Women and Trafficking

WOMEN AND TRAFFICKING E DITED BY S IMONA Z AVRATNIK Z IMIC WOMEN AND TRAFFICKING EDITED BY SIMONA ZAVRATNIK ZIMIC PROOF-READING: MICHELLE GADPAILLE DESIGN: IRENA WÖLLE PRINT: STANE PEKLAJ © MIROVNI INŠTITUT, 2004 THE PUBLISHING OF THIS BOOK WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE SUB-EDITION: POLITIKE SYMPOSION EDITOR: MOJCA PAJNIK EDITION: POLITIKE EDITOR: ALDO MILOHNIĆ PUBLISHER: PEACE INSTITUTE INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL AND POLITICAL STUDIES METELKOVA 6 SI-1000 LJUBLJANA E: [email protected] WWW.MIROVNI-INSTITUT.SI PHOTO ON THE COVER: MONAPOLY, HUMAN TRADE GAME, TADEJ POGAČAR & P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART. THE GAME AIMS TO SPREAD KNOWLEDGE ABOUT TRANS-NATIONAL TRAFFICKING IN HUMANS BY EMPOWERING, GIVING SUPPORT, AND HELPING THE ACTIVIST GROUPS OF URBAN MINORITIES. CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 396(082) 316.346.2-055.2(082) WOMEN and trafficking / edited by Simona Zavratnik Zimic. - Ljubljana : Peace Institute, Institute for Contemporary Social and Political Studies, 2004. - (Edition Politike. Politike Symposion) ISBN 961-6455-30-3 1. Zavratnik Zimic, Simona 217132544 CONTENTS 7 FOREWORD 9 SIMONA ZAVRATNIK ZIMIC SEX TRAFFICKING: THE STATE, SECURITY, CRIMINALITY, MORALITY— AND THE VICTIM 21 PETRA DE VRIES AN IMAGE OF SEXUAL DANGER: PROSTITUTION, THE WHITE SLAVE AND THE POLITICAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST WOMAN TRAFFICKING IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 29 GIOVANNA CAMPANI TRAFFICKING FOR SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN SOUTHERN EUROPE: REALITIES AND POLICIES 41 JACQUELINE BERMAN MEDIA CONSTRUCTIONS AND MIGRATION PROJECTS: TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN IN AN INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION (MANAGEMENT) FRAME 63 MOJCA PAJNIK TRAFFICKED WOMEN IN MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS 73 ANDJELKA MARKOVIĆ OVERVIEW OF PROSECUTIONS AND PROTECTION OF VICTIM’S HUMAN RIGHTS 85 RUTH HOPKINS AND JAN NIJBOER HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND HUMAN RIGHTS: RESEARCH, POLICY AND PRACTICE IN THE NETHERLANDS 99 JANA COSTACHI TRAFFICKING IN HUMAN BEINGS IN THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA 109 IRENA PROGNI GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE TRAFFICKING SITUATION IN ALBANIA 121 SVETLANA MILENKOVA MACEDONIA: FINAL DESTINATION AND TRANSIT ROUTE FOR TRAFFICKED WOMEN 129 URŠA KAVČIČ TRAFFICKING IN HUMAN BEINGS FROM, TO AND THROUGH SLOVENIA 141 PETRA KUTÁLKOVÁ PREVENTION OF TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN IN ROMA COMMUNITIES—THE LA STRADA APPROACH 151 ROSSANKA VENELINOVA KRASTEVA FREE MOVEMENT WITHOUT BOUNDARIES—A HEALTH PERSPECTIVE 159 ZSOLT BELÁNSZKY-DEMKÓ PREVENTION OF AND RESPONSE TO SEXUAL AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AMONG PERSONS IN NEED OF INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION 167 SAŠA GORIŠEK TRAFFICKING IN HUMAN BEINGS—THE UN APPROACH FOREWORD This book reflects the outcomes of the June 2004 international seminar “Women in Migration and Vulnerability for Trafficking in Human Beings,” organized by the East East Cooperation Center of the Peace Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Part of a larger project with the Center for Urban and Regional Sociology, Bucharest, Romania, and supported by of the East East Program of the Open Society Institute, the seminar brought together researchers and activists in an attempt to redress the complex circumstances surrounding the international phenomenon of trafficking in women from both a regional and a transnational purview. This international seminar ultimately had the following goals: to contribute to an understanding of the variegated globalized envi- ronment in which trafficking in women takes place; to accentuate certain neglected dimensions of the issue, especially the position of trafficked women themselves; to incorporate the distinct and crucial nexus of perspectives emanating from such key arenas as research, victims’ assistance, IGOs, and INGOs; and to foster information exchange and cooperation among these various communities. The conference proceedings collected in this book include all fif- teen papers presented and carefully debated at the seminar. They cover a variety of interdisciplinary encounters and experiences with trafficking in women, among them an historical overview, debates over human rights approaches, an analysis of media reporting, and innovative recommendations for recasting and more effectively addressing the issue. The book also includes a series of case studies covering experiences with and legislation from countries of source and transit in particular but also receiving countries in and around Europe. As suggested above, the contributing authors represent a broad spectrum of academic researchers, regional field workers, and IGO staff chosen for their original and informed contributions