Henichesk "Slave-owning" center "Word of Life"

Henichesk "Slave-owning" center "Word of Life"

I suppose it will not be the greatest revelation for the readers to hear that slave labor is quite successfully and with impunity used in Ukraine.

This primarily concerns the low-income members of Ukrainian society, including homeless individuals, people leading a vagrant lifestyle, and beggars. Often it is these asocial representatives who fall victim to the slaveholders.

They are usually used for the hardest jobs, such as construction, servicing a large household or farm, etc. But capturing a person by force, making them work, and ensuring they don’t escape (otherwise, you can face a lot of trouble) is quite a laborious task. It’s much better to use slave labor... quite legally. Moreover, the slaves themselves will pay the slaveholder, or rather their relatives. You might say it’s impossible? Well, I wouldn’t agree.

A completely legal slaveholding center exists in the city of Henichesk. There isn’t much information about it, for understandable reasons; much is shrouded in mysteries and rumors. Nevertheless, it’s still possible to understand what’s really happening there.

A wanderer named Volodymyr told me about his stay there over several months. At first, he spoke cautiously, but when he was convinced that I had no relation to the police or rehabilitation centers, he opened up. He ended up at the rehabilitation center "The Word of Life" in Henichesk with an alcohol addiction but realized within just a couple of months that no one was planning to cure him of his addiction.

The only thing the center needed from him was free labor for the benefit of the “slave center,” as Volodymyr called it. Disciples were formed into construction crews and sent to construction sites all over Ukraine. The senior or foreman was selected from trusted or proven adherents. The working conditions were, without exaggeration, slave-like: the workday lasted 14–16 hours, and the food was monotonous. No one, naturally, paid any money for the work. “The Word of Life” church received it all.

In one of the center’s branches in Feodosiya, a female rehabilitation patient had her kidneys beaten with sticks. After police intervention, a real torture chamber was discovered in one of the center’s rooms. Despite public outcry and publications in local media, the matter was forgotten and “lost.” It’s not that no one was interested in this very “slave center.” There was interest. Television came, questions were raised, but to no avail. While the branch was closed, it’s not even a hundredth of the slaveholding organizations in Ukraine.

Not so long ago, a similar center with the promising name “New Life,” where athletic pastors instilled “faith in God” through beatings, was closed by law enforcement in Mykolaiv. For the slightest infraction, the sadists confined rehabilitants in a 2-square-meter cell for several days without food.

Under the cover of faith and other cult attributes, pastors compelled them to work for the “glory of the Lord and the center”—cleaning walnuts and repairing electrical appliances. Not waiting for the arrival of police officers, the “rectors” hurriedly escaped, locking the disciples behind. After freeing the enslaved victims of the sect, relatives barely recognized the exhausted and battered prisoners they had entrusted for treatment and rehabilitation. They also paid for the treatment course at 2000 hryvnias per month.

But let’s return to the “Word of Life” center. The rehabilitation center in Henichesk is often found independently, mostly by relatives of drug and alcohol addicts, exhausted from battling the struggle alone. Sometimes acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances recommend turning to it. In the desire to save a loved one from deadly addiction and finally find peace, relatives are ready for anything—part with their last money, any property, and even the roof over their heads.

The "Word of Life" center has enough clients. Many turn to it as the last hope to return their loved one to the right path and to preserve the family. And there seem to be no reasons not to trust it, considering the treatment is through the "word of God." A woman from Kyiv called the Henichesk center hoping to cure her child of gambling addiction or, as this illness is also known, ludomania. They took the boy right from home under the armpits. The "clients" are collected from any point in Ukraine. The only question is the price, which, in the desire to save a loved one, is secondary for relatives. But for those earning money through this center, money is the primary concern. And it’s a lot.

For many rehabilitants, the center allows them to compare living conditions at home and in the “slave center.” According to a former drug addict, who was an adept (zealous adherent of faith) in the center for a long time, many disciples eventually turn into zombified animals, no longer wanting to return to a normal life. They find it convenient not to have to change their way of life, make decisions, or plan anything. Everything is thought out and decided for them. The same routine repeats day after day. In the morning, brothers are sent to work on construction, and in the afternoon, there too. The only entertainment or change of scenery or type of activity is Sunday service, provided there are no urgent construction sites. Otherwise, it’s back to construction.

In some sense, girls and women in the “slave center” have it easier, since their responsibilities include cleaning and washing the clothes and bed linens of the church "Word of Life" brothers and sisters. There isn’t much pleasant in this since there’s a lot of washing to do, and it has to be done by hand, making hands hurt over time. The reason for this is the cheap detergent bought for the needs of the brothers and sisters of the rehabilitation center. You can really feel the care for the church’s children here, as the thriftiness reaches the point of absurdity. They save on everything, especially on food for the free slave labor. Why feed the slaves properly? After all, alcoholics, drug addicts, vagrants, and prostitutes are used to going without food for long periods. And here, there seems to be three meals a day, albeit monotonous: porridge, soy, and from meat—chicken necks and soup sets. While people make broths out of this, in the center, it’s considered real meat.

