International conference in Kyiv focuses on trafficking issue (06/25/00)

International conference in Kyiv focuses on trafficking issue

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - In a concerted effort to promote more effective cooperation and information-sharing among law enforcement officials on the growing problem of trafficking in women and children, the United States and Ukraine hosted an international conference in Kyiv on June 21-22.

The conference, announced during U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to Ukraine on June 5, has been in the works since last year and is the result of an initiative from the U.S.-Ukraine Bilateral Commission, chaired by Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma and U.S. Vice-President Al Gore. The commission has been addressing problems related to the issue since 1997.

Trafficking in women is one of the world's fastest growing criminal enterprises and has reached epidemic proportions in Central and Eastern Europe, with Ukraine especially heavily affected. The region has displaced Latin America and Southeast Asia as the major source of supply for the criminal gangs that exploit women and children for profit.

"Trafficking in women is a transnational problem that countries must address through both domestic policies and coordinated international efforts. It is critical that countries of origin, transit and destination work together," explained U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer during his opening address.

Attendees from 12 countries and various European organizations heard speaker after speaker talk of the need for more public awareness on the techniques and lures utilized by those who profit from the international smuggling of women and children for prostitution and forced labor. They discussed what needs to be done to protect the victims, to re-integrate them back into their own societies and to more effectively prosecute the criminals.

Representatives came from countries where many of the victims are forced to work, such as Israel, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Greece and the Netherlands, and countries through which they are transported, such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Albania, Hungary, Romania and Moldova.

Ukraine has become a key source for trafficked women in the last decade, as young women with little money and scant prospects for employment are lured and fooled into illegal forms of employment by devious agents for criminal gangs.

While neither Vice Prime Minister Mykola Zhulynsky nor Minister of Internal Affairs Yurii Kravchenko, who gave presentations at the two-day seminar, could give exact figures on how many Ukrainian women have been forced into illegal prostitution, sweat shop labor and domestic servitude, officials admit the numbers are in the tens of thousands.

The most common ploy used is to promise women and teenagers work as salesgirls, waitresses or cabaret dancers in exotic destinations, where they will receive pay far higher than what they can hope for in Ukraine's debilitated economy.

Once in the new country, the victim's passports are confiscated and they are forced to execute the will of their captors at no pay, often with the explanation that they must compensate for the cost of their travel and their lodging. Lost in a foreign country and with no identification, the victims are too frightened to run away or turn to law enforcement officials.

Ukraine has begun to make some inroads in its fight with criminal groups, reported Mr. Kravchenko. He explained that the Procurator General's Office has handled 24 such cases recently, with 12 still before Ukrainian courts. Of the 24 cases, six were initiated in the Donetsk Oblast, four each in the Crimea and Kyiv, and two each in the Kherson and Cherkasy oblasts. A total of 55 individuals have been charged in these matters.

In addition, the Ministry of Internal Affairs has 14 international agreements on trafficking in humans and the illegal transit of people across international borders. In May, the ministry created a separate department on the fight against trafficking in humans.

The goal of the workshop in Kyiv was to further develop international programs initiated by the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

"We want to take the OSCE action plan and the U.N. protocol and give it life, to develop specific proposals," explained Anita Botti, deputy director of President Clinton's Inter-Agency Council on women. Ms. Botti said the three keys to resolving the problem of trafficking in women are prevention, protection and prosecution.

A major concern in Ukraine and in other parts of the world is to develop a proper witness protection program for those who have escaped or have been freed from this modern-day form of white slavery. Most victims fail to cooperate with international law enforcement officials to provide evidence against their captors, which has led to a disturbingly small number of convictions throughout the world.

There are myriad reasons for this, including international norms for the immediate deportation of illegal immigrants, which leaves local police with no first-account witnesses; and social ostracization by their friends and families because of the activities that many of the women were forced to undertake, which makes them want to forget what they have experienced and leads them to refuse to cooperate with authorities. The women also are intimidated by the threats of death or injury their captors often make while they are imprisoned, even after they are free.

"If there is no protection it is difficult to prosecute," said Ms. Botti.

Even when the victims are ready to aid in the prosecution, that does not mean that the criminals will receive their due. Too often laws on trafficking are too vague, do not address the crime or simply do not exist. Even then lax penalties in many countries cannot ensure that the guilty spend time behind bars or do not return to their criminal enterprises.

As Melanne Verveer, chief of staff to U.S. First Lady Hillary Clinton and the keynote speaker, explained, "In a world where the rule of law must prevail, too many victims must question why so many criminals go unpunished."

The easiest and least costly way in which to resolve the problem of illegal trafficking is to educate women on how to avoid falling into the traps of criminal gangs. That means widespread information and educational campaigns, social and economic initiatives to support women in poverty and the cooperation of non-governmental organizations who reach out to women.

The Ukrainian government has begun to implement some of these methods with support from Winrock International and La Strada, two NGOs that are addressing the issue of trafficking in women in Ukraine.

Ms. Verveer added another tool to fight the problem at the initial stages when she announced a $500,000 program of the U.S. Labor Department to develop legal, regulatory and enforcement mechanisms to ensure that women aren't discriminated against in the workplace, which will be administered by the International Labor Organization and the U.S. government. The program hopes to make it easier for women to find good-paying jobs in Ukraine.

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