The Natashas

CONCLUSION: STOP THE TRAFFIC!

OVER THE PAST DECADE the sheer scale and brutality of the sex trafficking industry has unfolded with a vengeance on the world stage. Its scope has been of such massive proportions that putting the brakes on it seems an almost impossible task. There have been conferences—endless international confabs with well-meaning human rights workers highlighting the cesspools of debauchery in different parts of the world. Social workers gather to discuss, define and document the problem. Government leaders orate with indignation and vow to put an end to the scourge. Myriad studies and research projects examine the “causes” and “effects,” and enough reports have been written to fell several forests. Yet the problem persists— and has gotten infinitely worse.

An exasperated Gerard Stoudmann of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) told delegates at

a conference in Vienna in April 2001 that European governments often provide “just lip service” on the issue and aren’t exerting enough muscle to stop it. “What is now needed,” he said, “are deeds, not words.”

Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, agrees. In a blunt speech at the Palais des Nations in Geneva a year later, she told a hushed audience that “little has changed for those caught up in this sordid trade. Attempts to deal with trafficking have, thus far, been largely ineffective… More people are being trafficked than ever before.”

At a May 2003 conference in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, Hamish McCullock, who heads up Interpol’s human trafficking group, pointed out that trafficking in Eastern European women is “very much on the increase.” A key factor for this, he said, is the rise in “sexual tolerance levels” throughout Western Europe. He also noted that better job opportunities for women from the European Union have put a damper on the trade. Fewer and fewer of them view prostitution as a legitimate line of work, leaving pimps and brothel owners scrambling to find another source. And for those at the helm of the sex industry, many of whom are tied to organized crime, there is no easier target than the impoverished women of Eastern Europe.

Trafficking in women is not new, nor has the world just discovered that its women are being abducted, sold and raped. As early as 1989 the European Parliament adopted a resolution urgently calling for tough measures to “eradicate this practice.” In 1995, at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, representatives from 189 countries unanimously adopted a

“Platform for Action” calling on governments around the world to “dismantle criminal networks engaged in trafficking women.” And at a December 2000 world summit on organized crime in Palermo, Italy, grim-faced leaders from more than eighty countries lined up to sign the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. In his closing remarks at the summit, Pino Arlacchi, then under-secretary-general of the UN, proudly proclaimed, “We all made history in Palermo.” The fact that so many nations signed the protocol demonstrated “a strong and clear international commitment to achieving early ratification.” Arlacchi called on countries to “ensure that the convention and its protocols enter into force within the coming twelve months.”

After three years of languishing in limbo, the UN Protocol finally received its fortieth ratification, enabling it to come into force on December 25, 2003. As of May 2004, fifty-two countries have ratified the document, which means they have ensured that their national policies and practice fully comply with the protocol. Unfortunately, most of the key sending and receiving countries have not signed. They include the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Israel, Japan, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and the Czech Republic. Ironically, ratification has come from four of the more egregious trafficking offenders—Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Bosnia-Herzegovina—yet little has changed in these or other countries.

None of this comes as a surprise to the tiny bands of dedicated women and men working on the ground to save the victims. They know full well that, absent political will at the upper echelons of power, all the conferences, training programs, newly minted laws and wordy international protocols won’t matter one bit.

Many government leaders choose instead to blame the sending countries, as if it’s their fault that these “loose women” are staining their reputations. But the trade is driven by the lust of their men; it is fueled by the bars, brothels and bordellos dotting their streets; and it thrives because of their complacency and inaction.

In many of the sending nations, meanwhile, the attitude is “out of sight, out of mind.” Local authorities argue that because the women are taken outside their borders, they have no jurisdiction or authority to act. This is a cop-out. These girls are among the most vulnerable in their society. They are the nation’s daughters. They need and deserve the full protection of the state, and when they don’t get it, it’s a clear sign of corruption. The trafficked women are local. The recruiters are local. The women are being smuggled across their borders with bogus travel documents and passports. The local police see the villages and towns being emptied of young women, and they know what’s behind the mass exodus. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to read a newspaper ad and see it for what it really is—a trafficking trap.

