Human trafficking finds new ways

Every week now, dozens of people are caught trying to cross illegally into Western Europe through the Balkans. They mask the many more who get through. Some are males from the Middle East led to believe a better life waits the other side. But thousands of young women and girls have been travelling this route. It is the route to prostitution, police and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) agree. A large number remain in the Balkans, but scores are taken further West. "Hideous crimes are committed against thousands of women (in the Balkans)," Madeleine Rees from the United Nation High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCHR) office in Sarajevo told IPS. "Western governments treat this problem as illegal immigration that should be solved with law enforcement," she said. "But it is the human rights perspective we want to introduce to explain human trafficking, as the women who end up being forced into sexual slavery can only be treated as victims." NGOs are stepping in to help these women in eight countries in the region - Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Moldova, Kosovo, Serbia & Montenegro and Romania. With the help of UNHCR and other international organizations they are working first to educate the public, police and media about the problem. "These countries are both transit countries and source countries for trafficked women," Jelena Djordjevic from the Belgrade-based NGO Astra told IPS. "We have received some 900 phone calls from women who became victims of human trafficking in the January 2002-June 2003 period. We provided shelter for dozens of them." A study on human trafficking released earlier this month by the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe (SPSEE), an organization funded by the European Union, says 5,000 female victims of human trafficking have been identified and assisted in the January 2000-June 2003 period.