A 65-year-old Albanian together with his four sons is facing charges for holding 4 girls hostage in Switzerland for 16 years.

Next week, a Kosovar-Albanian father with four sons will appear before the Moutier BE regional court. The charge: He is said to have brought a girl between the ages of 14 and 17 as a “wife” from the Balkans to the Bernese Jura for each of his four sons. Here, for a decade and a half, father and sons abused the women and forced them to do housework.

The first victim was brought to Switzerland from Albania in 2003. The then 17-year-old only knew her husband from pictures, and the forced marriage between the in-laws was arranged. The young woman’s parents were promised that their daughter would have a better life in Switzerland. Another girl was just 14 years old, living in poverty, and, according to investigators, was sold by her parents to her tormentors for the sum of 300 euros.

The supposedly better life quickly turned out to be a trap. According to the indictment, patriarch Albrim F.* (65) instructed his sons exactly how to deal with their “wives”: with brute physical and psychological violence. The women were repeatedly beaten, humiliated, threatened with death, isolated, and raped by family members.

“He hit her with his belt more than 20 times,” says the indictment of one of the defendants. Or: “Although she was pregnant, he beat his daughter-in-law until she bled and squeezed her throat with both hands.” One of the victims had to wash the feet of her father-in-law and brother-in-law every evening. The allegations fill 30 pages.

The women were rarely allowed to leave the apartment alone and had almost no contact with their families back home. And had to do household chores from morning to night. After 16 years in Switzerland, one of the women could not speak a national language, she was here illegally.