I just came upon something I did for a presentation in a class of mine. You might want to use this as a reference for online debates - it's been modified from the original source (over 60 pages long):
Crime and Servitude: An Expose of the Traffic in Women for Prostitution From Newly Independent States - by Caldwell, Gillian, Steven Galster, and Nadia Steinzor
(Can be found here: http://www.qweb.kvinnoforum.se/misc/crimeru.rtf)
History:
- Since break up of the USSR, trafficking has increased
- Over 4 million people are trafficked internationally annually, according to UN – every year
- Lured by false promises, lucrative for women in low income regions
- Loss of freedom/life, causes physical and psychological trauma
- UN recognizes trafficking as a form of Slavery and Violence Against Women
- Success of these organized crime organizations can be attributed to:
o Global trends
o Declining socio-economic status of women
o Enormous profitability of business
o Government inaction
o And sometimes even government compliance/corruption of government officials
What Lures women into the trafficking industry?
- Trafficking operations usually front as other business opportunities for women:
o Study overseas programs
o Marriage agencies
o Modeling agencies
o Restaurant workers
o Domestic workers
o Baby sitters
o Nannies and Au pairs
- Women who are usually lured by these ads are doing so out of hope for a better life. Their current economic situation does not permit them to have an ideal lifestyle, so they take their chances with the opportunities abroad.
- Due to economic turmoil in the newly independent states, it is reported that 80% of the population that lost their jobs were women.
- Women in Russia often face direct sexual harassment in their native countries
- There are no civil or labor laws that protect women from sexual harassment in the work place
- The decline of social policies such as universal daycare further the problem
- For the most marginalized women in society job prospects abroad seem like the best choice
- Even women who know that they will be working in the sex industry assume they will be treated humanely
Example: GSN (Global Survival Network) investigation – went undercover, representing organization in the USA
- According to this investigation trafficking networks flourish because government officials and citizens fail to speak up.
- Russian women are in high demand because of their exoticness
- Over 500,000 women are trafficked into Western Europe alone.
- In some countries such as Germany 60-80 of trafficked women come from Russia and the Newly Independent states
- Other countries include Japan, Switzerland , Macau, Switzerland, USA, Netherlands
- Traffickers usually operate by obtaining the necessary legal documents to get women into the country. For Example use “entertainment visas”, temporary visas, tourist visas for Japan for countries where there are restrictions. Passports are usually falsified when it comes to age if the women are younger than 16.
- Trafficked women are increasingly younger, some as young as 14. Virgins are prized in this industry due to HIV scares
- Women are usually charged a fee for transportation, documentation, and even the job opportunity itself
- Sometimes agencies that are “finishing schools” for models charge more than $4000US for tuition
- In order to pay off their debts women are coerced into prostitution
- Marriage agencies can sometimes front as trafficking rings. Promoted by fostering notions of chauvinistic attitudes and docility of women – in the US (Lack of feminist ideals)
- Germany the laws pose a further challenge, where foreign born spouses can only work as prostitutes, foreign women on visas can’t. Further women can’t obtain residency without a husband
- Switzerland poses similar problem
- Mafia connection trafficking in Russia and throughout world is organized by criminal groups
- Criminal groups may either directly operate in trafficking or provide a roof for organizations that do
- It is estimated that 40% of the GDP is earned by the Russian mafia
Control of women:
- sometimes use cameras to observe their every action
- rely on isolation of women
- Passport confiscation
- Make women live and work in the same place
- Physical violence and rape
- Most of all debt bondage is a way to ensure that women stay so that they can pay off their dues such as air fare, document accumulation etc..
- Women accumulate a debt with the trafficker and have to pay it off by signing contracts
Recommendations to stop trafficking:
- Putting onus on receiving countries
- However, creating more stringent legalities, causes the traffickers are more prominent role in migration
- Imposing strict penalties on illegal immigrant women, ensures that they won’t report any crimes against them
- State action is only part of the solution
- 1) Must ensure aspects of trafficking are outlawed
- 2) Protection from harm by educating women and officials
- 3) compensation and support for victims who need wages compensated, need legal, psychological and medical services