A Fucked-Up Situation: Trafficking in Women

Every evening on Prague's historic Wenceslas Square, famous ten years ago for the mass demonstrations of the Velvet Revolution, men—and sometimes women—are approached by leafletters working for a nearby whorehouse, conspicuously covered with neon on a side street. Along the Czech border with Germany, prostitutes stand by the road day and night. The average person is already inured to such sights here without realizing they are just the tip of an iceberg: that of contemporary slavery.

The United Nations has recently acknowledged the enormous trade in women and children for exploitation of their labor and for sexual use, primarily by men. An estimated four million people are bought and sold annually, resulting in yearly profits of up to seven billion US dollars, and the sex trade has been one of the fastest growing areas in such trafficking over the last decade. The US government currently defines trafficking as "all acts involved in the recruitment, transport, harboring or sale of persons within national or across international borders through coercion, force, kidnapping, deception or fraud, for purposes of placing persons in situations of forced labor or services, such as forced prostitution, domestic servitude, debt bondage or other slavery—like practices."

Not all trafficked people become prostitutes, and not all prostitutes are trafficked people. Some choose "sex work" freely, although many feminists, especially in the US, would disagree that even uncoerced prostitution is a truly free choice. The distinction has prompted the Clinton Administration to suggest that "forced prostitution," (not just "prostitution") be the language of not only US but international law as far as trafficking is concerned. The Administration claims this distinction is necessary in order not to offend the European Union, but the State of Nevada is probably also a factor.

Many feminists claim that distinguishing between forced and unforced prostitution is putting too fine a point on one of the ugliest facets of what is still very much "a man's world." If stripping, erotic dancing, phone sex, erotic photography and film are included in the definition, then "sex work" is done by one woman out of ten in the US, usually at some point in her youth. And some consider the work a "feminist" undertaking. For example, such a prominent artist as Diamanda Galás makes no secret of her time as a prostitute in Oakland, California. But Diamanda the hooker has gone on to become Diamanda the diva, and her case is decidedly exceptional. The majority of those enslaved in the global sex trade live and die unfree, and it is around them that the laws and treaties—and the underworld profits—revolve.

The leading bill on this issue currently before the US Congress is The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 1999 (H.R. 3244). Critics say the bill defines trafficking such that non-"severe" traffickers go free; it also calls for mandatory economic sanctions against those countries from which traffickers transport their victims, a move guaranteed to be counterproductive. It is strange that such a bill should have to be introduced at all, since there are already no less than ten international treaties in force which apply to trafficking in people, the oldest of which dates from 1926; the US is already signatory to at least one of them. Article 6 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women obligates State parties to "take all measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women." But international agreements are easily ignored. Which makes you wonder what they're good for.

According to the most recent summary available, H.R. 3244 would:

1. direct the Secretary of State, as part of the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, to include information addressing the status of trafficking in persons in such reports on other countries (which implies that such information is not already included?) As with much of the legislation introduced during the spurious War on Drugs, the focus is shifted onto those naughty countries who export the contraband, not onto the domestic importers. The "abuse" is thus located outside the US, ignoring the fact that the sexual slavery in question occurs in the US;

2. direct the President, acting through the Administrator of the Agency for International Development (AID) "to establish and carry out initiatives to enhance economic opportunity for potential victims of trafficking as a method to deter trafficking." How far the multinational corporations trumpeting the cause of "globalization" and benefiting from an impoverished Asia, Latin America and former Soviet Union will allow the President to go in this direction—barring an unforeseen shift in priorities from the commercial to the human—can probably be guessed;

3. direct the Attorney General, the Secretaries of HHS and Labor, and the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation, subject to the availability of appropriations (i.e., once the US military has grabbed most of our resources once again), "to expand existing services to provide assistance to victims of severe forms of trafficking in persons within the United States, without regard to such victims' immigration status."

4. direct the Attorney General and the Secretary of State "to promulgate regulations for law enforcement personnel, immigration officials, and State Department officials to provide that: victims of severe forms of trafficking, while in Federal custody, shall be housed in appropriate shelter, receive prompt medical care, food, and other assistance, and be provided protection if a victim's safety is at risk." The "severe forms" language is the major flaw here. How can any instance of humans being bought and sold not be considered severe?

But the authorities who ignore the trafficked women on their way into the country are not sympathetic to their plight. According to CAST, if a locked brothel is found, local police turn all aliens over to immigration authorities. A bond of approximately $5,000 is then posted by "friends" who are associates of the traffickers, and the women are usually never heard from again.

Of course, women are sometimes traffickers themselves. Supawan Veerapol of Woodland Hills, California, was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for involuntary servitude, one of eleven charges brought against her on behalf of four women who worked for her under slave-like conditions, up to eighteen hours a day for almost no pay for six years. They were denied medical and dental care—something most US citizens should probably be suing their employers over—and had their mail censored and families threatened if they tried to escape. CAST "provided a broad range of services and human rights advocacy to the women throughout their two-year trial process as federal witnesses." In other words, for two years CAST housed, fed, clothed and interpreted for the women when the US government would not.

