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Криминология: вчера, сегодня, завстра №2 (15). 2008
3. КРИМИНОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ ОТРАСЛИ
ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКАЯ КРИМИНОЛОГИЯ
M. Scheinost *
HUMAN TRAFFIKING — ExPIERENCE OF CzECH REPUBLIC
By time Czech Republic became — speaking of trafficking in human beings and especially in women for sexual exploitation — the country of origin, transit and target and the crossroad of the routes of trafficking. The need to study and solve this problem was expressed in the research that was carried out by our Institute of Criminology and Social Prevention as a part of the UN Global Programme against Trafficking in Human Beings under the supervision of UNICRI, and partly by two partial surveys made for the Czech Ministry of Interior by NGOs.
A. Problem.
The generally acknowledged constants which influence the existence of this specific form of crime include imbalance of international economic relations, tolerated violation of human rights, insufficient information of public and victims, poor legal conscience. In the countries of origin of trafficked people we often find economic weakness, poverty and political instability. On the side of target countries we meet the constant demand for «sex for sale» and for cheap labour force, on the side of source countries we find a widespread myth about easy and restful life in the target countries. Speaking of trafficking in women, it comes into question also the gender inequality in the legislation and in the practice (i.e. e.g. the feminisation of poverty, gender discrimination, scarce access to education and employment opportunities).
B. Situation in the Cr — Background.
Speaking on situation in the CR, in the past, i.e. till 90-ies, trafficking in women was a criminal offence according to the article 246 of the Criminal Code of the former Czechoslovakia, as result of the ratification of international conventions. Prosecution of this offence after all hardly appeared before Czech courts. On the other side, to tell the truth, the phenomenon of trafficking in human beings was not common due to the specific character and circumstances under the totalitarian regime.
It is not necessary to analyse broadly the profound political, social and economic change after 1989. It was similar as in other so-called post-socialist countries. It is possible only to stress that the transition process in our society was „conditio sine qua non" to overcome the period of stagnation, isolation and totality and to open up the space to establish the "normal" democratic society. Nevertheless, this development was attached with some risky factors that enabled the spreading of criminal phenomena.
The open economy and free and open society needs the opened borders, therefore the restrictions concerning the movement of people, goods and money had
* Мирослав шейност — доктор социологии, сотрудник Института криминологической и социальной превенции (Прага, Чехия). © М. Шейност, 2008
to be abolished. It is obvious that the CSFR or later CR has been advantageously geographically situated between the states of the European Union on the one side and the states of former socialist block on the other side. Czech territory is easily accessible from the countries of former Soviet Union and from Balkan, there is a good possibility for transit, for the mobility of goods, capital and people within the legal as well as the illegal economy.
Czech legislation went through a fundamental rebuilding and the means of the effective combat with the new forms of crime had only to be developed. Some groups of people, due to the incapability to adapt themselves to the changed conditions on the labour market and due to the changes in the social welfare system suffered from the worsened life conditions and social insecurity. Together with it, high unemployment rates in some districts appeared. The incidence of some social problems (especially drug abuse and prostitution) increased.
According to data, crime rate rapidly increased in the 90?s and new forms of crime including organised crime came forward. Among other new forms, the trafficking in people also appeared as a result of the mentioned factors. We also have registered increasing demand for sexual services, and especially for cheap sexual services that gave rise to the «sexual tourism», in particular in areas along the state borders and in the big cities.
The influence of factors connected with transformation process has been strengthened by distorted system of values and scarce legal culture, young women's desire to break away from a boring lifestyle without no perspectives and from the social control of their original environment, low self-esteem and underestimation of health risk: all these have been incentives that facilitated the growth of sexual exploitation. And, in the Czech Republic as well as in some other countries, we registered the growing demand for cheap labour force that is "flexible" and easily at disposal.
Due to our advantageous geographical situation, we became quickly a crossroad of routes of illegal migration, the country of origin, transit and target of trafficking in women, the area of interest of international organised crime and partly also the target country for cheap labour force.
C. Trafficking in Women — Characteristic.
Based on research findings, the easiest source of Czech victims of trafficking in women is situated in areas with high unemployment, cities with many foreign tourists and with an increased demand for (and supply of) all kinds of sexual services. Potential victims are sought among women dissatisfied with their earnings, those in difficult life situations and among women being already engaged in prostitution. If Czech women have been trafficked abroad, most often, according to our empirical data, the main destination countries are Germany and Austria, followed by France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium and the USA. But they were also found in Japan and Mexico.
