The Need for Stiffer Penalties

Not long ago the first reports of sexual exploitation at the Jet Set, a Novi Pazar night club, made headlines. However, what no doubt shocked the public the most was the television footage of the club's owner and female employees denying these allegations. Serbia was shaken by the affair, which resulted in the arrest of a number of people, including a deputy public prosecutor and several police officers. Nevertheless, this was a watershed moment in public perception of the severity of this problem.

In January, five victims of the illicit sex trade were discovered. They are residents of Belgrade, Vranje, Krusevac, and Kragujevac. Four are adults, while the last is 14. The police have filed criminal reports against five suspects, according to what Snezana Elez, chief inspector at the Interior Ministry Department for the Suppression of Cross-Border Crime and Intelligence Operations, tells Argus.

Elez goes on to say that in 2007, police filed 34 criminal reports involving human trafficking. That was a slight reduction compared with 2006, when 37 such documents reached prosecutors. When it comes to suspects, 74 people had human trafficking charges filed against them in 2007, 10 percent less than a year earlier.

According to police records, 96 victims of sex trafficking were freed in 2007, 85 percent more than in 2006, when 56 victims were registered. Elez says the number of registered victims under 14 dropped by 65 percent between 2007 and 2006, although there was a 95 percent rise in the number of victims between the ages of 14 and 18.

In 2007, there were five children under 14 among the victims (13 in 2006), while another 16 were between 14 and 18. Most of the victims (69) were Serbian nationals, followed by Albanian nationals (21), although a number were citizens of Turkey, Romania, and Ukraine. Conversely, all but one of the suspects were Serbian citizens, according to Elez. She points out that in 2004 the majority of the victims were from eastern Europe, although this has changed since the introduction of visas by Romania and Bulgaria. "Most of what goes on now in Serbia is internal trafficking," she adds.

"The victims have no idea what is going to happen to them. Most are simply looking for a better life. In many cases, we are talking about young women who are offered good money to work as dancers, waitresses, or babysitters, but eventually end up forced into prostitution," says Elez. She warns that in recent years, the number of teenage victims has gone up because traffickers have focused their attention on girls without parents, guardians, or family, who would go looking for them if they went missing or who they could approach for help.

A Very Profitable Type of Crime

Trafficking in humans is second only to drug and arms trafficking as far as its ability to make criminal money goes. It cares little for borders and no country is immune, according to Elez, who emphasizes that the number of victims worldwide is growing and that the traffickers are constantly coming up with new ploys and ways to snare the unwary. Although sexual exploitation is most often the outcome, forced labor, begging, and pickpocketing are also on the rise.

Last year, 27 trafficking victims were registered, together with nine victims of forced labor and 10 people compelled to steal and beg. According to Elez, criminals are usually found following tips from their victims, although classical police work also produces results. The trouble is that many victims refuse to testify in court, mostly out of fear.

"Law enforcement is not enough to fight crime. All aspects of society need to contribute. Assistance from non-government organizations is also helpful, as they often receive reports of abuse and notify the authorities," she adds.

Elez underscores the importance of the police taking action through the National Team for Fighting Human Trafficking, which consists of government bodies, non-government groups, and international organizations. This is necessary, she says, because human trafficking is a problem in all parts of the country. Over the last several years there has been a growing number of people from the province of Vojvodina being victimized in southern and southwestern Serbia.

"All of these cases are shocking. When you hear what the victims went through you really feel a strong repulsion toward their abusers. This is compounded by the fact that in many cases the victims were betrayed by friends or relatives who sold or recruited them with promises of money or work. They end up victims because somebody abused their trust. That's how it usually happens," says Elez.

The Internet, too, has become a recruitment channel and ads offering jobs in Western Europe are a common type of bait. Female job-seekers caught in the trap end up being forced into prostitution and lose their freedom of movement, travel documents, and connection with the outside world. Threats and torture are very common. Night clubs and bars are no longer the only type of place where police encounter trafficking victims. Many traffickers are switching to private residences known to a closed circle of "clients". Victim testimony is the only way that such operations can be shut down.

According to Elez, forced labor is mostly limited to men. In 2007, investigators discovered an agency acting as a mediator offering tradesmen, mostly construction workers, well-paid work in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. It turned out that the pay was half the promised sum and the men were forced to work without proper papers and their passports.

Emphasizing the need for a concerted effort to combat trafficking in humans, Elez says that convictions are hard to get without testimony from the victims. Serbian police often receive tips through Interpol and ties with other countries. In many cases, victims found somewhere in Western Europe can provide information leading to the arrest of traffickers in Serbia.

Elez points out that much has changed in regard to human trafficking in recent years. New laws have been introduced and existing ones altered so that victims are no longer charged with misdemeanors and expulsion if they are foreigners. In other words, victims of human trafficking are now recognized by the law as such. In addition, police personnel now get special training to help them recognize the signs of sexual exploitation and offer their help.

"Changes are always hard and never happen overnight. They had to be introduced gradually, but now law enforcement has adopted and begun to enforce EU standards regarding individuals identified as victims of human trafficking," Elez adds.

She says that Serbia needs to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. The document went into effect on Feb. 1. Council of Europe officials have stressed that over 600,000 people are sold in Europe every year, adding that over 80 percent of them are women. The convention has been touted as an effective weapon in combating latter-day slavery.

