Ukraine takes steps to curb human trafficking

[polo593]

Ukraine takes steps to curb trafficking
by Alexandra Stadnyk, Kyiv Post Editor
Jul 16 2008, 19:52

With no money, no husband, a sick mother and two children, Natalia became an ideal target for a human trafficking network that has claimed an estimated 100,000 victims in independent Ukraine.

Natalia’s journey took the 38yearold woman from her hometown in western Ukraine, to a brothel in Western Europe for six months and back again to her native country, where she is now working at a printing house.

While Ukraine continues to be a haven for traffickers, the situation is not entirely bleak and there is progress to report.

According to a recent U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, the Ukrainian government is doing a better job of punishing convicted traffickers, both through convictions and longer prison sentences. The government is also improving its prosecution of labor traffickers, training the judiciary and carrying out prevention strategies.

However, the State Department criticized the Ukrainian government for not doing enough to help victims. A weak witness protection program and a bias against sex trafficking victims which discourages many from testifying in courts, according to the report.

For example, Natalia, which is not her real name, is afraid to press charges against the woman who deceived her and then recruited her into the network where she was sexually exploited.


Ukraine’s progress assessed

The State Department has developed a threetier system for grading how well nations are combating human trafficking. Tier 1 is the highest grade, meaning that those nations have strong laws in place and are proactively fighting the problem. A Tier 3 ranking means a nation is doing little or nothing.

The report ranks Ukraine as a Tier 2 nation – meaning the nation is taking concrete steps to eradicate trafficking, such as improving awareness programs and forming partnerships between government and nongovernmental organizations.

Nonetheless, the report says, Ukraine remains a major source of victims, a transit point of the trade and a destination for trafficked persons. Many victims end up engaged in prostitution abroad or other forms of exploitative labor.

According to the United Nations, human trafficking remains the third most profitable crime worldwide, after drug and weapons smuggling. It is estimated that 100,000 Ukrainians have been trafficked since independence in 1991, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an intergovernmental organization that works with migrants.

From 2000 to 2008, IOM assisted 5,214 Ukrainians who were trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation.

Jeffrey Labovitz, chief of mission in Ukraine for IOM, says trafficking in Ukraine remains an “acute problem” and says the government needs to take more responsibility to decrease the number of trafficked victims.

“They need to go after the big fish,” says Labovitz, speaking about the lack of prosecution against the traffickers, who adds that weak prosecution of traffickers prevents Ukraine from getting a top ranking for combating the problem.

The organization helps victims reintegrate into society and provides them with shelter, medical, psychological, legal and job placement assistance. It also runs five centers for migrant advice throughout the country where Ukrainians can get information on workers’ rights, contract terms, visas and fraudulent schemes used to lure workers abroad.

Labovitz believes that Ukraine has, over the last few years, improved its efforts to deal with trafficking by setting up a countertrafficking department within the Interior Ministry that employs over 300 employees. He also points to the statistics and says 90 percent of Ukrainians understand what trafficking is, a significant increase over the last five years, when only 60 percent of Ukrainians knew what trafficking was, he says.

Labovitz says partnerships to reduce human trafficking are crucial. “You need the government, civic society, corporate Ukraine and international organizations working together to get the maximum effect,” he said. Joint efforts remain essential to tackling this problem and over the years more partnerships have been formed between the public and private sector.

Partnership programs between international organizations and the government have helped Ukraine rise from the Tier 2 watch list, a type of “red flag,” to Tier 2, a slight improvement.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is currently working together with the Ukrainian government to assist them with various aspects such as legal reform, training activities, and technical support to help combat human trafficking in the country until 2010, says Lubomir Kopaj, OSCE project coordinator in Ukraine.

“It is here, it is bad and we have to fight it,” says Kopaj, speaking about the problem of trafficking in Ukraine.