Putting a dent in this criminal enterprise requires a committed, all-out frontal assault. We need action, not just words, from political leaders, and it needs to be put into practice by prosecutors and police. We need to chase down those responsible and try them for their crimes, imposing stiff sentences that reflect the severity of what they’ve done. With the volumes of information now available, it’s galling to watch judges sentence traffickers to mere community service. It’s astounding that informed, seemingly conscientious prosecutors would negotiate plea bargains with bottom-feeding slugs. And it’s disturbing that police continue to turn a blind eye to what goes on in their own backyards.

If a country is to be judged on how it deals with this scourge, that judgment must be based on the action it takes to eradicate it. The only thing that will send these thugs scurrying back into their rat holes is the full force of the law—unwavering prosecution, heavy prison time and confiscation of all profits amassed on the backs of these women. Criminals need to know that buying and selling women is not a misdemeanor and that it will not be tolerated. Not now. Not ever. And johns caught using the services of trafficked women and girls should be served notice that they too will be rounded up, charged, prosecuted and jailed.

Applying the full force of law is also the only way to get through to the corrupt cops and public officials that enable the trade to thrive. None of this could happen without them strenuously craning their necks to look the other way. Nor would police indifference be as big a problem as it is if some of the men in blue weren’t slinking into the brothels and massage parlors for “freebies” on the side.

Despite the worldwide consensus on the urgent need to stop the traffic, the process is mired in endless wrangling over definitions, terminology and interpretations. Only a small number of nations have appointed a national point person or agency to coordinate anti-trafficking strategies. International cooperation on law enforcement remains sparse, and coordination even within countries is often sorely lacking. A few countries, such as the United States, have established interagency bodies to coordinate action among immigration, labor, social services and foreign affairs. Yet even there trafficking cases are frequently jammed up in bureaucratic red tape, with one department not knowing what the other is doing. The officials responsible often haven’t been trained in how to identify trafficking victims, nor are immigration officers, civil servants or front-line police advised how to handle such cases. So they end up taking the easy way out by processing trafficking victims as illegal migrants and then deporting them.

And that’s not the end of it. While trafficking is clearly a global problem, and while the victims and perpetrators move across borders with ease, enforcement is usually a domestic initiative subject to local policies and national laws. Not every country has enacted specific trafficking laws; and those that do exist vary from one country to the next.

Government bureaucrats lament that their nations lack an adequate legal framework to tackle the problem, with the implication that their intentions are thwarted by inadequate laws. Well, let’s get one thing straight. Assault is assault. Confinement is confinement. Rape is rape. And since the sanctions for dealing with these egregious offenses already exist in law in every nation on the planet, nothing prevents them from prosecuting traffickers under their own criminal codes.

With few exceptions, most governments and police forces view trafficking in human beings as a far less serious crime than trafficking in guns or drugs. Most approach it primarily as an illegal immigration issue, and this may have something to do with unspoken biases. Better someone else’s daughters, the thinking goes; at least whoever’s frequenting them isn’t out raping our own. Such views rear their ugly heads not only in back-room whispers but also in public debates by people who should know better. How can we ever expect to stem this odious trade if we think it’s acceptable to buy, sell and rape any human being?

Other social biases also come into play. In the minds of most people, these women are prostitutes who have willingly chosen their route. Why should we give a damn? As heartless as it sounds, this thinking is ingrained in the minds of most cops on the beat. They steadfastly believe that virtually any woman who accepts money for sex must have entered “the world’s oldest profession” with eyes wide open. They can’t fathom that anyone could be so naive as to fall for the promise of “real jobs” in faroff foreign lands. As a result, the cops on the front lines rarely look beyond the mascara and the stiletto heels, and authorities seldom investigate whether the women were abducted, tricked or coerced. First and foremost, trafficking is not an illegal migration issue; it is a violation of human rights.

When a trafficking case is identified as such, police officers often grumble that the women aren’t cooperative—that they’re unwilling to talk. The fact is they are likely very afraid and distrustful, and in so many cases they have every right to be. It’s hard to trust a man in a uniform when he’s also a regular at the bar. Moreover, these women also know precisely what awaits them after their arrest—deportation.

