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Human Trafficking in the Balkans

by Andreea Ioana Chirciu


University of Bucharest, Faculty of Law
Prologue

The research question that this project intends to answer is Why are the Balkans the most
affected area by human trafficking?. In conducting this case study, the methodology I chose to
follow basically implies data collection and data analysis. After explaining the context and
defining the topic, the case study covers the key findings of my research, which lead to the
conclusions in the end of the project. Also, the study covers the implications of the identified
issues. Being a vast subject, the limitations of the project mainly consist in the fact that it doesnt
cover the whole problem. The information I used in order to answer my research question was
subjectively selected, according to my personal view of the topic.

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Contents
1. Introduction .........................................................................................................................................................3

1.1. Definition .....................................................................................................................................................3

1.2. Overview ......................................................................................................................................................3

2. Evolution of Human Trafficking in the Balkans ..............................................................................................5

2.1. Analysis of OSCE reports on human trafficking ..........................................................................................5

2.2. Evolution of Balkan Trafficking ..................................................................................................................6

3. The Phenomenon of Trafficking of Human Beings in the Balkans ................................................................7

3.1. Status quo .....................................................................................................................................................7

3.2. Cross-border trafficking ...............................................................................................................................7

3.3. Traffickers types ..........................................................................................................................................8

4. Conclusions ..........................................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction

1.1.Definition

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines in article 3,
paragraph (a), Trafficking in Persons as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring
or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of
abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the
giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control
over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum,
the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or
services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.

1.2.Overview

According to the official UNODC1 website, trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a grave
violation of human rights. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands
of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Almost every country in the world is affected
by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims.

In UNODC's Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, sexual exploitation was noted as by far
the most commonly identified form of human trafficking (79%) followed by forced labor (18%).
This may be the result of statistical bias. By and large, the exploitation of women tends to be
visible, in city centers or along highways. Because it is more frequently reported, sexual
exploitation has become the most documented type of trafficking, in aggregate statistics. In
comparison, other forms of exploitation are under-reported: forced or bonded labor; domestic
servitude and forced marriage; organ removal; and the exploitation of children in begging, the
sex trade and warfare.

Human trafficking is thought to be one of the fastest-growing activities of trans-national criminal


organizations. It is condemned as a violation of human rights by numerous international
conventions.

1
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, https://www.unodc.org/

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According to the 2006 U.S. Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, each year an estimated six
hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand men, women, and children are victims of
international human trafficking worldwide, with women and girls constituting up to 80 percent of
those trafficked. Internal traffickingtrafficking that does not cross national bordersclaims an
estimated additional four to twenty-seven million persons. Also, the International Labor
Organization (ILO) estimates that there are about 21 million victims of forced labor, including
the sexually exploited, that can be found today.

The UNODC report Trafficking in persons to Europe for sexual exploitation (June 2010)
shows that this is one of the most lucrative illicit businesses in Europe, where criminals are
making around 2.5 billion per year through sexual exploitation and forced labor. The statistics
also show that over 140,000 victims are trapped in this vicious cycle of violence, abuse and
degradation across Europe with no clear sign of the overall number of victims decreasing. Up to
70,000 additional victims are exploited every year. In Europe over half of the victims come from
the Balkans (32 per cent) and the former Soviet Union (19 per cent), with 13 per cent originating
in South America, seven per cent in Central Europe, five per cent in Africa and three per cent in
East Asia. Therefore, the area where this issue seems to be most developed is exactly the main
focus of this study. After the fall of Communism, human trafficking became an increasing
concern in European countries.