Trafficking is not an easy problem to overcome, says Kopaj, but he hopes that the National Referral Mechanism, a crosscountry program that trains policemen, border guards, judges, and doctors will help to pass on knowledge on human trafficking. The OSCE travels to different oblasts in Ukraine conducting workshops to better inform individuals who might come across a trafficked victim. Last year, this program trained over 2,000 people in Ukraine.

Traffickingspecific training has helped to increase the understanding of this crime, says Kopaj.

But he says that the problem of trafficking is one that must continue to be a high priority within the government. “We are far from accomplishing the aims of the program and doing it in a qualitative way.”

New partnerships between the public and private sector are a recent phenomenon and more companies are climbing on board to raise awareness of trafficking. A new campaign was launched by Ukrainian oil company Galnaftogas in February 2008 that includes countertrafficking billboards at 12 OKKO gas stations in Lviv, Volyn and Zakarpattya oblasts warning travelers of human trafficking. In addition, three leading mobile companies Kyivstar, Life, MTS, have joined forces and set up a tollfree number “527” that provides information and assistance on trafficking to callers. Microsoft Ukraine has also donated software to seven nongovernmental organizations meant to train trafficked victims and help them with their job skills. MTV Ukraine has been involved by donating airtime for public service announcements informing viewers of the dangers of working abroad.

Despite the growing partnerships aimed at eradicating human trafficking the numbers are chilling. According to the Trafficking Report, in 2007 the government completed 82 criminal investigations and arrested 56 people on trafficking charges. The Interior Ministry of Ukraine reported that they prosecuted 95 cases which resulted in 83 convictions. However, 59 people were placed on probation and avoided jail time.


Natalia’s story

Despite a steadily improving economy that is reducing financial desperation, Natalia’s story is still all too common in Ukraine. Millions of people still remain mired in poverty or lowwage jobs in tiny villages scattered throughout the nation.

The IOM, which assisted Natalia, set up an interview between her and the Kyiv Post on the condition that her real name and other identifying information not be used. She is a woman with shortbrown hair, skyblue eyes and two gold teeth. Wearing an allwhite crochet dress and a gold cross around her neck, her nails are not painted and her makeup is minimal.

Like many deceived victims, Natalia said she was destitute when a young woman approached her as she was working in a local market in her hometown. The woman asked if she was interested in working abroad.

“She promised good money,” says Natalia in a shaky voice, her mascara watering as tears begin to trickle down her face.

“This woman knew I had no money, no husband, a sick mother and two children and she knew I was desperate,” she says. Natalia was told she would work in the home of a family in a Western European nation.


It turned out to be a lie.

“When I arrived, I asked where the family was, where the washing machine was and all the other things I would need to help around the house. Suddenly a large man dressed in black threw cheap lingerie at me and said I had to work to pay off the cost of my travel, and that’s when I knew I had been trafficked. I knew I had been trafficked on the first day.”

Natalia worked with five other women from Ukraine and Moldova in a small apartment, where she was forced to service up to four men a day, she says. She worked in slavelike conditions for six months until she got pregnant and begged to be sent back to Ukraine by one of her customers, who refused to pay for an abortion. The abortion had to wait until she returned to Ukraine.

[steviej]

I wonder what they mean by "trafficking?" I ask because in US, feminists routinely lump international marriages into their "human trafficking" lingo. In other words, feminists try to create the most absurdly wide net of "trafficking" that they can, and list everything under it.

Even the case you describe is not trafficking. The woman voluntarily left Ukraine for a job in another country. While there, she was kidnapped, and I presume forced into prostitution. She could have been kidnapped by some other group entirely while trying to locate her position of employment. So this crime is whatever you call it if you can physically force someone into prostitution.

To me (and I'm no attorney), trafficking would have to include the forced abduction in the person's home country, and smuggling them illegally out of the country. The criminals make money by kidnapping and smuggling humans.

