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EUROPE: Trafficking Rises as Incomes Fall
By Pavol Stracansky
BRATISLAVA, May 22, 2009 (IPS) - The economic crisis sweeping Eastern Europe is leading to a sharp increase in
people trafficking as people look to migrate for work amid rising
unemployment and growing economic hardship, migration watchdogs and
women's rights groups warn.
Trafficking gangs are preying on people they know are increasingly
desperate for jobs as income dries up and people become willing to use any
means they can to go abroad for work.
"The current economic crisis has had a great effect on countries of origin for
people trafficking as people get poorer and want to emigrate at all costs,"
Jean-Philipe Chauzy, head of communications at the International
Organisation for Migration (IOM) headquarters in Geneva told IPS. "This
leaves them vulnerable to people-trafficking gangs."
People trafficking has become a multi-billion euros global business.
Estimates of people trafficked every year run into millions, with women the
vast majority of those trafficked. Many are sold into slavery after answering
advertisements for jobs abroad.
Members of international crime groups who organise transportation and
'sale' of their victims often pose as employers and ask victims to hand over
their passports so that work permits can be arranged. But the victims are
usually then drugged, beaten or raped into submission, with their only proof
of identity, or way of getting back home, taken away from them.
Gang bosses and pimps often warn the abducted women that their family
members back home will be hurt or killed if they go to local authorities.
The IOM says that now also a growing number of men, especially in some of
Europe's poorest countries like Belarus, are falling victims to traffickers who
put them into forced labour, mostly on construction sites.
In Belarus alone it is thought that up to 800,000 "missing" people could be
working in Russia against their will. It is not illegal in Russia for employers to
retain staff passports.
Eastern Europe has long faced problems with human trafficking. The IOM and
the UN estimate, separately, that as many as 120,000 people from Eastern
Europe are trafficked every year.
The economic crisis has plunged already poor countries in the region into
even deeper poverty. "And poverty creates a greater risk of trafficking,"
Ludmila Tiganu, head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
in Moldova told IPS. Moldova, Europe's poorest country, is believed to have
one of the region's most serious problems with people trafficking.
"Poverty has increased, causing even more problems for the socially
vulnerable," says Tiganu. "With the economic depression we have also seen a
fall in remittances - money sent home to families here from people abroad,
and this has been coupled with unemployment."
In Moldova and many of the Baltic states, traffickers are reported to be
actively prowling nightclubs and bars, and tapping into Internet chat rooms
looking for victims.
"The trafficking problem is building up, and the longer the recession lasts
the more economic pressure there will be on people," the IOM's Chauzy told
IPS.
Women's rights groups want governments to do more to tackle the problem.
They say governments must implement existing legislation on people
trafficking more efficiently, and aid NGOs working in the field to run
campaigns to raise awareness of the risks of trafficking.
According to the IOM, repeated research has shown that while there is high
awareness among Eastern Europeans about people trafficking, relatively few
of those aware of it think they are at risk.
"Legislation has to be put into practice, not just left as a law written on
paper," Iluta Lace, head of Marta, an NGO in Latvia that helps victims of
trafficking re-integrate into society, told IPS.
"NGOs need to be given the funding and tools to battle trafficking. At the
moment, in Latvia at least, there is no funding at all. Even a small amount of
money can be used well and creatively by NGOs and help fight what is a very
bad situation made worse by the financial crisis."
(END)
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