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
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Reference
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ibidem
R.Bourdeaux “Journey into sex slavery”, Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2001.
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One of the very strong pull factors is the myth of independence and emancipation supposedly awaiting women in the West (Wijers, Lap-Chew, 1997:44) The other is connected to a better life and easy access to employment. The picture of the West comes from the global media, cinema, advertisements etc., where everything seems possible and everyone is happy (Konig, 1997:87).
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For example, criminal gangs buy women from recruiters for small amounts of money such as 50–150 $ and resell them for 5000$ and more.
One of the known examples occurred in the French Embassy in Bulgaria, when it was discovered that in a two-year period tens of thousands of illegal visas were issued. As a consequence two members of the Embassy’s staff lost their jobs and there were speculations that the French Ambassador in Bulgaria was replaced because of that as well - Dz.Sabljakovic “ Prostitutke smenile ambasadora” (Prostitutes replaced ambassador), Danas, August 30, 2001, p. 21.
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Ibidem.
For example, in the late 1960s, Thailand was used as a place for “rest and recreation” for American G.I.s in Vietnam. After the end of the war, prostitution became one of the main financial resources for Thailand. By developing “mass sex tourism” as a means to pay off its debts, it actually encouraged the peacetime institutionalization of sex industry (Williams, 1999:153). Similar occurred in the Philippines. Also, although 1972 Okinawa returned to Japanese administration, prostitution “continued to be the mainstay of the economy” (Euler and Welzer-Lang, 2000:17).
K.Holt “Captive Market”, The Sunday Times Magazine, February 18, 2001
See examples on p.111
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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Nikolic-Ristanovic, V. (2002). Sex Trafficking in Women. In: Social Change, Gender and Violence. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9872-9_5
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