NEW YORK—One late summer day in 2013,”Olga” (not her real name) was browsing through a Russian newspaper in Brooklyn, looking for a job. One ad caught her eye: “Masseuse wanted.” They were common ads, along with those for hairdressers or just “hiring young women.”
Normally, Olga would have skipped past it, but not this time—it was her last option. “I tried so hard for so long to survive,” she said through a translator. “There was nothing else.”
Olga came to the United States from Siberia, the harsh far-east of Russia, in 2001. Due to family circumstances, her trip turned into a permanent stay—and she became an illegal alien.
She settled in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, home to many Russian immigrants, legal and otherwise. She picked up odd jobs as a babysitter or store clerk, but then everything dried up.
So she called the number and was given an address for an interview.
Olga was apprehensive, but the place was a pleasant surprise. It was a cosmetology salon on an upper floor of a part-residential, part-office building in Manhattan. It was clean and set up as a medical office. People came by appointment, some for a facial or other cosmetology services, and others for a massage.
The interview went well. They wanted a masseuse and made it clear to her there was no sex involved. They asked about her immigration status. She said she was legal. They didn’t believe her for a second. But it was no problem.
Still, something was off. She was told they needed a blonde, but what did that matter for a masseuse? She also quickly realized the other masseuses did more than just massage some clients.
Read the full article by Petr Svab on Epoch Times.