I remember reading an article where a Russian official of some sort was asked about "trafficking" and his reply was something to the effect of, "better to have the prostitutes out of the country than here." What he meant was that a lot of the girls that get lumped into the "trafficking" statistics are already prostitutes. I don't know if there's any truth to that or not. For any woman that an actual abduction and forced prostitution happened to, it would be monstrous. But I believe there are those with agendas to significantly multiply the numbers involved.

[ScottinCrimea]

steviej, while I agree that the term human trafficking can be expanded by some groups to serve their own agendas, in my opinion your definition is too limiting.  You wouldn't consider it a form of trafficking when a woman is lured to another country with the promise of a job, then had her passport taken away and been forced to be a prostitute under threat of danger to herself and her family?  Does it matter that the forced abduction occurs in her native country versus where she is sent to misleadingly?

[steviej]

steviej, while I agree that the term human trafficking can be expanded by some groups to serve their own agendas, in my opinion your definition is too limiting.  You wouldn't consider it a form of trafficking when a woman is lured to another country with the promise of a job, then had her passport taken away and been forced to be a prostitute under threat of danger to herself and her family?  Does it matter that the forced abduction occurs in her native country versus where she is sent to misleadingly?

I'm no legal mind, that's for sure. But to me, it is sensationalizing "trafficking" when the person has voluntarily left their own country. Now, to arrive in some other country, and have a gang abduct you, take your passport, and force you under threat of force is certainly a set of very serious crimes. But to say that "Ukraine has a bad trafficking problem", if many of the people are voluntarily leaving the country seems to me a different type of problem than "trafficking". If people were being abducted in Ukraine and smuggled out, then I would say Ukraine has a trafficking problem. If on the other hand (pick a country, let's say Turkey - I really don't know), let's say there are cases where women, upon arriving in Turkey, are kidnapped and forced into something. Then I would say Turkey has a kidnapping problem, not that Ukraine has a trafficking problem. Make sense?

[ScottinCrimea]

steviej, you are missing the point.  These women don't voluntarily leave their country only to be abducted by some opportunistic gang once they get there.  They are lied to and promised a good job to induce them to leave their country under false pretenses.  Once they arrive in their destination country it is not some random gang who kidnaps them, it is the same people who deceived them who hold them hostage.  Typically, it is this same organization who arranges for the woman's work visa and pays her travel expenses.

If, on the other hand, the woman arranges herself to travel to another country where she has legitimate employment waiting, or even as a tourist, and then is abducted while there and forced into prostitution, it is that country that has the problem, not Ukraine.  But these women are lured into these situations while they live in Ukraine, so the crime has its beginnings there and thus it is also Ukraine's problem.

[OlgaH]

 

7 April 2007
MADRID, Spain - Spanish police arrested seven people in a crackdown on a human-trafficking ring that allegedly forced Eastern European women into prostitution, officials said Saturday.

Police said the gang, led by a 41-year-old Albanian suspect arrested in Calonge, held around 40 women as virtual sex slaves.

Other members of the gang include three Russians, a native of Kosovo and an Armenian citizen.

The arrests took place in the northeastern Mediterranean coastal region of Costa Brava, where the gang allegedly smuggled in women, mostly from Russia, forcing them to work streetwalking or in roadside brothels, police said.

Police said the group employed two people based in St. Petersburg, Russia, who targeted women by offering jobs in Spain in exchange for Ð2,000 (US$2,675).

Police said the suspects, whose ages ranged from 20 to 41, had been taken to court in Figueres where they were expected to be charged with coercion, crimes related to prostitution, human-trafficking with a view to prostitution, forgery and belonging to an illegal organization.

According to the Russian Interior Ministry, human trafficking from Russia has increased in recent years.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported last year that more than 500,000 women have been smuggled out of Russia illegally since the fall of the Soviet Union in early 1990s.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/April/theworld_April178.xml&section=theworld&col=

[OlgaH]

January 15, 2008

Investigators say women were lured to Canada from Eastern Europe under the pretext of working as models.
 
After the women were brought to Canada with false passports, police say they were forcibly confined and forced to work as escorts and prostitutes.
 
