Kristīne met an acquaintance in Latvia who said that he could help her find a job in Dublin, Ireland. When she arrived in Dublin, she was met at the airport by two Pakistani men who took her to live in a house with eight other men. Finding a job was difficult for her because she did not speak English well. After a few months, one of the Pakistani men asked if she would marry him in exchange for money. After the wedding, Kristīne was not paid, and his attitude toward her changed drastically. She was no longer able to leave the house, forbidden to have a phone or go on the internet, and beaten often. Eventually, she gave birth to a child from her husband, and she was allowed to go to the Latvian Embassy in Ireland and register the child. At the embassy, the consular officer recognised the signs of abuse and reported the crime. Kristīne was freed from her captor and returned to Latvia with the help of NGOs. Since she willingly entered into the marriage, there was little that the Irish officials could do to prosecute Kristīne's husband (TVNET, 2012). When Kristīne appealed to the embassy for help, this type of crime was something they had witnessed many times before – fictitious or sham marriages, where third country nationals recruit women on Latvian social networking sites and force them into marriage to get EU residency rights in countries such as Ireland (Jolkina, 2011). At least 300 cases of fictitious or sham marriages have come to light in Latvia since news of this crime first broke in 2009 (TVNET, 2012), and the crime has been linked to sex and labour trafficking (TIP, 2013). The EU directive on free movement and Ireland's absence of a law against marriages of convenience meant that Ireland was targeted for these marriages (Smyth, 2009: 145). In response to this growing crime, Latvia was the first country in the EU to adopt a law making fictitious or sham marriages illegal in 2012 (Imants, 2013).