Reports on trafficking of women in Europe: most who seek rescue are from Ukraine (08/09/98)

Reports on trafficking of women in Europe: most who seek rescue are from Ukraine

by Irene Jarosewich

NEW YORK - The largest number of women in Europe who seek to be rescued from forced prostitution and other forced sexual activity are from Ukraine, according to statistics from European police reports. Therefore, from among all the republics of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine was chosen as the first country in which to open a field office in 1996 of the international anti-trafficking organization LaStrada, noted Kateryna Levchenko, national coordinator of LaStrada-Ukraine. Ms. Levchenko's non-profit, non-governmental organization LaStrada-Ukraine is a branch of the international LaStrada organization, which was established by the European Parliament to help prevent and halt the trafficking of women.

A community meeting on the topic "Trafficking of Women from Ukraine," sponsored by the Women's Studies Department of Hunter College/CUNY and organized by Brama-Gateway Ukraine and the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations, was held the evening of July 29 at Hunter College.

Organized in conjunction with a two-week anti-trafficking training program for 20 Ukrainian officials and professionals conducted in the U.S. by Vermont-based Project Harmony, the community meeting provided an overview of the complex circumstances that underpin the illegal trafficking of women from Ukraine. Approximately 100 guests listened to a dozen speakers address the economic, political, legal, international, security, educational and health aspects of this crime.

The term "trafficking," according to one of the speakers, encompasses a broad range of activity centered around the "trade in human flesh," - such as the selling of children, forcing women into prostitution or men to perform dangerous and menial labor. The critical factor is the non-voluntary nature of the activity.

According to Vasyl Nevolya from Ukraine's national bureau of Interpol, the enslavement of people is a centuries-old problem, the pattern the same: to take advantage of people who are weak and vulnerable due to economic, political or geographic circumstances.

According to U.N. statistics, more than 4 million people per year worldwide fall victim to some form of human bondage.

In recent years, women from Ukraine have been responding to pernicious invitations "to work abroad" - seemingly legitimate enticements to make money as waitresses, translators, dancers, cooks, child care providers or even entertainers for "the diaspora," - invitations that in reality are lures for the trap of sexual servitude.

Ukraine's current economic crisis has resulted in high unemployment, and most young women are motivated to respond to this type of recruitment by the need for money.

Also, with the political freedom provided by Ukraine's independence, some women seek the excitement of living abroad. However, according to the speakers, none of these women view themselves as prey; the recruitment is often open, informal, friendly, therefore their level of skepticism is low.

Hanya Brill of Brama opened the community meeting with the reading of typical recruitment ad that appears in a village newspaper in Ukraine: "Seek pretty woman, under age 30, slender, educated, to work as a secretary in a clean, modern office in Bahrain; $500/month; documents and transportation costs provided."

Such a woman, according to speakers, could then be interviewed by a well-dressed representative, very possibly a woman, from the "joint venture" business and offered a contract. Upon arrival in the foreign country, a young woman's duties as a so-called secretary would be expanded to include sexually servicing her employers and their clients. Alone, with no documents (taken away under the pretense that she needed to be officially registered), with no money, with no knowledge of the language or of the phone system and with the "friendly" recruiter nowhere to be found, dependent for food, water and shelter, the girl finds herself in a trap.

The lures are sophisticated, tempting and varied. To deride such women as unbelievably naive or stupid, warned Ms. Levchenko, exacerbates the problem and shifts the blame away from the perpetrators to the victims. "Our young women, many who have never traveled far from their small towns, and only completed studies at the local technicum (vocational/technical school) are that naive," emphasized Ms. Levchenko, "they have no experience of the world, and such television programs as 'Santa Barbara' do not accurately depict the world outside Ukraine. They are trusting, vulnerable and needy."

Since establishing a hotline last November, LaStrada-Ukraine has received on average of 120 to150 calls per month from friends, relatives and neighbors seeking women who have disappeared after having left for supposedly legitimate jobs abroad; from women outside Ukraine seeking help; from citizens reporting leads on alleged trafficking operations; and from women calling to check out the legitimacy of certain job offers.

Not all job offers, or invitations to visit friends or relatives, are lures, noted Ms. Levchenko, and LaStrada counsels women about the warning signs of illegitimate offers. The organization focuses on public education about trafficking and works with other organizations and government agencies to develop job-training programs for women in Ukraine. According to Ms. Levchenko, more than 70 percent of those in Ukraine listed as officially unemployed in government reports are women. LaStrada also helps the women victims, many of whom were physically abused, or are ashamed to come home, or afraid to come home for fear of retribution from the "mafia" ring that lured them out.

Mykhaylo Lebed from Ukraine's Ministry of Internal Affairs noted that a distinction must be made between voluntary and non-voluntary prostitution. This distinction is often blurred, he said, which confuses the issue for many people since the efforts of international law enforcement officials focus on non-voluntary prostitution. Many thousands of women from Ukraine, he added, willingly travel abroad to work as prostitutes, especially for a few weeks, to make some extra money.

Further complicating the issue is that in many countries prostitution is not a criminal offense, only a civil offense, and in some countries it is legalized. Legalized prostitution does not mean, however, that a woman can be made to provide sex against her will, he underscored. Nonetheless, many women unwillingly working in brothels or sex bars do not know how to seek help, or do not want to seek help since they fear harm from the operators of the criminal prostitution rings.

The countries where Ukrainian women most frequently report incidents of sexual enslavement include Turkey, Greece, Israel, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, though reports have come from Australia, Japan, Chile, South Africa, as well as many other Asian and European countries. Many of the women can easily travel out of Ukraine through Poland, Moldova, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Albania and Hungary, countries from which, according to Ms. Levchenko, many brokers in the lucrative flesh trade operate and where false passports can often be obtained that allow access to other countries. According to Mr. Lebed, in Bulgaria there's an underground market in which girls are auctioned off and then transported to other countries.

Besides the sex trade, however, Mr. Lebed noted that many Ukrainians, men and women, find themselves working in degrading conditions for near-slave wages doing menial labor in Poland, the Czech Republic and the former Yugoslavia.

Bohdan Yaremenko, vice-consul of the Ukraine's General Consulate in New York, who also spoke at the community meeting, noted in a conversation after the meeting, that, unlike Ukraine's Embassy in Turkey, where two to three women per week show up, often badly beaten, the problem most frequently encountered in the U.S. is not forced prostitution or sexual enslavement, but complaints from women who were promised paying jobs as domestic help and, in fact, work for months, or years, without pay, without documents and with no clear idea in which city or state they are in.

Mr. Yaremenko explained that for Ukrainian citizens who are in the U.S. on a tourist or business visa it is illegal to work for pay. However, he said, several times a month he is contacted by individuals who had come over on a legal U.S. visa, had been promised paid jobs, only to find that upon arrival in the U.S. their sponsors took away their documents, gave them no pay and isolated them in a work location where they could not readily be found.

Once these victims finally turn to him, he said, he cannot help them get their money, since they were not supposed to be earning it in the first place, nor can he get them a U.S. visa extension. He can only help them return to Ukraine. Even though the Consulate receives only a few calls per month, Mr. Yaremenko speculates that "there are many, many dozens more people from Ukraine" who are in similar situations.

The video "Bought and Sold," written and produced by Gillian Caldwell, was shown after the meeting. The film documents the inner workings of the networks that trade in young women from countries of the former Soviet Union. Further information about the meeting and the issue of trafficking in women may be found on the Brama website: http://www.brama.com