Artur Tomchin, 35, of Toronto, and Andrei Khazarov, 39, and Daniel Leshinsky, 38, both of Thornhill, Ont., were arrested
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2008/01/15/sex-slaves.html

[Ooooops]

But these women are lured into these situations while they live in Ukraine, so the crime has its beginnings there and thus it is also Ukraine's problem.

Agree.   And American feminists have nothing to do with it.   

[msmoby_ru]

My "perfect" isle - is not so perfect, sometimes ...

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Cyprus.htm

I live on the sea front and many of the "girls" live in an apartment block close by . I have to say that they don't behave like they aren't happy when I see them walk into my local newsagent...or parade in to get an extention on their "artiste visas"

[steviej]

Agree.   And American feminists have nothing to do with it.   

Oooops, you may not be aware of the fact the the American feminists control most of the trafficking rings. These are dangerous women running drugs, using firearms, and so forth.   

[steviej]

steviej, you are missing the point.  These women don't voluntarily leave their country only to be abducted by some opportunistic gang once they get there.  They are lied to and promised a good job to induce them to leave their country under false pretenses.  Once they arrive in their destination country it is not some random gang who kidnaps them, it is the same people who deceived them who hold them hostage. 

Scott - good. Point taken, I see what you mean. There are coordinated groups on each end working together. That's the key. Still, suppose a woman was offered a job under false pretenses, and given fake visas (which she thinks are real), and so, on that basis, voluntarily leaves Ukraine. What crime was committed in Ukraine? Is it false advertising? Forgery? It seems there are two separate jurisdictions and two separate crimes. In Ukraine,, perhaps something as little as false advertising and forgery. In the end-country, serious crimes such as kidnapping and forced prostitution.

[dispozo]

http://www.kyivpost.com/nation/29364/

[Lit_1nce]

Although I don't totally disregard stories of women being tricked that way, I have a hard time believing that most of these women working as prostitutes went without knowing exactly what they were doing. I suspect that when an illegal ring is busted that many of these girls find it advantageous to become a victim of trafficking rather than a knowing participant.

[Sculpto]

How about internal trafficing?



I have read there are way over 100,000 women in the FSU engaged in this type of work.

[Shadow]

How about internal trafficing?



I have read there are way over 100,000 women in the FSU engaged in this type of work.

On a population of 141 milions that would not be strange.

[Diplomacy]

While the Embassy is not allowed to interfere with host country enforcement.  They are allowed to interfere with trafficking people once they cross a border.  It becomes an international issue.  The marines are there to defend perimeter only in case anyone wanted to know.  The ceasing of trafficking of people is in the Embassy charter and one of the priorities of American Foreign Policy.

They are also allowed to work with local enforcement.  The enforcement is not up to acceptable measures, but is getting better in the FSU.  Of course this is up to the definition of who is saying it is or is not acceptable.

Now the FSU is a staging area for the whole world, there are women brought into there from all over the world and dispersed from there.  Also the Russian Mafia is some of the best and brightest people in the country.  They are not the same as the American Italian Mafia.  The organization is very fluid between clans.  There is not a the same pyramid that we saw in the Pizza trials here and the ultimate weakening of the American Italian mafia here.

So it is very hard to know who is the puppet master and who is a puppet so to speak.  They are very good at what they do.  That is why even the American Russian Mafia is very tough for the FBI and CIA to build a case against.

They threaten to hurt or kill family members back home.  Here is a report for those that care to understand the issue better.

FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

WASHINGTON -- Lured from the Ukraine with the promise of a student visa, the young woman believed she was headed to the U.S. to study and to Virginia Beach to work as a waitress -- not to Detroit, where she was forced to dance at a strip club.

Using the alias "Katya" to protect herself, the 22-year-old woman spoke publicly for the first time today, describing to a congressional panel how she was forced to work at the Detroit club for months until she and another young woman escaped with the help of one of the patrons of the club.

