Aftermath

The song

Still in 1981, Kabaret Tey performed "Dziwex", lyrics by Zenon Laskowik, music by Hubert Szymczyński, sung by Rudi Schuberth with the "Lady Chic" ballet, a pointed nod to one of the ZPR troupe names. The refrain "Dziwex, dziwex, a golden business" became a hit. The lyrics talk about the poverty that "surrounds" and escape to neighbouring countries; it is satire on the system, not on the women, but at the time the two were hard to separate.^[3][9]

Back to the clubs

The Olivero agency cut its contracts with ZPR. In summer 1985 other Polish dance troupes, this time through the state agency Pagart, were again performing at Omnibus.^[2][3] Nothing suggests the conditions had changed. The intermediary had.

Opole, 1991 to 1993: "Dziweks"

After the fall of communism the name returned as a label for a type of case. In Opole three men, Zygmunt K., Mariusz W. and Aleksander Z., sent at least 89 women to Rotterdam between 1991 and 1993 as hostesses and exotic dancers. On arrival, according to prosecutors, they were pressured into sexual services. The accused said they received a flat fee per contract from their Dutch partners and "did not profit from prostitution". The first verdict, in December 1998, was suspended and appealed by both sides. The trial was restarted in 2000 and again in 2005. After twelve years the defence argued that many of the women had built lives in the Netherlands and a reliable assessment was no longer possible.^[10]

The case matters for two reasons. It shows that the 1980 pattern, a legitimate agency, a contract for "dancing", pressure on arrival, survived the change of political system. And it shows the same evidentiary problem: without testimony from the women who stayed abroad, and without proof of coercion in the Polish sense, the courts handed down suspended sentences.

After 2004

Poland's entry into the European Union opened the borders and reversed the direction: Poland became a transit and destination country, and most identified victims today are victims of forced labour rather than sexual exploitation.^[11][12] In 2010 a definition of trafficking was written into the Penal Code as article 189a. The La Strada foundation has worked since 1995, and the National Intervention and Consultation Centre (KCIK) with its 24-hour line since 2009.^[12][13] The US Trafficking in Persons Report for 2025 keeps Poland in the top tier of states meeting minimum standards.^[11]

Neither the first nor the last

Anna Dobrowolska pairs Dziwex with an earlier case from 1973, when the departure of Polish women for Dubai made headlines. Her conclusion: stories of trafficking in women returned in communist Poland at moments of moral and economic crisis, whenever the state loosened control over travel and opened up to Western consumption.^[5] 1981 was such a moment to the highest degree.

Memory

There is no monument, no plaque, no day of remembrance. The case lives in a few pieces of reportage, one encyclopaedia entry, two works of scholarship and a cabaret song. This site tries to add one place where the facts are gathered together and the women in question are not the punchline.