The White Slave Trade

When I was twelve years old, my mother began warning me about something she called the White Slave Trade. “Don’t get caught by the White Slave Trade,” she repeated many times. She never defined it or mentioned any sexual aspect to it.  Her cautionary tone of voice sounded serious, but she always laughed at the same time, as did her surrounding friends or family. There were jokes about “harems,” Ali Baba or Scheherazade’s cleverness in One Thousand and One Nights. When I asked my girlfriends what the White Slave Trade might be, none of them understood it either. 

Six years later, in1967, I studied abroad in a college program in London. After the six-month curriculum ended, on a lark, I went to Prague where my worldly cousin, Barbara, met up with me. Two years older than me and a theater major, she projected an aura of sophistication. 

One evening, we had tickets to the opera in Prague’s elegant Opera House. On our way, we stopped at a historical student bar at the top of Wenceslaus Square, recommended by our guide book and located three blocks away from the Opera House. We sat at a long table with other young people who I assumed were Czech. They urged us to try their national beverage, Becherovka. As a non-drinker, I said “No.” Barbara indulged, pronounced it remarkable and insisted I try it. I took a sip and found the herbal liqueur delicious, without a hint of the alcohol taste that I so disliked. When some dark-haired youths further down the table paid for Becherovka for me, I drank two small glasses of it. We laughed with the students as they taught us Czech songs.

All at once, I noticed the time and realized the opera would start in twenty minutes. We said our good-byes and thanked the people at the table. I stood and felt dizzy. I’d never been drunk before and didn’t understand my lethargy and lack of coordination. When I stumbled a little, the dark-haired young men from the end of the table jumped up and offered to drive us to the opera in their car. Not knowing the culture, Barbara and I didn’t comprehend how odd this was: almost no one in Czechoslovakia in the sixties owned a car. We accepted their offer and walked out with them. One of the Czech students accompanied us and I assumed they were all friends. My cousin and I hopped in the back seat of the cream-colored sedan and made space for the Czech man, but he didn’t get in. He chatted with the car-owners through their front window in Czech, so we didn’t know what they said. We took off.

After several blocks, it became clear, even in my impaired state, that the car headed in the opposite direction from the Opera House. The young dark-haired men in the front chatted in a language other than Czech. 

In the late 1960s, my older brother lived in Pakistan with the Peace Corp and had learned Pan-Arabic. When he visited me in London a few months prior, he loved to spout Arabic, and I became used to his favorite phrases, such as “Inshallah…” (“God willing…”), “Daena nadhhab.” (“Let’s go.”), “Kam min alnuqud?” (“How much money?”), “Madha snafeal alan?” (“What’ll we do now”?). I heard the driver and his friend say these phrases, realized the men were Arabic. I  knew their words weren’t about the route to the Opera House.

When we entered the suburbs of Prague, I became alarmed. Barbara and I remained silent because, in the bar, the men had understood a little English. Maybe it was the Becherovka or our emergency situation or our common DNA, but my cousin and I understood each other on a telepathic level. With eye contact, we soundlessly agreed to position ourselves near an exit and we sidled slowly sideways towards our respective doors. The car sped along the empty Prague streets. At an intersection, when it slowed a bit, Barbara and I flashed eye-signals to each other, pressed down on our door handles, shoved open the doors and rolled out of the moving car. Luckily, we each wore sensible shoes, so we quickly scampered up and ran down the street. At that moment, a thunderstorm erupted and rain poured down. The car made a U-turn, its bright lights searching for us in the dark. We ducked into shadowed doorways and hid from them. When they had gone past, we raced down a side street that led to another large boulevard. Eventually, they found us there and we repeated our hiding strategy, always heading in the vague direction of downtown Prague. It worked. At last, they gave up and we fearfully made our way through the drenching rain towards the Opera House, constantly looking over our shoulders.

Oddly, a few blocks after the car left us, we ran into the Czech young man who had been in the bar. He had been worried about us and followed the car on foot for as long as he could. We exclaimed our joy at seeing each other and burst into Czech songs. Because we were thoroughly lost, he kindly led us back to the Opera House. After a half hour of slogging through the wet night, we entered the beautiful historical building, dripping wet. We thanked him again and said heartfelt good-byes. We found our cheap, upper balcony cramped seats, and thoroughly enjoyed the last half of Der Rosenkavalier, safe and slowly drying off.

Later that night, I remembered my mother’s ominous warnings to stay away from the White Slave Trade. Now I knew what she meant and realized I’d instinctively followed her advice. Were it not for our intrepid escape, we might have been captives within a harem or held as modern-day slaves. 

Nowadays, the same thing happens to young women and is called human trafficking. Today, I’m still grateful that we made a successful run for it.

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