And the women have been warned by their pimps about what will happen when they arrive back home if they talk. Most traffickers have local contacts. They know how to find the women and they know where their families live. Upon their return, some women have been beaten senseless. Others have been killed. For the majority, though, it is only a new beginning. According to the OSCE, “up to 50 percent of those immediately repatriated are re-trafficked.”

These women would be crazy to step into the witness box without any kind of protection. Yet that is exactly what the authorities are demanding of them. Most countries have no legislation or mechanism in place to ensure their safety or fair treatment, before or after the trial. The women who decide to testify against their tormentors do so at their own peril, and once the prosecution is through with them, the file is closed. They are left to fend for themselves. It is morally wrong not to have witness protection or follow-up programs in place for trafficked women. How can we say we’re serious about combating the trade if after the trial they’re simply released to their captors’ clutches?

From the moment they’re recruited to the time they’re “rescued” and deported, trafficked women are terrorized. Every single day they face a world stacked heavily against them. Their only friends are the dedicated women and men who form the thin front line against trafficking—an often thankless job. Those working for nongovernmental aid agencies and organizations are the real heroes in this bleak morass. Still, their work is merely a Band-Aid solution. In the vast majority of cases, NGO workers report that their funding is ad hoc and wholly inadequate to meet even basic needs.

If we truly want a fair shot at saving these women, we need to open not only our minds but also our wallets. We need to focus on programs that care compassionately for the victims and we need to implement them immediately, worldwide. The most urgent priorities are safe shelters and clinics equipped and staffed to offer medical and psychological treatment. We need to understand that most of these women have been psychologically and physically ripped apart. And we need to be prepared for the fact that most have been infected with various sexually transmitted diseases.

Research shows that sex trafficking is a driving force in the global spread of AIDS. Trafficked women are at an extremely high risk for infection from HIV. The very places that imprison them are breeding grounds for AIDS. Yet while the UN and world governments dole out billions of dollars on prevention and treatment, these programs do nothing to protect the millions of trafficked women and girls who are forcibly infected with the deadly virus. For AIDS prevention to be truly effective, we need to launch an all-out war against the trafficking trade. Until we do, the epidemic will continue to spread unchecked.

Another in the seemingly endless excuses for government inaction is cost. The sending countries complain they’re dirt poor and unable to mount a meaningful anti-trafficking drive, while the destination nations resort to the cheapest method— deportation. In the midst of all this apathy are broken human beings. Each country where trafficked women are found should be held responsible for all the costs of protecting them and nursing them back to health. This is not a radical approach. It is the very least these nations can do to atone for the actions of its citizens—clients and pimps alike—who use and abuse these women. And there is one simple, creative and cost-effective way to fund the shelters and rescue programs: seize the proceeds and assets of the convicted pimps and brothel owners who confine these women.

Governments in the source countries must do their part in chasing down and jailing local traffickers and corrupt officials. They must also implement strong and meaningful public awareness campaigns. Young women need to be made aware of the extreme risks and dangers they face. Still, desperate people will do desperate things, and it doesn’t take much to convince a destitute woman that hope awaits her in the form of a “job.” We also need to address the push factor—the economic and social conditions that drive women and girls from their homelands in search of work. Until we do, traffickers will continue to find fertile recruitment fields among the impoverished women of Eastern Europe.

For the Natashas, the only avenue of escape is a real job—a serious chance at a real life. That is all they ask for, and the well-heeled nations of the West—particularly the receiving countries—have to contribute meaningfully to the solution. They must find ways of helping these women, not only with skills training but with offers of employment that don’t require them to take off their clothes. The overwhelming majority of these women experience prostitution not a “job opportunity” or a “profession” but a cold hard prison sentence. The bars where they work are their torture chambers. Their bedrooms are their cells.

Clearly, no single country or institution can effectively combat this scourge alone. What we need is a firm resolve and an unequivocal commitment from around the globe to tackle this problem. Breaking this atrocious form of sexual exploitation must be a moral, legal and political imperative. One way to ensure this happens is for the world community to ratify the UN Protocol against trafficking and then enforce it with a vengeance. Trafficking of women for sexual exploitation is a crime against humanity. It shames us all. The global foot-dragging has gone on long enough. It is time to stop the traffic.