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Trafficking of women on the rise
 Media Credit: Scott Hagemeier/Contributing Photographer Lois A. Herman speaks during the Women on Wednesday program titled �Illegal Commodity: The Trafficking of Women and Girls� in the Atwood Theater. Herman is an international women�s human rights consultant. More than 4 million women and children are trafficked every year. Trafficking happens all over the globe, growing the fastest in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia.
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This trade alone rivals the illegal arms and drug business.
It is not electronics, industrial or economical, but rather a dehumanizing trade of women and children. It is the illegal trafficking of women and children into bondage, sexual slavery and abusive or forced labor.
It happens all over the globe, growing the fastest in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia. The U.S. is also guilty of this charge. Human trafficking in the former Soviet Union was almost unknown, but now claims more than 100,000 victims each year.
So how and why does this happen? International women's human rights consultant, Lois Herman, spoke Wednesday at Atwood Theater on the illegal trafficking of women and girls.
Herman specializes in bilateral partnering for cultural and social exchange and is involved with over 20 countries. She is also a delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Herman spoke about the trafficking that occurs daily in the world and why women are doing this.
"These women go because they have dreams," Herman said. "They go because of the money. Because of the poverty."
She said human trafficking is the most abusive violation of human rights in the world. More than 4 million women and children are trafficked every year. They are bought, sold, deceived and sold again. They even die.
What is trafficking? It is defined as the transport of human beings for the purpose of any form of forced labor sector, the illicit movement of persons across borders with the end foal of forced labor.
So how does this happen?
"They are lured by promises of a better life in a far away land," Herman said.
Looking at where trafficking happens first, helps people understand why it happens. The women are usually around 18- to 20-years-old. Those who are under 18 make up about 30 percent of the trafficking.
They live in the poorest of conditions. Like in the former Soviet Union, Cambodia and Latin America. Anywhere there is poverty and not the slightest vision of hope. These women have dreams and hopes.
They want to help out the family. They see or hear of this great job that sends women out of the country for jobs. Usually these jobs are said to be jobs like hosting, dancers, bartenders, easy jobs in foreign countries that pay high wages. Wanting to please their families and make money, these women go.
They meet the persons they believe will get them the jobs. These are the agents who work for the pimps. When the woman hears about all the great things, she wants to go. The agent says they will pay for everything to get them out. So they do. When the woman arrives at her destination, be it Japan or Germany, her passport, her papers, everything is taken.
From here she is forced to work off her debt. The money they earn they see little or none of. The women can be forced to sleep with as many clients as 15 to 20 per day, being exposed to all types of sexually transmitted diseases and receiving no medical care.
"This is where they realize they have been deceived," Herman said. "They can't run because they are being watched and they are in a foreign country."
Some women in Cambodia enter in at such a low level that they are put into brothels, some chained to beds.
"Men fly to these countries just to have sex parties," Herman said. "I have followed these men, and that is what they do."
Once the women understand their 'terms' of living, they face the rest of their lives working themselves out of forced bondage. There is never any protection, physically or sexually.
What happens to her body and mind affects her for the rest of her life. Should she escape and go home, she becomes a marked woman in her culture and no man will touch her. She is then forced either to go back or to become a prostitute in her own community.
The traffickers who get the women focus on their vulnerability and take advantage of slack border patrols. The prostitution rings are also protected, in a way, by the corruption of the police and government officials in the areas where the prostitution rings are.
The paid off officials help falsify the documents needed to traffic the women across borders and to keep the activity of the prostitution ring quiet and looked over when dealing with laws. The pimps and agents also show a complete casual disregard for the law.
These rings are often registered with the state as something they are not. This includes travel agencies, modeling agencies, marriage agencies and so forth.
When the brothels are raided, often the women are imprisoned or deported and those responsible go unpunished. Those women who do get out and go to the authorities find next to no sympathy for they are the ones who chose prostitution.
The United Nations estimates that human trafficking has provided revenues ranging between$7 billion and $12 billion each year. The traffickers set the prices of their women, often up to $2,000 per woman per week.
"They rarely earn what is promised," said Herman. "Often only enough for the bare minimum in food. Some starve."
So what is being done to stop this?
Congress has partially helped fund anti-trafficking activities. There is an anti-trafficking law authorized for $95.5 million over the next two years for domestic and international initiatives, a contingent on congressional funding.
Congress has also approved a $10 million budget in the Department of Justice appropriations. The Fiscal Year 2002 Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill includes $20 million for anti-trafficking programs, of which not less than $1.5 million is to be used in the former Soviet Union.
Just last year, an Eden Prairie prostitution and drug ring was discovered and busted by the FBI. The women were mostly from Vietnam.
Nissa Billmyer can be reached at: [email protected]
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