Ionela Olguta Pantelimon: the victim of femicide and human trafficking who never was.

Although we wanted to include Ionela in our 2016 list of femicides and other documented cases of murdered women on Feminicidio.net, she wasn't murdered. She drowned in a flood in the basement of a brothel in the Andalucian town of Estepona, Spain on the 4th December 2016. It is likely that she was a victim of human trafficking and had been locked up by the pimp and owner of the brothel, although he denied it to the police. In this article Amelia Tiganus, a survivor of trafficking and sexual exploitation, examines the prostitution system which she considers responsible for Ionela's death.

Amelia Tiganus – Feminicidio.net – 17/12/2016

We know that she drowned in a flood, but perhaps we will never know the full story of what happened to Ionela Olguta Pantelimon (born in Brăila, Romania on 12/01/1993).

I found many inconsistencies between the various reports in the Spanish and Romanian press. The media said that the brothel owner had been arrested. According to some reports, a ‘friend’ of the deceased called the emergency services to warn that Ionela’s life was in danger, after heavy rains caused the brothel to flood. I read elsewhere that the call was made by Natalia, the 31 year old Paraguayan woman who managed the brothel. Natalia was the partner of Francisco Carrasco, the 60 year old owner of Club California and several other brothels in the area. Now I began to understand my initial surprise at what this supposed ‘friend’, the last person to talk to the young Romanian woman, had told the press.

I got the impression that Natalia was only interested in defending the club owner and the legalisation of prostitution. She was keen to emphasise that the pimp was a good man; he let Ionela sleep in the club because she wasn’t able to rent a flat without having a legitimate, ‘regular’ job. I wondered why she would say such a thing. If her friend had just drowned, why would she make excuses for the pimp? Perhaps it was through external pressure or fear. Maybe she felt identified with the trafficker. It was all very strange. But I also thought that it could just as well have been through common interest, or that she was in love with the pimp. I do not deny the possibility that Natalia was complicit in Ionela’s exploitation, or that she herself was being exploited. Nor do I judge her.

Neighbours in the area said that Ionela had been sleeping in the brothel for several months; the club owner and his partner claimed it had only been four days. According to some reports she had been locked in the basement (just as I had been once, when my exploiters confiscated my passport). Others said she couldn't open the door because of the pressure of the water. Or that she couldn't find the keys to the door. Or that she couldn't reach the window to escape.

I know from my own experience how difficult it is to get a place in some clubs in this part of Spain. Andalucía is a region where the consumption of prostitution is enormous. As a 'free' prostitute, I had tried to get into one of these clubs myself, which many women consider attractive because of the relatively high earnings. But they never gave me a place; you have to come with a recommendation from a client. There are some brothels that you can only join through your "friendships" in the world of prostitution. Of course, the majority of the money made from the exploitation of our bodies goes to the pimps. But here I'm referring to the fact that there are different hierarchies and classes of brothel. In some of the area’s more exclusive clubs the women must hand over more of their earnings, which not only end up lining the pimps’ pockets, but also of men in certain circles of society. A recommendation can’t just come from anyone. It must be a client with links to political power, such as a politician, policeman or civil servant. In the world of prostitution they agree to clothe the patriarchy's oldest masculine institution in a cloak of legality. We shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the patriarchal pimp state sets the conditions.

According to the Romanian press, Ionela was trafficked four years ago by Lica, a native of the city of Brăila. First he took her to England for a year, and then Spain to be prostituted. Ionela's story is one of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of women in the world. Born into a lower-middle class family, she was the older of two daughters. She was a good student and was especially devoted to her little sister. Her parents, Nicu and Nicoleta Pantelimon, had never approved of their daughter's relationship with this 'loverboy' (a term for the young men who lure girls into prostitution) and didn’t want her to leave the country. Ionela’s relationship with her family had deteriorated since meeting this man, to the point that they lost all contact. She also closed her facebook account. This is a familiar story in prostitution; traffickers concentrate on making their victims totally dependent on them. As far as I could tell from the news reports, the family didn't have the money to bring their daughter's body home. Even after death we are discarded by the patriarchal state.

In the world of prostitution she was known as Alicia, or Ali. Those who knew her say she wanted to rent a flat in Spain and bring her husband to live with her. She dreamed of living a peaceful life one day, far away from prostitution. Yet according to some reports, her Romanian husband had threatened to tell her family that she was a prostitute if she didn't hand over all of her earnings. Lica, Ionela's trafficker, swore that he knew nothing about how she earned the money she sent him. The Spanish pimp also denied all knowledge of how much Ionela earned. He claimed that all he did was sell drinks to the clients. Whatever else happened had nothing to do with him.

Does anyone really believe that the profits from the €5m a day Spanish sex trade end up in the hands of the prostituted women? Ionela was a victim of trafficking and sexual exploitation. A victim of the prostitution system and the indifference shown by Spanish society, which allows its streets to be plagued with brothels, where men subjugate us and get rich from our bodies. A victim of the pimp state, which boosts its GDP by feeding on the desperation of women from the poorest countries. A victim of the patriarchal world which robs women of opportunities and the right to lead a life of dignity. And prostitution is a concentration camp which kills women.

The Spanish pimp state colonises our bodies and makes us profitable and disposable, driven by demand from the sex buyers. What can we do about it?

She should have been number 97 in the list of femicides committed in Spain in 2016, but she wasn't murdered. Her case will not be documented as one of femicide or human trafficking. Ionela Olguta Pantelimon is just another nobody. She died alone and abandoned at the age of 23, on 4 December 2016 in the basement of a brothel in Andalucia.

Translation by Ben Riddick

Original article in Spanish

Information on how to donate to the Fundraiser to bring Ionela's remains home to Romania here: http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2016/12/17/fundraiser-launched-to-help-repatriate-body-of-costa-del-sol-flood-victim/