Sex Trafficking in Women

Abstract

Since the end of Cold war, the number of women from Central and Eastern Europe working as prostitutes in Western Europe (Bruinsma and Meershoek, 1999:107) and United States (Global Survival Network, 1997:7) increased rapidly. Statistics of STV (Foundation against Trafficking in Women) about women trafficked to The Netherlands, as one of the main destination countries within Europe, may serve as a good illustration for this trend. The number of victims from post-communist countries assisted by STV increased more than ten times since the beginning of transition so that in 1997 they made up two-thirds of the total number of victims who applied to the STV for support. (Bruinsma and Meershoek, 1999:108). A good illustration of the situation regarding trafficking in Europe is given by Thomas Bodstrom, justice minister in Sweden, after he met a woman in Sarajevo, who said she had been sold 18 times: “I think it surprised all of us that it was actually slavery going on in Europe. Bosnia has just been in a war — there is not the same possibility to have authority. But what can we say in Europe? In Sweden? Or in Holland? They are selling people. How many people, smuggled by whom? The truth is that we don’t know.”108