"They forced me to work six days a week for 12 hours a day," she said of the men who made her work at Cheetah's in Detroit. "I could not refuse to go to work or I would be beaten." While she was forced to dance at the strip club, she said she was not made to be a prostitute.

"I was their slave," she said.

Still afraid of retribution, she has been unable to see her mother in the Ukraine and won't reveal her real name, where she lives or where she works.

The testimony came before the House Judiciary Committee and its chairman, Detroit Democrat John Conyers. The committee is looking at reauthorizing the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which was intended to stiffen penalities for people engaging in human trafficking and make it easier for victims to get temporary visas.

Earlier this year, two Eastern European men were sentenced for their roles in the human trafficking ring that lured Katya and 11 other women to the U.S. and then forced them to work as exotic dancers by threats and coercion, taking away their passports, imposing huge debts on them, beating them and threatening to turn them into authorities. In one case, according to federal prosecutors, a car belonging to a dancer who escaped was firebombed.

Michail Aronov, a Lithuanian national who lived in Livonia and the Chicago area, was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison in August and ordered to pay $1 million in restitution to his victims. Another man, Aleksandr Maksimenko, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Ukraine who also lived in Livonia, was sentenced to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution.

In all, nine people were sentenced. Documents released by federal prosecutors also said Maksimenko sexually abused two of the dancers. Both Maksimenko and Aronov pleaded guilty.

In her testimony, Katya described how, after landing in Washington in May 2004 -- where she had been told she'd be headed to Virginia to work as a waitress -- Aronov, Maksimenko and another man were waiting for her with a bus ticket to Detroit.

"Once I got off the bus in Detroit, everything changed. They took me to a hotel and took all of my identity documents from me. ... They told me that I owed them $12,000 for travel to the United States and $10,000 for the identification document, and that I only had a short time to pay them off," she said, speaking with a strong Ukranian accent.

She said her captors kept close tabs on her, even searching her apartment when she wasn't there. During her time there, she said she handed over as much as $4,000 a week to Aronov Maksimenko.

Her escape finally came, she said, after she and the young woman she lived with approached a patron of the club they thought they could trust. They put their belongings in trash bags -- figuring they could claim they were taking the garbage out if one of the men stopped them -- and left with the patron, who took them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Once the men were arrested, she said, "I felt safe for the first time."

But she still has worries, saying Maksimenko has at least one relative still in the Ukraine.

"If the trafficking law had allowed for my mother to come and live with me in the United States, it would have helped me and protected her," Katya said.

Conyers said the reauthorization bill would open immigration avenues to victims and their families to ensure they are protected.

Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the committee, said those provisions may go too far, potentially allwing "people who knowing and willingly violate U.S. law to get immigration benefits for themselves and their families."

[dobradavid]

I wonder what they mean by "trafficking?" I ask because in US, feminists routinely lump international marriages into their "human trafficking" lingo. In other words, feminists try to create the most absurdly wide net of "trafficking" that they can, and list everything under it.

Even the case you describe is not trafficking. The woman voluntarily left Ukraine for a job in another country. While there, she was kidnapped, and I presume forced into prostitution. She could have been kidnapped by some other group entirely while trying to locate her position of employment. So this crime is whatever you call it if you can physically force someone into prostitution.

To me (and I'm no attorney), trafficking would have to include the forced abduction in the person's home country, and smuggling them illegally out of the country. The criminals make money by kidnapping and smuggling humans.

I remember reading an article where a Russian official of some sort was asked about "trafficking" and his reply was something to the effect of, "better to have the prostitutes out of the country than here." What he meant was that a lot of the girls that get lumped into the "trafficking" statistics are already prostitutes. I don't know if there's any truth to that or not. For any woman that an actual abduction and forced prostitution happened to, it would be monstrous. But I believe there are those with agendas to significantly multiply the numbers involved.

I disagree...what is described IS "trafficking".

