Sainthood of Dangoule Rasalaite: Canonization

  
16-year-old Dangoule Rasalaite from Lithuania was instead locked up in an apartment in Arlöv in Sweden and forced into prostitution.

A few months later she took her life by jumping from a bridge railing in Malmo.

One of Dangoule’s footprints was clearly visible in the soil in a flower pot that was hanging at the bridge railing.

She was carrying no passport and no identification documents, but police found three handwritten letters in her pocket to friends in Lithuania.

There, she told me that she had been deceived in Sweden with the promise of better jobs—but that she instead had been forced to sell her body.

With a false passport in her pocket, Dangoule Rasalaite landed at the airport in Kristianstad, 17 September 1999.

She was probably a young girl full of hopes. Perhaps this was her way out of poverty and social misery in her home village Ziezmariai.

Dangoule Rasalaite was born on 19 May 1983. She was an abandoned child. The father was missing and when Dangoule was 14 years old her mother flew to the United States in search of a better life—for herself. [She was known to have an older sister.]

The two daughters were left in a seedy apartment in a rural area of Lithuania. When the older sister moved to Germany, Dangoule had to take care of herself.

The mother soon wrote from the US to the social authorities in Lithuania that she did not want to be a mother anymore.

She did not want her daughter.

Dangoule was picked up at the airport and taken to an apartment in Arlöv just north of Malmö.

There, she was locked up.

''Russian'' [her pimp] took the passport away from her because she would not be able to run. He says she owes him 20,000 dollars for the passport and journey.

To repay, she must prostitute herself, becoming a sex slave. ''Russian'' arranges clients.

After a month, Dangoule succeeded to escape through a window.

But she dare not contact the police. Instead, she meets a 29-year-old man from Macedonia who she is staying with. While he exploits her sexually.

It was free for his friends too. They behaved like pigs, says Bo Lundqvist, police inspector at the county police in Malmo.

Dangoule is crying. She is scared. ''Russian'' is looking for her around town.

One day she did not have the energy anymore. After an altercation with a female acquaintance she rushes out of the apartment. Ten minutes later, the ambulance sirens can be heard. Dangoule has jumped from a road bridge, Kruse Way in Malmo.

She dies three days later from her injuries. On January 10, 2000.

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Young women are sold as prostitutes

Human trafficking is the third largest source of income for organised crime in the world. After drugs and weapons.

It is one of the fastest growing criminal activities and annual sales every year, amounting to tens of thousands of billions.

The victims are young women from poor countries. They are lured with promises of regular jobs in richer countries, but instead are forced into prostitution.

On July 1, a human trafficking law was instituted because of a new law against trafficking in Sweden. The offense can lead to imprisonment for up to ten years.