And now, The New Europe. Ten years ago, the Communist regimes
of Central and Eastern Europe were collapsing. Politicians were talking
hopefully about a "common European home" and an end to artificial barriers.
East-West trade revived - some legitimate, some not. But with growing urgency,
international agencies and human rights organisations have been pressing
European governments to adopt a tougher approach to a particularly unsavoury
and lucrative form of commerce: the trafficking of East European women
and children for sex. Here is Jan Repa:
Prostitute in Russian:
"I do 20, 25, 30 men a day. They locked me up in a flat for five days,
handcuffed and without water. It was August. There were no cigarettes and
no food. When I asked for water, it was tipped over my head. They did it
to make me do the work".
A Ukrainian prostitute recounting what she says were her experiences
on arriving in the West to marry a Belgian citizen. The interview comes
from a UN-sponsored publicity film, warning girls of the dangers lurking
behind apparently attractive foreign job adverts. Shots of pretty young
women strolling about in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, are interspersed
with lurid footage from the brothels of Istanbul and Brussels, complete
with queueing clients and police raids.
Man's voice in Ukrainian:
The commentary lists some of the countries to which Ukrainian women
are being trafficked: Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Bosnia,
the Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Syria,
China, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, Japan.
Second prostitute in Russian:
This girl says she came to Turkey because her friends said they could
get her work in a restaurant.
Stories of naive East European girls tricked into sexual slavery in
the West have become something of a cliche. Inspector Paul Holmes, head
of the Central London police vice unit, has heard it all before:
Holmes:
"I can think of only two women I have ever spoken to that could credibly
claim never to have known what they were coming for. All our experience
shows that the women themselves either know explicitly what the requirements
are - or they know implicitly and maybe seek to conceal it in an incredible
level of naivety. That doesn't diminish the heinous nature of this crime
whatsoever. The women in the countries of origin will enter into some form
of contractual relationship with the trafficker. And what the trafficker
is doing is ruthlessly exploiting the economic vulnerability of these women".
Inspector Holmes's condemnation is supported by Lenke Feher, a lawyer
from Budapest, whose non-governmental organisation, Way Out, tries to rehabilitate
Hungarian prostitutes:
Feher
"They have no passport. They have no residence permit. Or they are
drug dealers - because they were forced to do so. This is a very systematically
planned and structured violence".
Ignorant of the local language and habituated by their East European
backgrounds to mistrust the police, such women are at the mercy of the
pimps and traffickers who control the business. Inspector Paul Holmes:
Holmes
"They'll have been told quite clearly that Yes, you can run off to
the police station. Please do. You will be arrested as an illegal immigrant
and you will be deported. And we'll look forward to seeing you back home".
And it really is big business. Human smuggling into the European Union
is worth three to four billion dollars a year - and women destined for
the sex trade play a significant part. The German police say a quarter
of the country's prostitutes have been trafficked from the former Soviet
bloc. In Berlin, the figure is 50 per cent. The trade is two-way, with
Western clients travelling to Eastern Europe. A particularly worrying trend
is the increase in the sexual exploitation of children - with Prague and
Bucharest particularly notorious. Helen Vietsch of the London-based organisation
ECPAT - or "End Child Pornograhy, Prostitution and Trafficking" - sees
poverty, rather than overt coercion, as the main factor behind child prostitution:
Vietsch
"This is the choice (option) that gives them the most money back. Selling
sweets on the street is nowhere near as profitable as selling their body,
unfortunately. The prime reason why children are involved in this is poverty.
Parents are aware of this. They know a lot of the time what the choices
are - and they choose to sell their children into prostitution."
The average age of East European prostitutes serving Western clients
has been falling steadily. The myth, Helen Vietsch says, is that young
prostitutes are less likely to carry sexually-transmitted diseases:
Vietsch
"That's certainly one of the reasons why the whole industry of child
sex tourism has been seen to grow. People are travelling to countries where
they know they can get younger children - and they believe that these children
are HIV-free. In actual fact, children are much more vulnerable to catching
the disease. Their bodies are younger and still developing. They're much
more likely to tear and get infections. So it's completely false, this
assumption".
Three years ago, at an international conference in Stockholm on the
sexual exploitation of children, the Swedish Prime Minister, Goran Persson,
tried to work directly on the emotions of ministers and officials:
Persson
"Many of us have also felt a cold sense of recognition: it could just
as easily have been our own children, used and abused by those they were
taught to trust - the adults."
Since then, lobby groups around Europe have pressed governments to introduce
harsher penalties for abuses like trafficking. Sweden itself this year
made picking up prostitutes in the street a criminal offence. Professor
Madeleine Leijonhuvud - a criminologist at Stockholm University - advises
the government on the issue:
Leijonhuvud
"We could see an increasing inflow of prostitutes from the former Soviet
Union - and that was one of the reasons why we had this legislation. We
have managed so far to get the streets in Stockholm and in Malmoe and in
Gothenburg that were used for prostitution cleaned up now"
Critics say this could simply drive the problem underground. Indeed,
the British experience suggests that East European prostitutes do not as
a rule walk the streets - but work in flats, saunas and massage parlours.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, the authorities emphasise measures to ensure
the welfare of trafficked woman - including inducements to get them to
testify in court against traffickers and pimps. Wijnand Stevens, spokesman
for the Netherlands Justice Ministry:
Stevens
"There's a severe penalty on womens' trafficking: six years in the
Netherlands. If you want to get a case to court in womens' trafficking,
you of course need witnesses. And the most important witnesses are the
victims themselves. They're given a staying (residence) permit for the
duration of the proceedings - and sometimes, if it's inhuman to send them
back to their country of origin - they will get a permanent staying (residence)
permit".