From a historical perspective, human trafficking is the contemporaneous form of the earlier
practice of slavery; the main difference being that slavery was legally recognized and accepted.
Consequently to the fall of Communism, the transition to a market economy in some countries
has led to both opportunity and a loss of security for citizens of these countries. Economic
hardship and promises of prosperity have left many people vulnerable to trafficking within their
countries and to destinations in other parts of Europe and the world. Unique to the Balkans are
some of the situations that support trafficking, such as organized crime, and the recruitment
strategies that perpetuate it. While some generalizations can be made, the countries within this
region face different challenges and are at varying stages of compliance with the rules that
govern trafficking in persons.2

A study3 conducted by H. Richard Friman and Simon Reich shows that for the Western Balkans,
the fragmentation of Yugoslavia intensified the impact of processes of globalization and
regionalization. Unbridled ethnic conflict on a scale not witnessed in Europe since 1945, several
2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Europe
3
H. Richard Friman and Simon Reich Human Trafficking and The Balkans University of Pittsburgh Press,

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episodes of external intervention (often involving the overwhelming use of force), and the
unabated use of violence by criminal elements provided waves of challenges to civil society in
the region. Even as the more explicit challenges to law and ordergenocidal activities and open
civil warwere quelled through external intervention, transnational crime surged. Transnational
crime networks have a long history of presence in the Balkans, and include cigarette, heroin, and
arms trafficking that predate the collapse of Yugoslavia. Nonetheless, the Yugoslav wars and
their aftermath intensified the scale of transnational crime and the levels at which criminal
networks preyed on the population.

2. Evolution of Human Trafficking in the Balkans

2.1. Analysis of OSCE reports on human trafficking

According to the OSCE report on Trafficking in Human Beings for the Purpose of Labor
Exploitation4, when human trafficking emerged in the Balkans, the profile of the trafficking
victims was determined by the presence of foreign soldiers and aid workers. Far from their
families, these men were willing to pay for the services that trafficking victims were forced to
provide.

Since then, the crime has changed in response to new socio-economic conditions, law
enforcement strategies, and political situations. OSCE Trafficking reports as far back as 2009
register these changes. The report reads that Today, the typical victim of trafficking is often a
citizen of the country where traffickers offer their services and below the age of 18. Trafficking
is carried out by single or small groups of individuals []. More often than before, the
perpetrators resort to secluded locations, such as apartments and holiday homes.

The OSCE report also cites case studies that show how traffickers exploit the age, mental state,
illness, poverty and lack of family support of victims. These show the extent of physical, mental,
and sexual abuse that victims endure under the noses of their families, neighbors, and law
enforcement.

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Lejla Kablar, Report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on Trafficking in
Human Beings for the Purpose of Labor Exploitation, 2011

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The scope and profit of the crime is a factor that remains constant. Trafficking, as an
international phenomenon, knows no borders, nationality or religion.

2.2. Evolution of Balkan Trafficking

According to Lejla Kablar, author of the previously mentioned OSCE report, during the 1990s,
Eastern European women were tricked into leaving their countries by promises of legitimate
work abroad. Many of those were kidnapped or sold by their families. They frequently came
from extreme poverty, and were kept in bondage by physical and psychological violence, as well
as by threats against their families. In addition, they were taken to foreign countries where, at the
time, no effective measures were in place to help trafficking victims.

In order for this phenomenon to develop, organized crime networks operating across borders
were required, along with division of roles within the organization. A part of the members were
given the assignment of finding and luring victims, others were responsible for making
counterfeit travel documents and fake job offers for them, transporting them across borders, and
delivering them in destination countries, where the women were sold on modern-day slave
markets to local criminal groups who forced them into prostitution in nightclubs and brothels.
These slave markets and brothels were well known to the public, and Eastern European women
became the symbol of human trafficking in the region.

Following the expansion of the European Union, the Balkan nations faced increased pressure to
protect their borders, to cooperate to limit trafficking, and to adapt their anti-trafficking
legislation in order to for them to be in accordance with international standards. In 2000 and the
following years, several Balkan countries ratified the Palermo Protocol5.

Although law enforcement in the region got better at detecting and preventing trafficking across
borders, criminals started to pursue local victims. The OSCE report states that people fear
retaliation by the traffickers.