Inadequate Punishment

Jadranka Veljovic, coordinator at ASTRA, a non-government organization dedicated to the eradication of all forms of trafficking in human beings, says that Serbia is now having much more success in its fight against trafficking than in 2006 now that it is a criminal offense. However, she stresses that the penalties are too mild, adding that organizers and accomplices usually get from several months to two to three years in jail.

"The law needs to mandate harsher sentences because we are talking about the fate of children, the most frequent victims of human trafficking. When the penalties change one day, they will need to be implemented," according to Veljovic.

She believes that enforcing the Council of Europe convention would prevent victims from experiencing repeated trauma and provide them with protection, both as witnesses and individuals. "Victims always go through the same kind of trauma to a greater or lesser extent, although their life stories are varied. For the victim, the period after leaving the trafficking cycle is a hard one and the process of going back to 'normal' is long and arduous."

ASTRA operates a counseling center that currently provides assistance to several dozen women freed from the clutches of traffickers. Once their cases reaching the prosecution phase, they are allowed to choose whether or not they want to testify.

Since ASTRA launched its help hotline in March 2002, 260 victims have phoned in, 101 of them children. Last year, 25 people, including 10 children, sought help. "This is a shocking piece of information, but it's true," according to Veljovic. She explains that all reports are handed over to the police, adding that victims are offered all kinds of assistance, from medical checkups, shelter, and work as a way of helping them get back on their feet, to legal protection.

Recovering victims face a variety of problems. They often feel guilty and alienated, also experiencing lack of support from their families, a problem related to the prevailing mentality and prejudices. Victims frequently are scared of people and have trouble mustering the confidence to establish close relations with others. As a result, most have a hard time reassuming some kind of social status and holding a job. "Trying to find a way out of one bad situation they ended up in one that was even worse, and after coming back, they encounter new problems," Veljovic says.

A More Efficient Approach

The OSCE Mission to Serbia says that the country has come a long way in instituting a national policy on combating human trafficking, protecting victims, and prosecuting traffickers. However, it also points out that an action plan is needed to heighten efficiency.

Madis Vainomaa, head of democratization at the OSCE Mission, welcomes the fact that Serbia established the Agency for Coordinating the Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking and appointed a national coordinator in 2004.

He emphasizes the need for an institutional approach to caring for victims bringing together both NGOs and government institutions with state help, adding that such arrangements are not easy to find. Vainomaa also say that an action plan is necessary because without one, no strategy can work.

Vainomaa says that Serbia drew up and adopted a national strategy after years of cooperation between Serbian police and the OSCE, after which Serbia was no longer the only country in the Balkans without a policy document on combating human trafficking. He adds that the OSCE also invested a great deal of effort in the coordination agency, a body unique to Serbia and operating as part of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. He adds that this create a functional system bolstered by the fact that it enjoys state sponsorship. At the same time, the state helps other institutions involved in aiding victims and fosters the creation of a support program tailored to each victim.

He stresses the importance of the state's decision to support the program because the agency and its collaborators have access to every state institution, adding that misunderstandings with local bodies are still a fact of life.

Still, despite everything that has been done, the judiciary still needs to play its part.

According to Vainomaa, penalty policy continues to be a problem since the punishment often does not befit the crime, although there are several excellent cases demonstrating how things should be done. As one of these he cites the example of a trafficking case involving the transfer of women from Ukraine to Italy that resulted in the traffickers getting between six and eight years in prison. This, he feels, is a textbook example of the way a trafficking case should be prosecuted and investigated, because it relied fully on police work.

Vainomaa says Serbian police took action as soon as the transfer operation began, adding that they were successful in preventing harm to the victims because they had been following the situation carefully. Since the entire endeavor was carried out in close cooperation with prosecutors, the authorities had no trouble getting a conviction.

According to the OSCE, Serbia has pretty much all the legislation it needs to successfully prosecute human traffickers, but the trouble usually start in the implementation phase. Vainomaa says that prosecutors will have an edge once laws on criminal asset confiscation take effect.

Stressing that the OSCE is working with the Justice Ministry to complete these laws, Vainomaa adds that any judge can confirm that criminals are hardest hit when they lose money. He says that as soon as the confiscation law is passed, judges and prosecutors will have everything they need to do their job properly.

Asked whether he believes that legal changes would help introduce stiffer penalties for trafficking in humans, Vainomaa replies that this punishment is a problem in all areas, adding that simply changing the law is not likely to help.

Vainomaa explains that the OSCE is still helping the judiciary form a proper picture of the situation as far as human trafficking and its victims go. He adds that many officials are convinced that all of victims are foreigners and that somebody from Serbia, especially an educated person, could never get caught in that web. According to Vainomaa, these are false presumptions and it has been proven that anybody can get snared.

The OSCE official adds that the last two years have seen close collaboration between the Association of Judges of Serbia in the organization of seminars for judges throughout the country. These, he says, will continue for three more years because of the need to eliminate misconceptions, ignorance, and prejudices.

As an example of this he gives the case of two foreign women who were caught trying to cross the border with a third person with forged documents. They ended up getting convicted of several crimes and misdemeanors even though they said in court that their passports had been taken away and they had no idea where they were going.

This, according to Vainomaa, is a classical example of human trafficking and should have roused suspicions that things were not what they seemed to be. At the same time, says this demonstrates lack of awareness of the problem posed by trafficking.

In Vainomaa's opinion, all organizations involved in fighting trafficking, both government and nongovernmental, should be open to cooperation as the only way to achieve significant results.