Luckily, CAST is not alone. The Washington, DC-based Global Survival Network recently published an extensive report entitled "Crime & Servitude: An Exposé of the Traffic in Women for Prostitution from the Newly Independent States," detailing the findings of a two-year investigation. Besides conventional interviews, GSN took the unconventional step of establishing a dummy company that purported to specialize in importing women, gaining entry to the operations of international trafficking networks. Many of their interviews were recorded with hidden cameras in the places used for prostitution.

According to GSN, Russian women are in high demand because of their relative novelty in the sex market. Officially, 50,000 women leave Russia permanently every year. Up to 80% of the women trafficked into Germany come from Eastern Europe and the former USSR. When German citizen "Peter R." was arrested in 1996 on 36 charges of trafficking in human beings, pimping, and bribery, he had at least 23 Russian and Ukrainian women working for him who had been recruited by ads for "babysitters" in Polish newspapers. One of Peter R's victims was a 16-year-old girl who had been brought into Germany by two men who confiscated her passport, raped and beat her, and forced her to have sex with 10 clients per day. Her young age is not exceptional; the AIDS epidemic is one reason that "virgins" fetch some of the highest prices in the international sex market. The Dutch Foundation Against Traffic in Women reports that, of the women it assisted in 1995-6 who came from Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR, 57% were under 21.

Many women from the former USSR go abroad through marriage. Matchmaking agencies, considered legitimate businesses, are almost completely unregulated. One German agency advertising on the Internet offers Russian girls as young as 15 years old. Most marriage agencies do not screen their male clients. One US study concluded that many male clients of marriage agencies are considered "socially or physically unattractive in their own culture," hold chauvinistic attitudes, and have histories of abuse. Thus it is no surprise that marriage agencies catering to Americans explicitly advertise Russian women's lack of a "feminist" perspective. Jeanne Finley's pioneering early 90s video documentary on Russian-American matchmaking, ARM Around Moscow, follows one such group of American men on a package tour to meet their potential wives; the comments of the men interviewed there are very revealing, if not downright horrifying. And the US provides fiancée visas relatively easily. An estimated 200 mail-order bride services arrange 2,000-5,000 marriages in the US annually, with the Philippines and Russia supplying most of the brides. Some marriage agencies are only a front for prostitution rings; some do arrange an actual marriage, and often it is a servile one.

Unlike their counterparts in other poor countries, 98% of Russian women are literate, and substantial numbers are university-educated. Their lack of employment in Russia is not due to lack of expertise. Human Rights Watch reported in 1995 that: "Women in Russia face widespread employment discrimination that is practiced, condoned, and tolerated by the government." Jobs are secured through connections in the "old boy" network; many female engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals are forced to look for jobs outside of their profession. Moreover, there are still no laws relating to sexual harassment in Russia. In many Russian businesses it is considered normal for a male boss to demand sex from employees. GSN reports that an average of 75% of the women who advertised their availability to work as secretaries in Moscow newspapers specified "no intimacy," meaning no sexual services provided. Ads for secretarial positions request women "without complexes," commonly understood to mean women who are willing to have sex. Thus it should be no surprise that an offer to work abroad seems like an opportunity for young women to escape sexual exploitation in Russia. They leave willingly and are then duped into slavery.

In March 1996, the Washington Post reported that agents of the INS, the FBI and the Montgomery Country Police raided "Russian Touch Massage" in downtown Bethesda, detaining six Russian female employees. The head of "Russian Touch," Gregory Baytler, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia, was arrested, charged and indicted for audio interception without consent - still a felony in the US, Linda Tripp notwithstanding—for filming customers with a hidden camera. Prostitution could not be proved. None of the women were charged; four were deported and two left the US of their own accord.

According to GSN, high-level government connections on both sides of the Atlantic were suspected because of the ease with which Russian Touch Massage had obtained tourist visas into the US for the women, all of whom were single. These suspicions are still unverified. The women lived at the parlor, where they were charged $150 a week, which they paid out of their tips. They were not paid any salary. Baytler received $100 per hour for each "massage," six to eight clients per hour, 24 hours a day. He paid no taxes, so the IRS seized more than $100,000 from his bank account. His victims never saw any of it. Baytler then plea bargained and charges against him were dropped, with the restriction that he be prohibited from operating any other businesses in Montgomery County. Unlike Ms. Veerapol of Woodland Hills, he spent no time in prison. Unlike the women he preyed upon, he was not deported.

Soon another massage parlor opened up elsewhere in the state with massage tables and equipment identical to those in Russian Touch. In March 1997, a GSN investigator visited this new parlor. A sign in the massage room clearly stated "Massage and body shampoo. Please do not ask for sexual favors," but the Ukrainian masseuse made it clear that she expected otherwise. When the investigator declined, and asked about the sign, she informed him: "We must have this, it is the law. So you cannot ask for this favor, you just point. Clients know this."

Instead of protecting traffickers by looking the other way, the US government should confiscate their assets and make them available to pay for the legal, medical, social and psychiatric services needed to return a former slave to a meaningful existence. Prostitution itself should be decriminalized, while trafficking, pimping and procurement should remain illegal. This is the only way to distinguish the willing from the forced sex worker, to render the pimps obsolete, and to guarantee that sex workers are protected by law. Those in power who believe the "world's oldest profession" is part of "human nature" should put their money where their mouth is and legalize the trade. Or would that take the joy of exploitation out of it for them?

Gwendolyn Albert is an American living in Prague, where she edits the literary journal Jejune: America Eats Its Young.

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