A couple from Algeciras (Cádiz) has been arrested accused of recruiting women of Ukrainian origin through social networks to exploit them as domestic workers. The Civil Guard has identified eleven victims who had been exploited in Spain for a year and a half without a contract and under constant threats.
The couple, also of Ukrainian nationality, offered the victims work as nannies in Spain through the internet and established contact privately to agree on working conditions, the Civil Guard explained in a note.
In this way, the victims arrived immediately in Spain, taking advantage of the vulnerable situation in which they found themselves, and once here, the working conditions were very different from those previously agreed upon. Lack of employment contract, continuous work without a meal break, constant psychological abuse by the couple, threats, lack of intimacy and privacy, prohibition of leaving the house and even the prohibition of communicating with other workers in the same household, are some of the the conditions they have had to face.
The investigation, which began at the beginning of September after a complaint from one of the victims, determined that it was not an isolated incident, but rather that it was a practice that the couple had been developing for at least a year and a half. Thus, it has been possible to identify and contact at least 11 victims who have been subjected to the same situation. All of them have reported having suffered a similar experience with marriage, confirming the seriousness of the events.
In their demonstrations, these women recount the ordeal experienced by the daily humiliating treatment and the feeling of frustration of having been deceived by people of the same nationality, knowing the delicate situation that their country is going through. After taking statements from all the victims identified so far and gathering the necessary evidence, the Civil Guard has carried out a search of the luxury villa of the couple under investigation.
During the search, they found documentation that confirms the facts reported by the workers in their demonstrations, which is why the couple has been arrested for the crime of trafficking in human beings and have been placed at the disposal of the judicial authority, which has agreed the entry into prison without bail of both.
The operation has been carried out by the Organic Unit of the Judicial Police (UOPJ) of the Algeciras Command.
