expensive. So I already promised to arrange a conversation with the Liceu, because we can only go if they let us in for free. The visit costs three euros, but I have many people who can't spare three euros. And I believe the Liceu will open its doors for us.
And why do I also think I'm Alice in Wonderland? Because the word "work-life balance" in my country — I've never heard it. And sometimes I think: why. Because I am also, through Casa Eslava, on the Welfare Commission of Dones de Barcelona. And there, a year ago, they talked a lot, a lot, about this topic. And at one point I said: can we think for a minute… how lucky we are to be able to talk about this topic. What a luxury it is to be able to discuss this topic.
Because millions of women in Africa, Latin America, and Asian countries can never even think that this word exists. It doesn't exist in their dictionary because they don't have any rights to things much more basic than work-life balance. So part of our happiness in Catalonia is being able to debate this topic.
And why did my country never invent this word? Now yes, now it exists there too. But in the times when I lived there, 15 years ago, it's because first of all, our parents live with us. Very few families let their father and mother, if they're over 60, live alone. So they always lend a hand to help with children, with housework, with anything. Also, neighbors know each other by name. Here I've changed apartments many times, and aside from the doorman and two neighbors, I don't know others, because people don't approach each other.
In my country, neighbors are friends. In Serbia, you leave your keys with a neighbor, because if anything happens, if you're on vacation, if your child has lost their keys, if you're not there — anything — someone in this building has your keys. And we help each other, among friends. Here, luckily, we don't have to make what's called "zimnica" — food for winter — because winters there are very harsh. So there's a tradition of, in October and November, preparing a lot of food that goes into jars and is stored for winter. And then it's eaten. So it's done inside homes, and friends help each other.
So we don't need this word "work-life balance." Now, with everything happening here, with the crisis, women can't think about this, because men have been left without work, women are looking for double work. But I think we can help each other a lot, because with the experience we've had in our countries, I think we can help here so that "work-life balance" also becomes an unnecessary word. That we all have time for one thing and another.
Thank you.
Fortunately, they are not a majority that arrives like that; it's a smaller percentage, but there are cases, and there are very strong and very cruel cases. And also, on the other hand, we have prostitution that is voluntary — the same thing happens as in Catalonia.
The problem with forced prostitution is that people from the government, from the police, participate, because if there isn't someone inside the country, it's almost impossible to enter illegally. So there are groups that are within official institutions, who also work double: they work for the government and they work on their own to earn more money and to open illegal channels for illegal immigration and for forced prostitution.
Casa Eslava has existed since 2007. From the beginning we have worked in the field of culture, but also in the field of social aid and aid to women, and in the area of women we have worked on prostitution. We collaborate a lot with the Orthodox Church and with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, so cases also reach us through churches.
Two of the strongest cases that I can explain without saying names are of an 18-year-old girl who came from Russia. She had a complicated situation there; she wanted to leave Russia because she was half-orphan, without a mother, she lived with her father and things weren't going well. So she was looking at ads in the newspaper and she found an ad that offered a very good job as a waitress in Barcelona: they pay for your travel, they offer you papers, everything perfect.
The girl signed up, she came hidden in a van via Romania, they took her passport, they told her that they need to keep her Russian passport, and she found herself outside Barcelona, in a house in the woods. The second day, when she woke up, she found that she was in a house of prostitution, but at a very, very high level, only for executives, everything top-level.
So she had to undergo a health checkup and the doctor found that she was two months pregnant. This saved her, because they couldn't accept a pregnant woman working. They put her in a van again, took her to a deeper part of the forest, to the mountain, and threw her away like a package. Walking for three days, without knowing where she was, until she found a small village; from there they called the Orthodox Church. Someone from the Church went, found her, brought her to Barcelona, they contacted me, and between the Church and Casa Eslava we went through a procedure with her to see how to help her, what to do about papers, how to handle the pregnancy. The girl was very scared; fortunately they didn't even hit her or anything, they just threw her away like trash, because she wasn't useful for what they wanted her for.
We contacted Social Services of Barcelona. We managed to have her stay for nine months in a shelter home at Casa Eslava and afterwards, when she already had the baby, she moved to another shelter home for women in Barcelona. Now she works, this girl is doing very well, but when she remembers she still doesn't have the strength to explain everything that happened to her.
Another case is of a much older woman; she was in her forties. I say "was" because she died recently, and I believe her heart and her mind just couldn't take any more. She is from Kazakhstan, and when the Soviet Union broke up, when everything was destroyed, the mafia took control in all areas of life. So people were left without work; there was a crisis, and you didn't ask where you were going to work, the important thing was that you worked.
So her husband accepted a job in a diamond mine. And when that part of the work closed, they offered him to drive a truck that carried these diamonds. But the mafia has its tricks, which sometimes surpass what we see in movies, and sometimes when I watch movies I laugh because I say: this is naive. The things that reach us are much stronger.
So the same mafia hired him, gave him a truck to carry diamonds, because it was all through secret channels, outside the country. And when he had a rest at a stop, the same mafia stole this truck from him. And the blame fell on him, because he had lost the truck. So they put, for example, a debt of 800 thousand euros on him for everything that was in the truck and for the truck, which he had to repay.
So they send him back to the mine, but now without a salary: every salary goes to pay off the debt. And they kidnap his wife and sell her for this debt. So she arrives here as a prostitute, sold; they bought her and she worked in a Catalan brothel here.
After two years, a client managed to help her and she escaped, contacted the police, the police contacted us. And so we rescued her, we helped her and she started working as a cook, but she never recovered. She drank too much, she accepted renting rooms to people who were in a very bad state, and in the end she died. The doctor didn't find a clear cause; I think it's a mix of alcohol and everything she survived, and she died at less than 50 years old. We have no news of her husband.
So I say: neither a book nor a movie can create this, only the bad things we see in life. But on the other hand we have another type of prostitution. There are girls who work in clubs, these luxury clubs, nightclubs, and they explain that they are fine, because they like it or because they need money, but they don't go because they are forced. They work the hours they want, the client has drinks and they earn a percentage.
I think the best work-life balance of my life I heard from one of them, because she is from Almería, she's Russian, she's married to a guy from Almería, and for the guy the official story of his wife's life is this: I run a real estate company in Barcelona, I have a secretary, two weeks I spend in Barcelona and two weeks with my family. So, when she's in Almería, she's like a housewife, she only dedicates herself to her husband and child; they have a 10-year-old son.
When she comes here, she works in this luxury club and, for her husband, she goes to this real estate company, she earns enough money and helps her family. She has a perfect work-life balance. But not all of us can achieve this kind of balance.