© Mimi Chakarova"They brought me to a group of 12 men, kept me there for four days, taking turns," said Maia, who was trafficked to Moscow at 18 - Moldova, 2005
Sometimes I wonder if I would do it again.
That's the funny thing about life. Experience comes in random, sporadic servings. It's only years later that the story takes shape.
I didn't intend to spend more than a year covering human trafficking. It ended up taking a decade. I didn't intend on reporting in more than two countries. So, how did I end up in nine?
Before my trips, my mum used to ask: "It took us so many years to get out of poverty, why do you keep returning there?" I would sit in her kitchen and the only answer that would come to mind was: "It's so damn familiar."
I can say the same about the Balkans. Each time the plane landed, I was home. It could have been Turkey, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria (my birth country), or Macedonia - I wasn't an outsider. I understood the culture, the rawness of our ways, the dark humour of our days.
Comment: The public defender should absolutely file a complaint to the state of Nevada over the behavior of the judge. The judge did not find her in contempt of court, and if he had, he would have had to follow clearly outlined procedures. None of those procedures involve handcuffing a counselor and putting her in the corner to "teach her a lesson". That is abuse of power. The judge can't just do whatever he wants if a counselor is fighting hard for her client. Either he finds her in contempt of court, or he deals with it like an adult. The fact that the judge intentionally keeps the cameras in the court turned off makes it look like he doesn't want there to be evidence of his behavior for others to judge.