The problem of trafficking in women for the purpose of prostitution was already known in public at the end of the 19th Century. According to UN reports, girls and women from South and South-East Asia (Burma, China, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam), East Europe (the Baltic, Ukraine) and Latin America (Brazil) are particularly at risk today. The actual number of instances is difficult to estimate however. According to local NGO's, between 200,000 and 2 million women work as prostitutes in Thailand alone.

The women are promised a well-paid job in another country. Their passports are taken away from when they cross the border and they are forced to work in brothels. They are forced to live and work in conditions similar to slaves, as a result of their debt to the traders who have taken over the costs for transport and all incidentals. The social stigmatisation, the violence and the foreign country increases the dependence of the victims. The traditional son preference, poverty, or simply trust leads the parents to sell their daughters to trader rings. Frequently, however, girls and women are forcibly kidnapped.

Trafficking in women is a growing market, comparable in the meantime with the volumes traded in drugs and weapons. This market is fed by the racist and power fantasies of western men who spend their money on possessing sexually and/or permanently available girls and women, and on the similar needs of men in each of the countries. The low social status of the women, the discrimination against the divorced, raped or widowed, as well as their poor general circumstances life (hardly any chance or finding work or getting an education), that has become even worse as a consequence of socio-economic changes in the last few years, makes a contribution to this business so scornful of human life.

What is Being Done Against Trafficking in Women? Since 1904, international agreements on fighting trafficking in women exist, such as the International Agreement on Securing Effective Protection against the Trafficking of Girls of 18th May 1904 (modified in 1949). The International Agreement on Fighting the Trafficking of Girls of 4th May 1910 obliges its member states (status in 1989: 71 signing states) to make the seduction of female minors into prostitution or forced prostitution in their countries an offence against the law. An Agreement on the Suppression of Trafficking Mature Women of 1933 (modified in 1949) also exists.

Local laws to suppress prostitution are frequently and mainly oriented towards the victims, who are persecuted as illegal immigrants or illegal prostitutes, whereas the pimp is often set free after paying bail and bribing the authorities. In many EU countries a woman can only turn to the courts for help if she possesses a residents permit. Even if she is a witness in a trail, for instance, to give evidence against trafficking rings, she is threatened with extradition to her own country. Which places the women under the complete control of their pimps; criminal proceedings against traffickers are normally discontinued due to lack of evidence.

Link: NGO against trafficking in women: www.stop-traffic.org

[Author: Dorette Wesemann, Edited by: Ragnar Müller]

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