to the 7 W OMEN AND T RAFFICKING debates surrounding trafficking in women. This follows from our contention that effective and innovative policy can best emerge from careful, historical and theoretical research in dialogue with the lived experiences of trafficked women and those working directly with them through local non-governmental and international governmental organizations. These articles also constitute a vital and inci- sive interchange between those situated in western, central, eastern, and south-eastern Europe and in international organizations, link- ing countries of origin, transit, and destination with each other and thus moving towards an increasingly transnational approach to trafficking in women. As the above institutional and interdisciplinary exchanges suggest, we believe that only the interplay of the global and the local can effectively reveal trafficking’s constitutive factors and contribute to its innovative redress. Taking seriously the ways in which gender, migration, immigration, legal jurisdiction, human rights, economics, exploitation, and globalization all contingently but distinctly contribute to the phenomenon of trafficking in women has the potential to produce, if not answers, at least discerning frames in which we can move beyond the ideological retrenchment around and governmental resistance to assisting trafficked women. While there can be neither pat nor final resolutions, this book seeks to transmit information, engender debate, and further initiatives to encourage the kind of exchange and cooperation that can ultimately begin to address a problem both ancient and constructed anew in a global frame. SIMONA ZAVRATNIK ZIMIC JACQUELINE BERMAN 8 SEX TRAFFICKING: THE STATE, SECURITY, CRIMINALITY, MORALITY—AND THE VICTIM S IMONA Z AVRATNIK Z IMIC Introduction Trafficking in human beings and more precisely its very core, sex trafficking, raises a variety of questions for the policy arena, the research agenda and, above all, for the everyday life experiences of those involved most directly—the victims of trafficking. This phenomenon, with a long historical legacy and broad geographical scope,1 has become more and more topical in the contemporary world, where the globalisation of migration movements and the fem- inisation of migration are two figures that frame the social context. In describing the nature of sex trafficking with the help of the key concepts—quite an extensive list, in accordance with the complexity of the issue—at least the following subjects must be named: women in migration, human rights, slavery, globalisation, the nation state, borders, security, criminality, morality, vulnerability and, after all, the victim. Trafficking in human beings, if we use the most common descrip- tion in recent literature and policy debates, is a phenomenon that involves a variety of areas and diverse aspects; however, at the same time its multidimensional extensiveness contributes to an often unfo- cused perspective. According to the latest reports, the most vulnera- ble are the most affected, if excluded from the centre of policing. The perspective of the victim should clearly represent the central reference in any (anti)trafficking discussion. However, it seems that this perspective could easily be neglected in favour of more prevailing themes, such as the discourse on migration management through successful border control and sovereignty of nation-states, the stereotypical linkage between criminality and migration, the general discourse on what is called “illegal immigration as a threat” to 1 For an in-depth historical perspective, see Roberts (1992) and de Vries (2004). 9 W OMEN AND T RAFFICKING states etc. In dominant labelling practices—we can easily find proof in media reporting—the women victims of trafficking are consis- tently criminalised (Berman 2003; Zavratnik Zimic et al. 2003; Pajnik 2004); as migrants, therefore foreigners, they cross state boundaries; as workers in the sex industry they cross the borders of mainstream morality. As a rule, the image of the victim has become subordinate to the image of the criminal. The global village, closed borders and human trafficking Trafficking in human beings to, through and from specific countries or regions—for example, as shown in the IOM study, Victims of Trafficking in the Balkans (2001)—has become a high priority on the agenda of European Governments, whether they be in the east or the west, left or right, former socialist countries in transition or con- solidated western democracies. Some countries are involved as sending, others as receiving countries; some are merely transit routes that people cross on their (non)planned ways. In any analysis of trafficking in the European context, it is necessary to complete the picture with reference to the transition period and the processes of political and economic consolidation in Eastern Europe. This con- textual feature has to be supplemented by the central

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