Raquel Liberman

Raquel Liberman (10 July 1900 in Berdichev, Ukraine – 7 April 1935 in Buenos Aires, Argentina) was a victim of human trafficking in Argentina. She managed to denounce her traffickers and break down the Jewish human trafficking network Zwi Migdal, which operated in Argentina in the early twentieth century.

Liberman was born on 10 July 1900 in Berdichev in Ukraine. According to the Jewish Women's Archive, she emigrated from Ukraine to Warsaw in Poland with her family as a young girl. In 1919, she married Yaacov Ferber, a Warsaw tailor, according to Jewish rites. Ferber emigrated to Argentina and she followed him to Tapalqué, Buenos Aires province, with her two sons in 1922. Her husband died of tuberculosis soon after their arrival. Needing economic support and not knowing Spanish, Liberman left her children with a foster family and looked for a job in Buenos Aires. Liberman later kept the existence of her children a secret, and her children were unaware of her subsequent history.

It is unclear how Liberman got involved in the criminal network, as there are very few records of her early life, and she concealed parts of her personal history.

Unable to find work as seamstress, she was either forced into or voluntarily entered into prostitution, through a Jewish human trafficking network named Zwi Migdal. One possibility is that her sister and brother-in-law belonged to the organization. This network worked in western Europe under the semblance of a Jewish Mutual Aid Society which lured girls and young women to Argentina where they were exploited sexually. Exactly how it occurred is uncertain, but Liberman ended up working for a caftan (pimp) named Jaime Cissinger, whom she paid for protection.

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