his webpage is a collection of stories and links to stories related to the human trafficking abuses by the Church of Scientology.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constritution, December 6, 1865
Janela Webster’s 2010 story about living in Human Trafficking conditions
“While I have my own personal experiences of being thrown in the lake; sleep deprivation; being incarcerated on the [Church of Scientology’s] International base and forced to sleep on a cot in my office for 7 months; starved on a diet of rice and beans for weeks; the most destructive and painful of all was the forced disconnection from my daughter in 2001. My experience is one that rings of violation of parental rights, human trafficking, and labor code violations.”
Interview with Maria Pia Gardini January 20, 2001
(These are excerpts.)
Maria Pia: … At that point, I was a bit afraid because they had my passport and I thought I’d never get out of there.
Stacy: What do you mean, they had your passport?
Maria Pia: They asked me for my passport because[and] they said to give the passport to OSA to have the green card. I knew that I couldn’t have the green card.
Stacy: To give it to OSA?
Maria Pia: Yeah. I went to OSA 20 times. Nobody was looking for my passport. “It’s not here. It’s in the other drawer.”
Stacy: They wouldn’t give it to you?
Maria Pia: At that point, I started to be afraid. I said, “They have my passport.”
…
Stacy: Why weren’t you trying to leave and go back to Italy?
Maria Pia: Without the passport?
Stacy: So, you couldn’t get your passport back?
Maria Pia: I wouldn’t get out from the company[country] without the passport.
Stacy: But you had to arrange some reason for them to give you your passport back?
…
Maria Pia: …. The director of the bank said, “Okay. Mrs. Gardini, if you send me a fax with a copy of your document, like, a passport and sign it, I can send you the money.” They wanted $500,000.
Stacy: The Scientologists did?
Maria Pia: Yeah, the Scientologists. I said, “I don’t have any documents. I don’t have any papers. My passport is at OSA.” I said. In three seconds, the passport that was missing for weeks, in three seconds, the passport has feet and arrives from OSA to Flag! That was wonderful. (interviewer laughs) So, we made a photocopy of the passport.
Stacy: It’s a miracle, isn’t it?
Maria Pia: I took the passport and I put it in my pocket. I said, “You have to put your hands in my trousers pocket if you want the passport. Otherwise, it doesn’t come out.” And that was another $300,000! They understood at that point that I had to go to Italy if they wanted more money. So, I arrived in Italy and I went to the bank.
“The Church of Scientology or the Guru’s Gulags — Story of an Escape” by “Nefertiti” May 1997
(These are excerpts.)
To flee, I must flee, but how? I don’t know, I’ll find a way, I must leave from here, that’s it, I have to think. How could I do it, without money, without passport or leave with my hands in my pockets?
…
I finally knew where they were taking me years afterwards (see chapter 3). I had to crawl through a narrow door and walk bent along a tunnel where humidity would rise to my throat. I arrived to a maze of ways on which I had not have the “honor” to work on yet per the motto: “One job, one place, one time.” That is to say, fully comply with orders, without flinching as a convict on forced labor on a rhythmical pace with no right for pause or even talk with no salary — only a detail — for a fixed ten long hours everyday. The rest of the time, five hours were reserved for “study”, let it be understood by the word study “special gulag indoctrination” only reserved to recalcitrant adepts of the sect (i.e. RPFers).
…
In the back, a form, then a woman, in her thirties, feverish, the entire body poured with sweat was wearing chains. She had a chain about twenty inches long linking her two ankles so she had to do small hasty steps.
…
I found out that she had sent a letter to her husband — member of the cult, revealing some details on the RPF. One is not supposed to talk about the gulag. She had violated the gulag’s law of silence.
…
Yes, to escape, that’s what it was all about! I suspected I would be forced to remain if I insisted on my routing out the SO (leaving the Sea Org) I had sensed that terrible sanctions would be imposed on me if I ever failed to succeed from the first time. And I was utterly right; years afterwards I found out from ex-members’ affidavits, testimonies and books how they suffered being imposed sanctions and were illegally kept against their will! One is not free to leave from a cult’s gulag, one has only the right to submit to illegal military discipline. And they call themselves a CHURCH?
…
As I have already said, one is not free to leave the RPF, one must escape from the RPF. One would be tempted to say it is a prison whereas detention conditions and current rules in use in industrial countries’ prisons would be similar to those existing in Club Meds (French vacations clubs located on paradisiac beaches) compared to RPF’s detention conditions. Gulag is the word, military detention camp, forced labor camp, re-education camp.