Madeleine Leijonhuvud doubts if such an approach would be politically
acceptable in Sweden:
Leijonhuvud
"I can imagine that there would be opposition and difficulties here.
We have somewhat of the same problem concerning women that are badly treated
by their husbands - women who are brought here and are afraid to report
to the police, because they are afraid they won't be allowed to stay here.
We have made a change of our law here, aiming to make it less dangerous
for women to report in a situation like that. But we also face difficulties
there from the rules concerning immigration, asylum and so on."
British and French officials have been quoted as claiming that leniency
could encourage thousands of women to claim "sex slavery" as a way of gaining
residence permits. A number of countries have yet to recognise trafficking
itself as a crime. Where tougher laws HAVE been introduced, the results
can be meagre. Belgium's 1995 Trafficking Law provides up to 15 years hard
labour for convicted traffickers. In 1996, there were 57 investigations,
one arrest and one conviction. The following year, 49 investigations, no
arrest and no conviction. The latest report of the UN agency, the International
Organisation for Migration, declares:
"Reliable statistics are lacking in most European countries because
of inadequate research and information exchange. Definitions of trafficking
vary between countries, and even among institutions within one country,
making comparison of data virtually impossible".
Inspector Paul Holmes of the Central London vice unit says the popular
view of the trafficker as a mobster with a Russian accent, a Mercedes car
and a gold ring on every finger is misleading:
Holmes
"Our experience in London is that it can stretch from organised criminal
gangs down to resourceful individuals. It might be a husband and wife or
one individual, who have seen the gaps in the market and have exploited
their contacts or their own national background".
The war in Yugoslavia provides new temptations. Ray Wilkinson from the
office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is at the Kosovar
refugee camp at Kukes:
Wilkinson
"One hears tales of mafia chieftains sitting on the terrace of the
Bar America talking about abductions of young girls. In a strange way,
probably the tented camps themselves may well be their best defence - because
you have these large communities of people. They're living on top of each
other - and they all actually know what's happening to each other. The
dangers may come if refugees are splintered off and go away into villages
in small groups".
Indeed, just a few days ago, gangsters shot and killed a Kosovo refugee
teenager and gravely wounded her father, in the Albanian city of Vlore,
after trying to kidnap her for a prostitution ring. But East European prostitutes
are by no means always helpless victims. Inspector Paul Holmes says Russian
prostitutes in Britain are often sophisticated women, working for VIP "escort"
agencies. In the former Communist countries, too, educated women from poorer
countries gravitate to the wealthier ones. Frank Laczko of the International
Organisation on Migration has been monitoring the situation in the Czech
capital, Prague, during the past month:
Laczko
"One government official who has done some research here suggested
that the Czech women tend to be somewhat less educated, have lower levels
of literacy, than the Ukrainian women working here - who were quite highly
educated and often university graduates".
Frank Laczko has been involved in preparing the UN information films
like the one shown in Ukraine:
Laczko
"The intention of the information campaign is certainly not to persuade
women not to get involved in prostitution. They're not anti-prostitution
campaigns. The intention is primarily to give potential migrants information
about the risks of trafficking that they may face."
These prostitutes we interviewed in a Prague sex club, seemed pretty
"street wise" - but maybe less than they think:
Prostitutes in Czech:
"I knew exactly what I was doing, because I am an ordinary girl in
my country and I can't get a job there. The situation there is terrible.
Here in the Czech Republic, as a foreigner, you can't get a normal job
for the same sort of money".
"I know girls who returned from Western Europe with big money - so
they must have been properly treated". "Everybody thinks of doing something
proper. But obviously it's the money that seduces you."
"It's the easiest way to get money".
"It's not the easiest - but it's the quickest".
"If you have a family to support, there is never enough money. You
send it home and next month there isn't enough - to buy stuff for the kids;
clothes; school; college. So you have to continue. Originally I thought
- one year. Now I see it'll take more time".
Lenke Feher, working with Hungarian prostitutes, says rehabilitation
can succeed - but it is uphill work:
Feher
"The rate of success would be much higher if this procedure was institutionalised.
Everything is going on very much on a personal initiative. It would be
possible, according to my opinion, from 10 girls to reintegrate three girls
into society. But we cannot do much. They are very much aggressive. They
are very self-confident. But in reality they have no self-confidence, because
they are isolated".
The sex trade, like other forms of commerce, is governed by supply and
demand. Inspector Paul Holmes looks at it from a British perspective:
Holmes
"Trafficked victims are in this country in major conurbations but also,
anywhere where there is some form of organised off-street sex industry,
if you look, you will find trafficked females. Because from the trafficker's
point of view, the pimp's point of view, they're cheaper to run. They're
more profitable".
And less risky than drug trafficking, which usually incurs a tougher
sentence. Indeed, all the signs are that the demand for trafficked women
is healthy and growing.
end