Ku:
I am a Chinese man who was misled by traffickers and came up in the Netherlands in 2010. I have sold all my belongings in China to pay for the trip. Upon arrival in the Netherlands, the traffickers confiscated my Chinese passport. To survive, I worked in every job that came my way, such as working in restaurants and loading / unloading goods.
In 2014, a friend introduced me to work at a plant nursery. The boss promised that I would receive a wage of € 5.75 per hour. My daily activities consisted of: growing flowers, loading and unloading goods, transporting goods and other work as required. The goods that I transported daily were very heavy and some weighed 50-100 kg. The workload was also very high. Furthermore, the working hours were very long. I regularly worked 10-12 hours per day, sometimes more than 13 hours. After 3 months of work I was completely exhausted. I also had to be very thrifty in order to make ends meet because the boss paid me only part of the wage.
About a year after I started work at the nursery, I injured my left thumb when I was transporting goods. After treatments in the hospital, I still couldn’t move or bend my fingers easily. Shortly after the accident, the boss fired me without giving a reason and without prior notice. The salary due was also not paid. Since I was not familiar with how things work in the Netherlands, I felt powerless.
Two days after my resignation, I went to the plant nursery one afternoon to claim my salary from the boss. I didn’t get a salary. The boss, his wife and the boss’s niece chased me out of the workplace. I was further knocked down by the son of the boss and his friends and was defenceless. They grabbed my legs and pulled me to a place where the security cameras had a blind spot. I was further kicked and beaten there. I begged for mercy, but they did not stop attacking me. At one point, the son of the boss kicked my chest with huge force, I felt a sharp pain and I realised that my bones had been broken. They kicked and hit my head, causing excessive bleeding from eye sockets. My body broke down at one point during their beating and I became unconscious. Later in the hospital it appeared that the injuries to the left eye socket required surgery. There was no place on my body that was unharmed: I had bruises and / or wounds everywhere.
A compassionate neighbour called the police and I was then sent to a hospital. I was in the hospital for a week to treat my injuries and to undergo necessary operations. Unfortunately, my body has not fully recovered to what it was before I was physically abused. I often feel lifeless. I can no longer perform work that requires more strength. The brutal violence has had a major impact on me physically and mentally. I don’t sleep well every night and often wake up from nightmares. In the nightmare I relive the scene of the violence. I live in fear everyday, not knowing when they will find me and retaliate against me.
I am an honest and dutiful Chinese. Before the trip to the Netherlands I hoped for a better life through hard work. Because I did not speak the local language, it was certainly not easy for me to secure work. I never thought that my boss not only withheld my salary and belongings, but that he used brutal force and threats against me.
At the moment I feel anxious and helpless.
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