NARYN, Kyrgyzstan - As he glances at the mountains that mark Kyrgyzstan's border with China, Taalay remembers the two years he spent across the border as human collateral for money that Chinese businessmen had lent him and his business partner.
The story of Taalay, a 27-year-old man living in a small village near the border between China and Kyrgyzstan, is far from being an isolated case.
Like him, hundreds of poor Kyrgyz who wanted to launch a business have turned to Chinese money lenders -- and met the same fate.
"We found a Chinese businessman and we asked him to lend us 4,000 dollars (3,100 euros). We thought we would reimburse him within four months," Taalay says.
Their plan was to import truckloads of scrap metal from Kyrgyzstan to China, and to sell it there.
"I was to stay there as a 'deposit' for the time it took my associate to reimburse the money. They took away my passport and I stayed in a hotel in Kashgar, in China. I only had to wait," he says.
But then, "my associate disappeared," he said.
From 2001 to 2003, Taalay spent in hotels in small towns of China's predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang.
"The only thing I could to do was to go to night clubs, drink and get into brawls, since we were not allowed to work. Policemen were in on the deal, so they would not deport us when we were arrested and had no IDs," Taalay says.
During the Chinese New Year, Taalay and other Kyrgyz were arrested after refusing to work in a meat factory for a corrupt policeman, and spent one month in jail.
Just in his hotel, some 15 Kyrgyz -- men, women and children -- were also staying as human deposits, Taalay says.
"We were living like wolves. Our 'owners' had us followed. If I had stayed, I would have become a ghost, or a monster," he says.
Some hostages were bought back by their families, while others managed to escape, clinging to the axles of trucks shuttling between China and Kyrgyzstan.
After seeing a Kyrgyz woman being beaten up by her Chinese "owner," Taalay and three friends finally decided to escape, paying a Chinese man 300 dollars so that he would bring them near the border crossing of Torugort, 3,800 meters above sea level.
"We walked for three days in the mountains," Taalay says. Then, he saw China's arid slopes give way to "green mountains, a sign that we had crossed back into Kyrgyzstan and were free."
Some 147 Kyrgyz remain such prisoners in China, part of a system in which a son, a father or a friend of someone owing money can stay for months, or even years, in China, says Nazgul, a lawyer working with Kyrgyz non-governmental organization Tendesh (Equality).
"Usually, Kyrgyz families ask the Chinese for money to buy products, crockery, clothes or pans that they intend to sell at a profit on Kyrgyz markets," Nazgul says.
According to testimonies gathered by Tendesh, a minority of female Kyrgyz hostages were humiliated and forced to prostitute themselves by their Chinese "owners."
"The biggest problem is that so many Kyrgyz have fallen into such abject poverty that they have no qualms about 'selling' their own relatives," says lawyer Erkin Asanaliyev.
Indeed, in Naryn, the last Kyrgyz town before the Chinese border, this system is often the only one to obtain money, and while everyone knows about this human trafficking, hardly anyone will talk about it, thus perpetuating the system.
"I have been back (from China) for a year. I escaped by hiding in boxes in a truck," says one Kyrgyz man who declined to give his name.
"I do not dare say anything to my family, because those who lent me money are still looking for me, and they could demand money from my relatives," he says.
04/04/2005 11:50 GMT