The most frequent countries of origin of foreign victims transported to the CR are Ukraine, other ex-USSR countries and Bulgaria, furthermore Slovakia, Rumania, and the former Yugoslavia; some of the women come from Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Thailand. These women usually stay on Czech territory either as tourists, or using a counterfeit letter of invitation or they are transported across the CR to the Western Europe.
КриминоRогиa: enepa, сегодна, 3aecmpa №2 (15). 2008
The ways of hiring or recruiting Czech females are mostly informal. Most often, the contact between the trafficked person and recruiters is established through friends, common acquaintances, or, in some cases, «from hearsay». Not infrequently, a member of the victim's family mediates the contact.
As for formal mediation of hiring the victims, contact through (job, marriage, travel) agencies is not very frequent yet; most of the adverts are placed by an individual person, or by the owners of erotic establishments themselves.
The analysis of files pertaining to cases heard by Czech courts revealed that, for the most part, women in the Czech Republic are enticed abroad under the pretence of a well-paid and attractive job, such as the work as a barmaid, a dancer, a hostess, a lady companion and the like. For this crime to be committed, it is quite unnecessary to transport the woman abroad in spite of her opposition. Most of the women are lured by the prospect of an easy and comfortable life connected with high earnings, and they leave the Czech Republic voluntarily after the perpetrators had misled them. Perpetrators of this crime who offer lucrative jobs nevertheless plan from the start that the woman's main (or even only) activity will be prostitution and women are sold to erotic establishments, or to procurers to engage in street prostitution.
The predominant material motivation relates also to the high proportion of women who, before they became victims of trafficking, had engaged in prostitution. Not infrequently, the aggrieved women had offered their sexual services on the street or in nightclubs in border areas before they were trafficked. According to information from the selected court files, Czech women who offered their sexual services in hotels, better-class erotic parlours or in select private clubs to wealthy clients or foreigners did not become victims of trafficking. It means that this "higher cluster" of prostitutes is not so much endangered by trafficking. On the contrary, women offering their sexual services particularly on the street are an extremely high-risk group of persons in terms of victimization.
If we differentiate the victims of trafficking according to the ways of recruitment, we can divide them, according to the degree of victimization, into:
• Women who went abroad knowing that they would engage in prostitution there, but had no idea of the conditions under which they would perform this work.
• Women who took on a job which is very closely linked to prostitution (striptease dancers, masseuses in erotic clubs) and who might have presumed that they would get into a situation where they would have to engage in prostitution.
• Women who were deceived and who had no idea that they would have to prostitute themselves, because they were promised work as waitresses, hostesses, babysitters, etc.
• Women who were transported abroad by force (as far as we know, it has been not the typical case till now).
Patterns and routes of trafficking in women are very flexible and they change rapidly. The exact route of the movement of victims depends on the specific conditions in the transit countries; sometimes also in the destination country, and their changes are conditioned, most frequently, by police controls. Only the original locality where the victim was recruited and the place of destination are usually known.
With regard to the involvement of organised crime, it is necessary to tell that the in the prevalent part of prosecuted cases the offenders were prosecuted as individuals, not as a members of organised groups. There is a question of capability of law enforcement authorities to prove the existence of organisation. But in fact the experience of the police and judicial authorities shows that, although small-scale activities performed by small groups of individuals occur in this form of crime too, a more important role by far is played by larger groups, transnational interrelated networks of offenders, which make up the elaborate and very well-organised „sex industry,,. According to the comments of most of the asked experts, small groups of human traffickers are linked to larger international organisations.
At present, human trafficking for sexual purposes from the Czech Republic is organised and performed by both Czechs and foreign nationals from countries of former Soviet Union, Balkan countries but also from countries of Western Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria) with growing involvement of Vietnamese and Chinese. Groups of the Czech citizens of Romany origin are involved mostly in trafficking within the Czech territory. The experts give 6-10 persons (maximally up to 20 persons) as the estimated number of members of groups involved in trafficking.