[Maxx2]

Lurid Tales from the Dark Side

I know of a massage parlor in Maryland (near DC) that is staffed by willing RW. Some are "abused" RW and one I know is still married to a AM. BTW I never have visited this place I just know a RW who knows all these women. Why are they there? Money. Making $50 in a few minutes (and $50 to the parlor and other activities are negotiable) to jack some guy off is better in their minds than working hard in a WalMart at $7.50 an hour. The one married RW just mention wanted to work there because she thought it would be fun. I know of another RW named Elena N. (I helped her husband with his DV case) who saved up about $7,000 cash working there. But had it stolen by another RW named Lubov Z while they roomed together at the Orthodox church. They were getting help from the church because they were "abused" (not!). When Elena N. called 911 on Lubov Z the church got to questioning why she claimed to have so much cash and the priest ended up kicking them both out. Lobov was a ringer for the massage parlor and it was said she tripled their business. I seen her photo and asked why she was so popular and I was told "because she oozed semen out her eyes". Is this a Russian expression? Anyway from the stories I have been told and not just in Maryland but elsewhere the sex trade is attractive to some RW because, "if they did it back in Russia they will do it here especially for the money they get". Then when they get caught they make the plea that they were trafficked and all these women's groups swarm in to help them. It's all like a big joke for them how gullible Americans are especially the USCIS. I frankly do not believe the USCIS is gullible. They just know enough fighting the system that is for "victims" is a waste of their resources.   


Maxx

[Diplomacy]

Yes, Maxx I would agree with that.  There is a certain stigma that can be found in the culture.  They are quite sure they are more clever than Americans.  I just think they mistake kindness for naive sometimes. 

Of course the stigma has merit in some cases too.  Just sad really.  Imagine all the effort used to deceive was used to improve life here like the other immigrants that have come to this country. 

It is not new, such events are found with any ethnic group that moved to the USA.

The judicial system is a myriad of similar events right?

[dobradavid]

Lurid Tales from the Dark Side

I know of a massage parlor in Maryland (near DC) that is staffed by willing RW. Some are "abused" RW and one I know is still married to a AM. BTW I never have visited this place I just know a RW who knows all these women. Why are they there? Money. Making $50 in a few minutes (and $50 to the parlor and other activities are negotiable) to jack some guy off is better in their minds than working hard in a WalMart at $7.50 an hour. The one married RW just mention wanted to work there because she thought it would be fun. I know of another RW named Elena N. (I helped her husband with his DV case) who saved up about $7,000 cash working there. But had it stolen by another RW named Lubov Z while they roomed together at the Orthodox church. They were getting help from the church because they were "abused" (not!). When Elena N. called 911 on Lubov Z the church got to questioning why she claimed to have so much cash and the priest ended up kicking them both out. Lobov was a ringer for the massage parlor and it was said she tripled their business. I seen her photo and asked why she was so popular and I was told "because she oozed semen out her eyes". Is this a Russian expression? Anyway from the stories I have been told and not just in Maryland but elsewhere the sex trade is attractive to some RW because, "if they did it back in Russia they will do it here especially for the money they get". Then when they get caught they make the plea that they were trafficked and all these women's groups swarm in to help them. It's all like a big joke for them how gullible Americans are especially the USCIS. I frankly do not believe the USCIS is gullible. They just know enough fighting the system that is for "victims" is a waste of their resources.   

Maxx

You appear to be unaware that the many interest groups/shelters, etc. are following the $$$ in this. 

[Maxx2]

You appear to be unaware that the many interest groups/shelters, etc. are following the $$$ in this. 

You do not know me very well. It is an issue I have been involved with for more than 5 years. This whole DV thing with immigrants and the money that motivates it for all concerned. My daughter is about to start work as a para legal for a women's shelter. It will be interesting getting her perspectives on this issue. VAWA funding has it's tentacles in many areas of the "justice" system, courts, police, shelters and their services etc.



Maxx

[dobradavid]

VAWA funding has it's tentacles in many areas of the "justice" system, courts, police, shelters and their services etc.

I agree