TRAFFICKING: A New War On Women By Katherine Carpenter There is a new global war on women, the illegal movement of women and girls across borders for sexual exploitation. Trafficking in women and girls is a vast problem, the dimensions of which activists, government officials, and communities around the world are just beginning to understand. Though all organizations and governments that work on this issue have their own definition of trafficking, the United Nations defines trafficking in persons as: “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.” Statistics on trafficking vary widely and can only be given as estimates. The United States Department of State estimates that between 700,000 and four million people were trafficked

GLOBAL STATISTICS ON TRAFFICKING Denise Conroy, Coordinator, Subcommittee on Legislative Awareness and Advocacy

In many cases, reliable statistics are unavailable for this largely unreported crime. However, recent studies tell us that: • Every year, an estimated 4 million women and girls are bought and sold worldwide, either into forced prostitution, slavery or forced marriage; • About 45,000 to 50,000 women are trafficked annually to the United States; . • Between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepali girls are trafficked every year across the border to India. Most end up as sex workers in brothels in Bombay and New Delhi. An estimated 200,000 Nepali women, most of them girls under 18, are sex workers in Indian cities; • In Western Europe alone, about 500,000 women and girls from developing countries and countries with economies in transition are entrapped in the slave trade each year; • In the last 30 years, trafficking in women and children in Asia for sexual exploitation alone has victimized over 30 million people; • Girls as young as 13 (mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe) are trafficked as "mail-order brides". Source: International Conference on Population and Development, 2002.

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in 2001. It is impossible to get an accurate count of the victims of trafficking, even within specific countries or cities, because trafficking is a clandestine activity by nature. Organizations can only gather statistics on victims with whom they have contact and many victims chose not to identify themselves. Like all black market activity, trafficking in persons thrives in places with weak legal infrastructure, porous borders, and corrupt officials. Trafficking of girls and women is rooted in two interrelated global realities: patriarchy and poverty. Women around the world have made great strides toward equality with men, but there are still many barriers that prevent women from gaining truly equal status to men in all spheres of life. The lack of women in parliaments, government ministries, and executive branches is a prohibitive factor in the creation of new policies and the enforcement of those that already exist. Even at the family level, women frequently have less decisionmaking power than men. Violence against women flourishes in a variety of forms. Violent behavior can be deeply rooted in cultural practices and often happens behind closed doors in the “private” sphere, making eradication efforts treacherous. Economic oppression combined with, and increasingly caused by, the globalization of markets and industries keeps women poor. Around the world, women are paid less than men; sometimes they have similar jobs to male counterparts but make less money, sometimes they are relegated to lower paid positions and denied advancement opportunities. Women are frequently the first people to lose their jobs when factories are privatized or down-sized, based on the assumption that their income only supplements the income earned by the male head of household. In most families, this assumption is simply false; many families rely on two incomes to make ends meet. In post-conflict societies, women may be the only income earners when husbands and fathers are killed or disabled during war. Single, unemployed mothers are one of the largest groups of potential trafficking victims. All of these issues force women into the “gray,” semi-legal economy, or even worse, the black market in an effort to support themselves and their families. Traffickers prey on all of these factors. In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union young women respond to advertisements for waitress and nanny positions in Western Europe and the U.S., and end up in brothels throughout the world. In India, Nepal, and Thailand, desperately poor families send their young women to work in carpet factories or the garment industry and never hear from their children after they are delivered to bordellos in Bombay and Bangkok. Some women and girls are kidnapped outright. Rape, often by groups of men, serves as initiation for trafficked girls and women. Women begin their new “careers” in debt, as the traffickers keep

a running tally of inflated expenses that they incur, including the cost of their travel, room, and board. The costs are always higher than the money they earn, leaving them in a permanent condition of debt-bondage. Even if the women think that they can make enough money to escape their captors, there are other barriers to prevent them from attempting escape. Women who do not have legitimate travel documents may be afraid to seek help from local authorities because they could be arrested for prostitution and/or illegal migration and forcibly deported to their home countries. Returning home could also be problematic. Returned trafficked women face severe social stigma from their families and communities. They are almost certainly suffering from some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder, which may be combined with any number of sexually transmitted diseases. Many women also fear that the traffickers will return for them and send them back to the brothels. The threat to injure or kill family members is often so real that some women prefer to stay where they are, rather than risk escape at all. In order to eliminate trafficking, effective responses must take all of these factors into consideration; efforts to solve only one layer of the problem will not succeed. Governments and NGOs involved in anti-trafficking efforts have coalesced around “the three Ps”: prevention, protection, and prosecution. Prevention efforts must involve not only education on how to avoid the risks of becoming a victim of trafficking, they must also include efforts to stimulate local economies so that women are not forced to seek economic opportunity elsewhere. Women who have escaped trafficking situations require immediate access to medical and psychological care in a safe FACTORS CONTRIBUTING environment where they do not fear TO TRAFFICKING immediate deportation or reprisals Denise Conroy, Coordinator, Subcommittee on Legislative from their former captors. They need Awareness and Advocacy legal council and supportive laws in •Increasing disparities between rich and destination countries that empower poor countries them to make informed decisions •Increasing female poverty due to economic about where to spend the rest of their restructuring (especially ‘sending’ countries) lives. Additionally, they must have • Increasing female unemployment in Eastern European another way to support themselves and their countries (up to 90%) compared to full employment in families monetarily and this may necessitate job the past skills training and career counseling. All parties • Increasing wealth in countries of ‘destination’, with involved in facilitating trafficking must be growing organised sex industries prosecuted, from the recruiters, to the corrupt • Increasing crime ‘mafias’, organizing across borders border guards, to the brothel owners. This • Collapsed states, political uncertainties and civil wars process is perhaps the most daunting, as it will leaving populations without legal protection or livelihoods require many countries to create and/or enforce and vulnerable to military, as well as civilian, criminal groups existing laws and also to face the unpleasant • Increased globalisation – trade and travel – making the reality of corruption at all levels of government. movements of money (both legal and illegal), business an The roots of trafficking are deeply embedpeople, faster and much less able to be regulated ded in all countries of the world. Those who • The growth and influence of the internet providing a vast wish to eradicate trafficking must simultaneously and unregulated ‘location’ for arranging ‘trade’ without the work to eradicate patriarchy and poverty. restrictions of national borders. Trafficking will continue until all women are able not only to support themselves and their families in legitimate economic activities, but also to have equal decision-making power over how to spend the money they earn.