There is the structure of one of discovered groups that was prosecuted for trafficking in women as organised criminal group (by wording of the Czech Penal Code as criminal conspiracy). This group consisted mostly of Bulgarian people and it trafficked women from Bulgaria and Ukraine into the Czech brothels in border areas and to the Germany. Czechs were involved on the lower level as operators, staff of brothels and transport. The interesting detail is that the experienced organiser of women recruiting managed this activity from inside the Czech prison. The group used the service of a lawyer that was of Bulgarian origin but the Czech citizen. He covered the legal assistance but also the interconnection inside the group, especially with the imprisoned organiser. Women had to give over one half of their income to the organisers and they had also to «cover the expenses» of their transport and «purchase».
КриминоRогиa: enepa, сeгодна, 3aecmpa №2 (15). 2008
D. Statistics.
Due to the high latency, the statistics cannot be understood as an objective measure of the extent of trafficking in human beings. It shows rather the work of the Police.
Number of detected offences of trafficking in people for sexual purposes (Statistics of the Czech police) according to Article 246 of Criminal Code)
Year 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Detected crimes 34 23 13 27 15 10 13
Cleared-up crimes 34 22 13 25 10 9 12
Numbers of investigated and prosecuted 49 38 21 26 12 19 30
Number of victims of trafficking in people for sexual purposes registered by the Police
Year 2003 2004
Victims-women 2 3
Victims 1 0
Victims 8 10
Number of people in groups 50 69
Total 53 72
Number of legitimately sentenced offenders and inflicted penalties for trafficking in people for sexual purposes
Year 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Number of sentenced persons 5 25 16 15 20 5 12
Unconditional sentence since 1 to 5 years 3 17 6 7 5 1 3
Suspended sentence 2 8 10 8 15 4 9
In 2005 20 offenders were sentenced but 12 of them to suspended sentence. Source : Statistics of the Czech Police and Judicial Statistics E. Trafficking in People for Other Purposes.
Other forms of trafficking in human beings have been found in the CR in considerably lower extent. These forms concern usually the trafficking for cheap labour force and only rarely for other purposes as forced marriage or mendicancy or forced
committing of crime (e.g. petty thefts, pickpocketing). Two surveys were carried out by NGOs; they describe mostly the exploitation of work of foreigners. Some economic migrants must undergo the harsh treatment from employers that includes breaking of contract of employment or work without any contract, very low or delayed payment, any time for rest etc., even is some cases the verbal of physical violence.
Exploitation of foreigners? labour is the common phenomenon of the "migration reality" in the CR. On the labour market there has been economic demand for migrants? work, especially for low-qualified, manual, hard and low-paid work (in the building and textile industry, services, agriculture). It concerns mainly Czech employers but there are signals about similar or even harsher conditions with respect to Asian employers and their treatment with their compatriots. The problem is that economic migrants seeking for work are forced to accept the bad work conditions not by violence or coercion but because of the necessity to ensure the means for living for themselves and also for their families in countries of origin due to the economic situation and pressure. Not only employers profit from their situation but in the same way the agents (middlemen) that arrange the jobs for their compatriots for considerable fee (payment). The relation between worker and agent sometimes may include other form of duties or engagement asked from worker.
But still, it is not easy to speak simply about forced labour. Most of these workers consider themselves to be free — the problem does not consists in forcing to work but in the coercion to accept the substandard conditions and it is given by their objective economic situation misused by employers and agents. Really forced labour e.g. in sense of limited movement and personal freedom is rather exceptional; but the relationship between worker on the one side and employer and agent on the other side is strongly unequal as well as the division of profit.
The suspicious signals of trafficking for illegal adoption, forced criminal activity, trafficking in human organs etc. were registered only sporadically; it does not mean that their occurrence in the CR is out of the question but probably has been till now rather exceptional.
SOURCES
Travnickova, I. et al.: Obchodovani s lidmi z pohledu Ceske republiky/ Trafficking in people from the point of view of the CR. ICSP, Prague 2004
CernikJ. et al.: Pilotni vyzkum prostredi obchodu s lidmi na uzemi CR/Pilot survey on trafficking in people within the CR. IOM, Prague 2005, see www.mvcr.cz
Topinka,D.:Vyzkum obchodu s lidmi predevsim za ucelem nucene prace/ Research on trafficking in people especially for forced labour. Intermundia, Havirov 2005, see www.mvcr.cz