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Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children supplementing
the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000

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3. The Phenomenon of Trafficking of Human Beings in the Balkans

3.1. Status quo

According to a study6 conducted by Jasna Vujin, the Balkan region has been one of the main
transit areas for human trafficking for many years. Despite all attempts to combat this
phenomenon in the territory of South Eastern Europe, the number of victims rapidly increases
each year, large numbers of people being transferred using this route and then sold and kept in
modern slavery conditions all around the European countries.

Although there is an appropriate legislation in many Balkan countries, as well as mechanisms for
prevention and combating human trafficking, it is not sufficient just to have established legal
norms and prescribed penalties for this criminal offence. In order to protect fundamental human
rights of the victims of trafficking, the legal norms need to be implemented and respected in
every countrys jurisprudence. One of the things that make the legal mechanisms hard to be
implemented effectively is the widespread corruption of public officials who are neglecting the
crimes and in many cases are personally involved and benefiting from the human trafficking
processes themselves., the study reads.
.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in its report on human trafficking in the
Balkans states that this phenomenon has been significantly increasing, especially affecting a
growing number of women and that some big steps forward need to be taken in order to address
this human rights agenda7.

3.2. Cross-border trafficking

According to UNODCs Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, cross-border trafficking


originating from within the subregion accounts for the largest share of detected victims, nearly
40 per cent. Victims from approximately 40 Western and Central European countries have been
detected in the subregion. The vast majority of these victims come from countries in the Balkans.
Victims from the Balkan area have been identified in significant numbers in all parts of Western
and Central Europe.
6
Jasna Vujin, Human Trafficking In The Balkans: An Inside Report, 2009
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UNDPI.org, Human Trafficking in the Balkans, Jan. 26, 2002

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Origins of victims trafficked to Central Europe and the Balkans, share of the total number of
victims detected there, 2010-2012 (or more recent)

3.3. Traffickers types

According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE), after the conference on
human trafficking in November 2002 around 200,000 women in the Balkan countries have been
victims of trafficking and that number is rapidly increasing every year. Traffickers are not a
homogeneous group, and several types can be identified. One group consists of members of
organized, often international, criminal groups who are involved in various types of criminal
activity. They organize trafficking in the same way as the smuggling of goods and gain profits
from the sexual exploitation of trafficked women in the bars/brothels owned by them or their
acquaintances. The second group consists of pimps, small crooks, and local persons from the
places where the victims are recruited. In this group some members are women who were
trafficked themselves but have started to cooperate with the criminals and work for them as
middlepersons. The third group includes businessmen, policemen and politicians who cooperate
with organized crime and gain profits from trafficking. In some cases, they own bars or help to
run them.

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4. Conclusions

After summarizing all the things mentioned beforehand, the following most crucial factors could
be identified: appalling living standards, vast unemployment, lack of education, widespread
gender discrimination, domestic violence, conservative surroundings, cultural norms and
traditions, lack of proper domestic legislation addressing this offence, deficit of prevention and
protection mechanisms for the victims and other vulnerable groups of society. Those factors
bring about this extensive phenomenon that is not prevalent just in the region of South-Eastern
Europe but has risen to a problem on the global scale.

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Bibliography

1. UNODC's Global Report on Trafficking in Persons

2. UNODC report Trafficking in persons to Europe for sexual exploitation (June 2010)

3. H. Richard Friman and Simon Reich, Human Trafficking and The Balkans University of

Pittsburgh Press

4. Lejla Kablar, Report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on

Trafficking in Human Beings for the Purpose of Labor Exploitation, 2011

5. Jasna Vujin, Human Trafficking In The Balkans: An Inside Report, 2009

6. UNDPI.org, Human Trafficking in the Balkans, Jan. 26, 2002

7. https://www.unodc.org/

8. https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/1612-balkans-shifting-landscape-of-human-trafficking

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Europe

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