First-person testimony: the women who have put Opus Dei in the dock

These are some of the 44 stories that led the Argentine justice system to a historic accusation against the highest authorities of the Work in the country for human trafficking and labor exploitation. Similar practices have been repeated to varying degrees in other countries.

— The Argentine justice system accuses Opus Dei of trafficking in women and labor exploitation.

Susana Lencina was a teenage maid for a family in Rosario when her employer put her in a car to take her to the Opus Dei maid school in Buenos Aires.

Tita Villamayor and her cousin were picked up from a rural town in Paraguay at the age of 15 with the promise of a school in the capital, Asunción, and were soon taken to Argentina and put to work.

Beatriz Delgado managed to escape after serving 16 years without pay and in confined conditions, but they found her and forced her to return against her will for nine more years.

Alicia Torancio was overmedicated with psychiatric pills and left in a room so none of her fellow inmates could see her.

When her father died, Norma Martínez had no money for the burial and was given no help. They told her the same thing they had when she asked to see her family: to practice detachment and that her family was the Work.

The stories of Susana, Tita, Beatriz, Alicia, and Norma are just five of the 44 stories that the Argentine justice system heard in the last two years before filing a historic accusation of human trafficking and labor exploitation against the regional authorities of the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, which puts the organization's highest authorities in the Río de la Plata region in the dock.

Some of the cases have expired, but testimonies paint a picture of a recruitment modus operandi that began with the promise of a training school in hospitality or domestic work, where the adolescent girls, between the ages of 13 and 17, were admitted as boarders and isolated from their families. For some, especially those sent from neighboring countries, the promise of school disappeared along the way, and they went straight to "centers"—houses where celibate members, men and women, live separately—to work.

That's what happened to Tita, who left her home and her nine siblings with the hope of studying and without speaking Spanish. "Every day I waited for school to start, but it never started. All I had to do was work, work, and work." She was like that for almost a decade. She never received a salary. She barely saw her family for years.

Under what conditions does a poor, immigrant, and underage woman agree to "dedicate her life" to serving other faithful? What is the legal value of this supposed "voluntariness"? Prosecutors ask.

Within the Institute for Training in Domestic Studies (ICIED), the courts describe a recruitment system based on spiritual control and isolation. Alicia describes it this way: "When you arrive there, they start brainwashing you. They tell you that you have a vocation to be a saint, that you can contribute to the world through your work. I was very idealistic." Those who resisted were convinced with threats: "When you didn't see your vocation, they told you that you couldn't go against God's will," adds Susana, who resisted becoming an auxiliary numerary of Opus Dei, the category created by the organization specifically for those poor women who, the courts now say, "were destined to be maids all their lives."

“Under what conditions does a poor, immigrant, and underage woman agree to ‘dedicate her life’ to serving other faithful? What is the legal value of this supposed ‘voluntariness’?” prosecutors Eduardo Taiano, head of the Third National Prosecutor’s Office, and prosecutors from the Office of the Prosecutor against Trafficking and Exploitation (PROTEX), Alejandra Mángano and Marcelo Colombo, ask in the 116-page document that has been in the hands of Judge Daniel Rafecas for a month.

Trafficking and Exploitation

Delgado spent 24 years within Opus Dei as an auxiliary numerary. “You were rotated through jobs: one season ironing, then in the laundry room, in the dining room waiting tables, another time in the kitchen, and always cleaning, because as soon as you got up, without breakfast or anything, you had to go clean. I scrubbed the numeraries' dirty bathrooms until my knees were damaged, and I also ruined my spine lifting vegetable crates. I left the Work with a herniated disk in my lumbar region.”

The woman, who was born in Paraguay but lived with her mother in Argentina from a very young age, tells of an even worse time: “They told you you had to work until you were squeezed like a lemon, or they gave us the example of Noria's donkey, who never stops. I had that so ingrained in my head that once I had tuberculosis and continued working, coughing all day and night, weak. Because they forced me and because I felt I was failing God if I left my post.”

Alicia was 16 when she was convinced to leave her home in the countryside, in the Argentine province of Corrientes, for Buenos Aires. She went to school and then went to work. At 22, she was already in charge of a kitchen that fed around 100 Opus Dei members. The demands made her ill, she says. Depression caused her to weigh 45 kilos, and she ended up in a psychiatric hospital after a suicide attempt.

