By IPS Correspondents
BRATISLAVA, Feb 6 2002 (IPS)

Police say they have given their clearest warning yet to women-traffickers after raiding brothels across the country and charging seven people with trafficking women.

More than 1,500 police were involved in checks of 613 brothels and strip-clubs across the country in January in what was the first such country-wide operation carried out by the police.

The seven charged are believed to have been managing two gangs responsible for large-scale trafficking of women through western European countries, as well as to and from Latin America.

“The situation has become such in Slovakia that we wanted to get a clear map of trading in women and prostitution and these types of criminal activities,” Stefan Omasta, head of the violent crime department at the Police Presidium, a senior police body, told IPS.

“This is a clear signal to these type of people. We have always carried out such operations, but they have been just individual ones in various regions before. This is the first that was carried out on a national basis,” he added.

Officers suspect that the traffickers, who if convicted face up to eight years in prison, were supplying young women to erotic clubs in both Slovakia and western European countries.

They have already requested help from Interpol in identifying girls who have been forced to work as prostitutes in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland.

The raids are the first of their kind in Slovakia, a country that has been labeled a blackspot for women-trafficking by the European Commission.

In its annual country report on states bidding for admission to the Union last year, Slovakia was identified as a country of transit and origin for women-trafficking, and its police urged to deal with the problem.

Some human rights organisations say the police raids were only prompted by the EU’s demands.

“There is now much stronger monitoring because of EU accession requirements. Police are being forced to monitor borders more closely,” said Ingrid Baumannova, executive director of the Slovak Helsinki Committee, part of the International Helsinki Foundation.

Omasta, though, denies that the action has been prompted by any EU demands, or that Slovakia has a serious problem with trafficking of women.

“The situation has been poorly explained. Slovakia is far and away a country of transit for trade in women and cases are relatively few,” he said.

Every year between 10 and 20 cases of crimes connected with trafficking in women are dealt with by Slovak police. In 2001 there were five cases. The figure in Vienna is just under 30.

But those numbers are thought to be just one tenth of the total number of actual cases of trafficking.

Independent monitoring bodies still, like the EU, pinpoint Slovakia as a problem state for the trafficking of women and a hub on major trafficking routes from the east through Europe.

Studies in Slovakia carried out by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) Foundation pinpoint gangs supplying women to be traded across Slovakia as consisting “characteristically of citizens from the former Yugoslavia, Germany, Russia, Ukraine, Albania, Italy and Poland.”

Omasta confirmed that international gangs were working transporting women across Slovakia.

“Trade in women is an organised crime and it always involves criminals from at least three or four countries. Last year, for example, we had a case where there were Cezchs, Slovaks and Belgians involved. There’s always people from different states involved,” he said.

According to some independent bodies the prostitution underworld has thrived in Europe since the Iron Curtain fell in 1989. Each year, estimates the European Commission’s European Forum for Urban Safety, 500,000 women from former communist states are trafficked as prostitutes into western Europe, drawing millions of dollars for the gangs behind the sales.

The United Nations estimates human trafficking as a business generates gross earnings of five to seven billion U.S. dollars annually.

International organisations monitoring the trade, such as the United Nations, have identified differing trade routes for organised crime gangs transporting women into western Europe – including one running across the former eastern bloc from Russia and the Balkan states up to Slovakia.

Bratislava’s proximity to Vienna, just 60 kilometres from the Slovak capital, is seen as a major draw for gangs trading women from the former eastern bloc into prostitution.

Vienna police say that between 50 and 60 per cent of the 3,000 prostitutes in the Austrian capital are from the former eastern bloc.

“Slovakia is an incredibly lucrative country for the transit of women,” said Omasta.

Police have also been criticised in the past by human rights groups for not doing enough to counter trafficking of women.

The Vienna-based Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, in a 1999 report on trade in women in Slovakia, said that “the majority of the police staff are men. Many of them believe that women nearly always engage in prostitution voluntarily and very often underestimate the situation. Women must feel that their submissions are taken seriously and that appropriate action will follow.”

However, Omasta said that while police had information that “many women went into prostitution abroad voluntarily” there were major obstacles for Slovak police tracking down women who had been trafficked to other countries.

Although he said cooperation with other police forces was good, it was often difficult for forces to distinguish women who had been forced into prostitution from those who had started working as prostitutes voluntarily.

Women’s rights groups say that the January raids and subsequent charges, though, are a major step forward from the police in bringing traffickers in Slovakia to justice.

“This news is absolutely great, extremely positive. The police must be congratulated on this. Their action can be seen as the first victory in the Slovak fight against trafficking in women,” said Katarina Farkasova, head of Slovak women’s rights group Aliancia Zien.

The Helsinki Committee’s Baumannova added: “Overall this is a very positive move by the police. They are carrying out much more monitoring than before. A few years ago it could probably even be said that this was ‘tolerated’.

“It took some time but the police have now not just admitted that the problem exists but put together a strategy to try and deal with it and eliminate this activity.”

Police say that following an analysis of the raids they will determine any future such action. Omasta added that his force was also benefiting from better cooperation and contact, including international seminars organised by western police forces, with police from other countries.

“We’ll examine the results of this operation and see what we need to do and whether we need to repeat the operation,” he said.

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