WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Human trafficking is one of the most serious issues facing the expansion of the European Union, according to members of a panel convened by a Washington, D.C. think tank Friday.
Esther Brimmer, deputy director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, known as SAIS, said the EU needs to have a comprehensive approach to the trafficking issue. Increasing the membership of the EU to 25 nations will make it easier to transport trafficking victims -- most of whom are women and children held in sexual slavery -- among European countries, she said.
The Protection Project, a SAIS-sponsored human rights research institute dedicated to eradicating human trafficking, hosted the four-member panel.
Brimmer said that countries that supply, transport and use trafficked women need to work together to eliminate human smuggling rings, and that the EU's unified police force, Europol, should work with countries in the former Soviet Union to maintain a database for missing people.
Countries in the former Soviet Union have become the leading suppliers of trafficked women and children sex slaves to the EU. The Protection Project's "Human Rights Report On Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children" indicates that almost 80 percent of all illegal prostitutes in Western Europe come from Moldova, the most impoverished nation of the former U.S.S.R. The report, released in March of 2002, says the average price for a women sold into prostitution ranges from $800 to $5,000, depending on factors like age.
The same study says that "dealers" of women typically make a profit of $500 to $600 for each woman or child that they sell.
Louise Shelley, director of American University's Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, said at the forum that these easy profits make human trafficking a crime of choice for large-scale smuggling rings.
"The problem of trafficking is a problem of organized crime. It is the fastest growing form of organized crime in the world today because it has the least chance of sanctions or arrest, making it a high profit, low risk crime," Shelley said.
Shelley praised a program created six years ago in Italy that uses the profits seized from organized crime for social and economic development in impoverished communities. Some funds from this program are used to provide safe houses for trafficked women in Italy. She recommends that all countries with human trafficking problems use this same approach.
"People have to see that there are tangible benefits to fighting organized crime and that instead of just being intimidated you can do something for the society," she said.
Panel members agreed that Western countries are the main consumers of trafficked women from impoverished nations. Maureen Walsh, general counsel of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the CSCE, recommends greater cooperation between governments to combat trafficking, but cautions that the legal systems within many of the source countries needs to be changed so they protect women from being forced into the sex trade.
According to Walsh, the two root causes of human trafficking in the countries of the former Soviet Union are discrimination against women in the workplace and widespread physical and sexual abuse of women. She says that many times women pursue questionable opportunities overseas because they feel like they have no other choice.
"Situations are so dire at home that they are willing to take the chance because there's no other option," says Walsh. "We need to address the situation at its roots, the lack of economic opportunities for women in source countries."
She added that while the EU does not have the authority to mandate non-members to curb the trafficking of women, other international agreements and organizations like the CSCE can be used to enforce cooperation.
Elzbieta Gozdiak, research director of Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of International Migration, agreed with Welsh and said that in the international community there is more talk than action to combat human trafficking.
"The representatives of these countries can be talking, but it's up to them to go back to their countries and implement the legislation," says Gozdiak.
Gozdiak added poverty and the developed world's consumption of the sex trade to the panel's list of the root causes for trafficking. She says that countries with human trafficking problems need to spend more time training frontline police to both assist the victims and fully prosecute the traffickers.
Gozdiak, a native of Poland, praises America's legislative measures against trafficking, but challenges the United States to enforce the application of its laws by police and the courts.
"The United States has pretty good laws on the books, probably a lot more advanced than many of the European countries. However, the United States is struggling with the same kinds of issues. The police often prosecute the traffickers, but under different criminal codes -- there's no knowledge of the Trafficking Violence Protection Act (known as the TVPA)."
The TVPA, signed into law in 2000, gives victims of trafficking who cooperate with the police the option to remain in the United States for three years under a "T" visa status. After that three-year visa expires, trafficking victims have the right to apply for a green card.
All the members of the panel agreed that further research and education is needed to effectively eliminate human trafficking. Gozdiak said that while the number of victims of trafficking is high, very few ever seek help from law enforcement. She said further research should be focused on how to reach these victims. Only then, she said, can advocacy groups effectively address the problem.
The human trafficking issue is not limited to the EU. Next week policymakers from around the world will gather in Hawaii to discuss human trafficking between the United States and Asia. That conference, "The Human Rights Challenge of Globalization in the Asia-Pacific-US: The Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children," is co-sponsored by the East-West Center and the University of Hawaii Globalization Research Center.
At the conference U.S. political notables including Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.), vice-chair of the House International Relations Committee, and Claude Allen, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will discuss the impact human trafficking has on the sex trade and pornography.