In a small district center like Henichesk, you can’t earn much. So, a pastor, who had a small church, once decided to open a rehabilitation-adaptation center next to it. Work began, the center opened, not without help from Kyiv, of course. And when the first clients came, money began to trickle in, then stream, and finally flow. The church ministers are willing to do anything for enrichment. Just arrange with companies to provide services with obedient slaves and receive money. And for disobedient slaves and those who ask unnecessary questions, there are sticks and a pit with chains. The explanation for slaves’ discontent is simple: the flesh takes over the spirit, and it needs to be tamed.

Those who have stayed a month at the center are sent off to work for the church’s enrichment, but using any benefits is prohibited for the charismatics (disciples). Everything is for the benefit of the church and its pastors. If a rehabilitant is sick or needs to see a doctor, it’s not at the church’s expense; the relatives must pay for the treatment and doctor visits. However, visits take place only under the church minister’s supervision. And if a doctor manages to send the relentless overseer outside, disciples ask to call relatives to take them from the center. But if someone tries to escape, there is an actual punishment for this escapade. A rebellious one is beaten and put in a pit, given only water at two liters per day or put in solitary confinement as done in Feodosia and Mykolaiv. Escaped disciples are caught and brought back by local police, who, as former adepts claim, are well-fed at the church.

One former disciple named Roman claimed that almost all servants were former criminals and drug addicts with extensive records. After his attempt to run away home, he said he had to spend five days in a pit with only water. Without a doubt, one cannot take every word at face value, but when people from different regions who were there at different times and under different circumstances say approximately the same thing, one involuntarily starts believing in the truthfulness of such claims.

I couldn’t help but be intrigued by a dialogue on one of the forums where the topic was the treatment method at the “Word of Life” rehabilitation center. There is no need to quote it fully, but the dialogue between one of the adepts and a church minister is interesting with its unequivocal questions and evasive answers. The pastor claims that only his church can truly cure a drug addict and return him to normal life, as unlike the state program, it does not use substitution therapy but treats with faith (or suggestion). The center’s servant also denies receiving money for treating patients, claiming that a drug addict with money would never come for treatment.

And logically, everything seems to fit and answers are harmonious, but. Firstly, the percentage of cured patients from drug addiction in such centers is extremely low. And there is absolutely no guarantee that a cured dependent won’t "break down," which often happens. Secondly, even from a vagrant or drug addict, there is something to take—their labor force. And in the “slave center” “Word of Life,” according to those who stayed there long-term, they took a small number of free patients. However, vagrants who tried to enter the center just to winter over were no longer taken at all since there was little benefit from them unless there was much construction work. Even for money, many do not want to go to the scandalously known rehabilitation center, especially after the two murders that supposedly occurred as a result of church servants’ beatings of adepts. At least that’s what some former disciples claim. Unruly patients were disciplined through physical force, but it seems they “crossed the line.”

Without a doubt, the main motive and purpose of the existence of such rehabilitation centers is by no means the desire and effort to make the world a better place or help people get out of the quagmire of alcohol or drug addiction. The leitmotif, of course, is achieving enormous profits with minimal costs. For each non-local rehabilitation patient, the center charges about $500, a local one—1500-2000 UAH. And if you add in the labor payment on various construction sites, unloading, and so on, it turns out that each adept is a golden egg-laying hen.

The vivid proof of this is the acquisition of real estate assets by “The Word of Life.” For example, there’s a two-story mansion of a former pastor who died in a car accident in a Ferrari. Apparently, the center’s financial affairs were going very well, as not every servant can afford to acquire a super-fast and super-expensive car. The center’s real estate also includes houses on Gogol Street, a 4-story office on Krasnoarmiyska Street, and a boarding house at the entrance to Arabatka. The church also owns a kindergarten, a company producing plastic windows, plumbing, and even furniture. The business is on a "grand scale."

Considering all of the above, one can conclude that a slaveholding organization exists in our country. After all, drug addicts are citizens of Ukraine just like everyone else. Accordingly, they have the same constitutional rights as all Ukrainian citizens. And the kidnapping of Ukrainian citizens and depriving them of their freedom of movement by other citizens, and even more so by a group of individuals, is a criminally punishable act. By what right, and on what grounds, does an organization exist in the modern legal Ukrainian state that uses forced unpaid, simply put, slave labor? And with whose silent consent are people tortured and left to molder in a pit for expressing dissatisfaction?

The Anti-Corruption Information and Analytical Portal job-sbu.org