I AM NOT YOUR SLAVE

A Namibian woman’s account of how she survived being kidnapped and forced into a global human trafficking network.

When one of Tjipombo’s father’s wives accused Tjipombo’s mother of witchcraft, both were exiled to another village for one year to allow family “tensions to ease.” They stayed with her uncle, Gerson, whose lively household the author came to love. Then a business deal involving Tjipombo’s father and an associate of one of Gerson’s business contacts went sour, and Tjipombo (a pseudonym) was unexpectedly called upon to serve as the contact’s house girl for one year. The author soon discovered that the man actually wanted her for a prostitution ring that extended across southern Africa. A witch doctor subjected her to a bloody ceremony to mark her as his “daughter.” If she tried to escape, she or members of her family would die. Herded with other captive women into trucks, Tjipombo was sent to a camp where middlemen from China abused and raped her. From there, she was put on another truck that stopped in the Sudan. There, she became a servant and sexual slave for members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and visiting Sudanese government officials. An escape attempt landed her back in the hands of the traffickers who had originally captured her. The men put her on a ship bound for Dubai, where she became the live-in servant for a rich, powerful family. Her life “consisted of little beyond sleep and work,” until one family member called the Jackal forced her into an international sex slave “harem” the family used to entertain visiting officials. Tjipombo finally escaped after she stole the cellphone of a high-ranking American official who had made cellphone videos of their sexual encounter and threatened to blackmail him. In this harrowing, unsparing memoir, the author documents unimaginable brutality against women with dignity and grace and provides readers with an urgent education about the devastating scope of human trafficking in the modern world.

Difficult but necessary reading.