|
Trading
Sex
Listen to the programme
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
|
