ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- How could something like this happen?
That is the question being asked again and again in Kazakhstan after the mother of a 17-year-old schoolgirl revealed how her daughter was held in sexual slavery for six months as her classmates collected payments from what rights defenders claim were literally hundreds of adult "clients."
So far, the answer is far from complete.
Police investigating the horrific case in the southwestern city of Qyzylorda have warned against what they call "disinformation," objecting to the rights defenders' portrayal of a "child mafia group" that allegedly oversaw the schoolgirl's exploitation.
Nonetheless, as of August 15, all four minors facing charges of selling their peer for sex were under arrest just one day after activists and lawyers held an online press conference on the shocking case.
It's not the first time Kazakh authorities have been on the back foot as a broken system of child protection -- from schools through law enforcement -- comes under fresh public scrutiny.
'Younger And Younger Girls' Trapped Into Sex Work
At least one of the four suspects currently in jail was a former friend of the victim, according to the victim's mother, who spoke at the online event anonymously.
Both girls lived within a 500-meter radius of the school in Qyzylorda that they attended, and the alleged friend was said to be a regular visitor to the victim's family home.
Earlier this year, the then-16-year-old began spending more and more time with her friend, often staying over at her house.
The mother said she was unhappy with the amount of time her daughter was spending away from her home but chose not to stop her.
She said that it was a nude photo of her daughter that the group of three girls and one boy had deployed as leverage over her, later taking control of her phone and forcing her to sign up to a sex-work website whose name translates as "Girls" in Kazakh.
As the months went on, their exploitation of the victim reached a stage where she was sending the group the equivalent of up to $6,000 a month that had been transferred to her account by customers, keeping only enough for travel as she barely ate.
If she was late in making payments to the group they would beat her or indulge in psychological torture, her mother said.
The group was also allegedly drugging her to maximize her economic value.
Dina Smailova, the head of the NeMolchi.kz foundation, who spoke at the press event, said the men who used the victim deserved to be viewed as "pedophiles" despite the fact that she was registered as being 18 years old on the website.
"She was in fact younger and, because she has a very slight frame, she is very young-looking -- only about 14 or 15," Smailova said in an interview with RFE/RL on August 16.
The activist, who has been in direct contact with the victim, describes her as being in a state of "emotional emptiness," albeit now with access to a professional psychologist and under special state protection.
"She was asked to greet the client with a smile to remove suspicions. After the client left, she was beaten. Naturally, she has both psychological and physical trauma," Smailova said.
"What we see is a trend now toward trapping younger and younger girls into sex work," Smailova added.
"They have codes on this website to indicate that a girl is younger than 18. In one case we investigated in [Kazakhstan's largest city] Almaty...they dyed the girls' hair different colors so that the client would understand that they are minors," she said.
'Fear Of Death'
Owing to the duration of her daughter's ordeal, social media and media reactions to the tragedy have also targeted the victim's mother, asking how she was able to live in ignorance of the extent of what was happening to her daughter until earlier this month.
After the schoolgirl was increasingly forced into a life of sexual slavery, she began to skip classes while spending nights away from her family home under the coercion of the group up until May, when she ceased going home altogether.
Smailova says that criticism is understandable but maintains that Kazakhstan's system "exerts pressure on parents" who try to investigate their children's problems in school.
That point was stressed by the victim's mother at the press conference, where she said she approached the school "multiple times" beginning in March about her daughter's changing behavior and her plummeting academic performance.
"Since I received no help from the school, only threats, I turned to the juvenile police and the local inspector. But the same thing happened. They also threatened me, saying she would be taken from us and that we'd lose our parental rights. They were completely unprofessional, scolding both her and us, pointing fingers at us," she said.
Her daughter -- who saw a counselor at school who "yelled at her" during this period -- also urged her not to complain.
But on August 6, the victim returned to her family home, which her mother said was motivated by "fear of death" after one of the girls in the group threatened to kill her if she couldn't secure them a fresh payment of 250,000 tenges (around $520).
"One of her friends from Instagram helped bring her home. She told us everything. She was filthy and bruised all over. All the marks were visible on her skin. I will file charges against everyone who touched her -- more than 1,000 people -- everyone who brought her to hotels and saunas," the mother said.
Police in Qyzylorda on August 14 confirmed that a case had been filed against the parents of the suspects under charges of "failure to fulfill the duties of raising a minor."
A young relative of the victim, meanwhile, told RFE/RL's Kazakh Service on condition of anonymity that the family was now seeking prosecution of one of those parents on more serious charges, believing the individual may be an accomplice.
The suspects themselves are facing charges of "encouraging a minor to engage in prostitution."
On August 16, the administration of Qyzylorda Province reported that the province's governor had ordered the dismissal of the director and other staff at the victim's school.
"After the press conference they began to work very actively," Smailova said of the authorities' response.
But prior to that, the victim's mother said she was warned by police to refrain from contacting Smailova, whose work has exposed multiple cases of officers involved in sexual misconduct and corruption and who faces charges of fraud if she ever returns to Kazakhstan.
This all creates the unfortunate impression that the authorities' priority is to prevent information about shocking incidents from surfacing rather than preventing such incidents from happening.
Smailova argues such an approach fuels problems like sexual slavery in conservative provinces where victims often lack support networks.
Last year witnessed a tragedy in another southern Kazakh city, Turkistan, when a 17-year-old girl jumped off the sixth floor of a building after a conflict with a would-be client over her refusal to provide sexual services. She, too, had been registered on the Kazakh "Girls" website, Smailova said.
"We know the girl survived the fall, but we still don't know how that case ended," she told RFE/RL.
RFE/RL's Kazakh Service made attempts to contact the school in Qyzylorda and police in the region but received no reply by the time of publication.