They didn't say anything to her sister, who was also in Opus Dei. Nor to another sister who was outside and would knock on the door to find out how she was and not be welcomed. Alicia explains why, even with this depression, she didn't manage to leave until she was 30. "I didn't leave because they told me that this suffering was my cross, that I had to offer it up."

Norma also emerged severely depressed and heavily medicated. When she couldn't take it anymore, she insisted they let her go to her mother's house, and from there she announced she wouldn't return. Then they told her they wouldn't pay for her medication and she had to manage on her own. She was 38 years old, having entered the system at 17. She had never been paid a salary. She found a doctor who gradually weaned her off the drugs. "I couldn't believe what they were making me take." Later, she found a psychologist who helped her move forward.

Lencina escaped in 1999, after seven years, from the Opus Dei headquarters in Argentina, in the Recoleta neighborhood. Behind the main residence for male numeraries and priests, the largest maid's residence in the country operates there, and all the women who filed the complaint passed through there at some point in their lives. According to accounts, it was one of the places where they worked the hardest, tirelessly, to maintain a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week service.

The alarm clock rang before 6 a.m., and they had to jump out of bed to get busy. After kneeling, kissing the floor, and saying "I will serve you," a routine of work and prayer began, leaving them only half an hour of conversation among themselves as a means of rest, but even then they weren't allowed to do anything outside of their "Life Plan." In the gathering, people could only talk about "things related to the Work and nothing personal," says another of the 44.

What all the women remember most about that place was "the ironing room," a basement room with large rollers for ironing dozens of sheets. It was a kind of unbreathable sauna, where they spent hours standing, sometimes until they collapsed. Another thing they won't forget is the caramel-colored film that covered the windows of the six-story tower and prevented them from even seeing the Recoleta Cemetery, located diagonally across from the building. "We couldn't see outside, and no one could see us," they recall.

"They didn't let you choose the tasks you did or where you lived," says Villamayor, and the others agree. They all rotated through different Opus Dei residences around the country. Among the 44 women, some were sent to other countries without consultation: several were in Paraguay, Bolivia, Italy, and even Kazakhstan. "Rotation" is precisely the central aspect of the court's accusation of human trafficking: "The reasons for the transfers were varied: to fulfill specific functions, to ensure good coexistence, for health reasons, to avoid emotional ties, and to adapt to institutional needs." The statement published by the Public Prosecutor's Office adds: "One of the most harmful consequences of this transfer logic was that it reinforced dependence on Opus Dei, by keeping the numerary assistants constantly on the move."

“You weren't given a choice about the tasks you performed or where you lived,” says Villamayor, and the others agree. They all rotated through different Opus Dei residences in the country. Among the 44 women, some were sent to other countries without consultation: several were in Paraguay, Bolivia, Italy, and even Kazakhstan. “Rotation” is precisely the central aspect of the court's accusation of human trafficking: “The reasons for the transfers were varied: to perform specific functions, ensure good coexistence, for health reasons, avoid emotional ties, and adapt to institutional needs.” The statement published by the Public Prosecutor's Office adds: “One of the most harmful consequences of this transfer logic was that it reinforced dependence on Opus Dei, by keeping the numerary assistants in constant mobility and isolation.”

For the prosecution, it is important to "approach the case from a gender and human rights perspective, since all the victims are women, poor, and in some cases immigrants. According to the investigation, they were exploited through typical household activities such as cleaning, maintenance, and assistance, among others."

Alicia, in uniform, with her sister Élida, who is also one of the 44 women who have filed complaints against Opus Dei for exploitation and human trafficking in Argentina. Photo courtesy of Tita.

Taiano, Mángano, and Colombo also point out that "their identity was formed through the menial tasks they performed for the highest echelons of Opus Dei's structure, especially for the spiritual, professional, and personal development of the men of the Prelature." Finally, they add a children's rights perspective.

"I want justice for the adolescence and youth that were taken from us, the family relationships that were damaged, and the deception my parents and I endured for wanting to study," Tita tells elDiario.es. And she adds a request to Pope Francis: “I ask you to give us a hand so we can move forward so that we can all enjoy the dignified life we ​​deserve, for all the time we served them, like machines, and for how they played with our consciences. That left scars on each one of us,” says the woman, who left “before the madness hit.”

Susana, on the other hand, says her wish is that “Opus Dei pay for what it did and cease to exist.” Alicia adds another request: “I would like us all to be included in this cause, beyond the legal deadlines, and that it be truly investigated, that those responsible be held accountable, and that Opus Dei not be allowed to hinder the cause with the power it has.”

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