The "Natasha" Trade: The Transnational Shadow Market of Trafficking in Women.

• Author: HUGHES, DONNA M.

"Can people really buy and sell women and get away with it? Sometimes I sit here and ask myself if that really happened to me, if it can really happen at all. "--A Ukrainian woman who was trafficked, beaten, and raped in the sex industry in Israel. After a police raid, she was put in prison, awaiting deportation.(1)

Trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation is a multi-billion dollar shadow market.(2) Women are trafficked to, from and through every region in the world using methods that have become new forms of slavery.(3) The value of the global trade in women as commodities for sex industries is estimated to be between US$7 and $12 billion annually.(4) This trade in women is a highly profitable enterprise with relatively low risk compared to trade in drugs or arms. The money-makers are transnational networks of traffickers and pimps that prey on the dreams of women seeking employment and opportunities for the future. The activities of these networks threaten the well-being and status of women as well as the social, political and economic well-being and stability of nations where they operate.

The transnational trade in women is driven by supply and demand. Countries with large sex industries create the demand and are the receiving countries, while countries where traffickers easily recruit women are the sending countries. For decades the primary sending countries were Asian countries, such as Thailand and the Philippines. The collapse of the Soviet Union opened up a pool of millions of women from which traffickers can recruit. Now, former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Russia, have become major sending countries for women trafficked into sex industries all over the world. In the sex industry markets today, the most popular and valuable women are from Ukraine and Russia.(5)

This paper focuses primarily on the sending country of Ukraine, now the second largest country in Europe, and currently, one of the largest suppliers of women for prostitution. Although a comprehensive understanding of trafficking from the former Soviet republics is lacking, more research on trafficking in women and advocacy has been done by non-governmental organizations in Ukraine than in the other primary sending countries from that region.

At the beginning of this paper, the scope of the problem of trafficking is discussed and the definition of the term trafficking is reviewed. Next, the international gray market for women is located in the globalization process and characterized as a modern day slave trade. The role of transnational crime networks in the trafficking of women is examined with a few illustrative cases. A section on the methods of recruitment and trafficking describes how women are recruited from their hometowns and transported to sex industries in other countries. Although there are a number of ways that women are trafficked, their ultimate circumstance is entrapment in prostitution. How women are controlled and why it is so difficult for them to escape is described. The next section focuses on who is profiting from this slave trade and how official corruption and collaboration with organized crime networks facilitates and protects the traffickers. Some people suggest that prostitution and trafficking are informal economies that enable unemployed women to earn a living. The idea that women and communities may benefit from the shadow market of trafficking in women is examined. This section describes those who profit from trafficking in women. Although the problem of trafficking in women is gaining more attention, when the causes of trafficking are examined, the gendered dimension of supply and, especially, demand are frequently left out of the analysis. The section on the gendered supply and demand challenges a frequent assumption that poverty is the most important factor in determining which countries will become sending countries. The last section takes a closer look at the demand side of the dynamics of supply and demand from sending and `receiving countries. The legalization of prostitution and brothels is examined and old and new legal remedies that address the demand are discussed.

NUMBERS OF TRAFFICKED WOMEN

It is difficult to know how many women have been trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.(6) The trade is secretive, the women are silenced, the traffickers are dangerous and not many agencies are counting. In examining trafficking from countries of the former Soviet Union, one finds that the women are referred to as "Russian" or "Eastern European" without further information indicating a country of origin. Also, the word "trafficking" does not have a single, universal definition, resulting in different numbers of women being counted for each different definition of the term used. In writing and analyzing trafficking in women, I use a definition of trafficking that I think includes the essential elements to be considered in trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation.(7)

Trafficking is any practice that involves moving people within and across local or national borders for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Trafficking may be the result of force, coercion, manipulation, deception, abuse of authority, initial consent, family pressure, past and present family and community violence, economic deprivation, or other conditions of inequality for women and children.(8)

This definition recognizes that trafficking of women for the purpose of sexual exploitation occurs within the borders of a country as well as across international borders, as women are sometimes recruited and exploited in local sex industries before they are trafficked to other countries. This definition accepts that trafficking occurs even if the woman consents, which is consistent with the 1949 United Nations Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.(9) Narrower definitions of trafficking require acts of violence or coercion against the victim before trafficking is said to occur. According to estimates from the United Nations, one quarter of the four million people trafficked each year are exploited in sex industries. In the last decade, hundreds of thousands of women have been trafficked from Central and Eastern Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union into prostitution throughout the world. In the European Union, there are an estimated half a million Central and Eastern European women in prostitution.(10) A criminal investigation in Germany in 1998 found that 87.5 percent of the women trafficked into Germany was from Eastern Europe. Seventeen percent was from Poland, 14 percent from Ukraine, 12 percent from Czech Republic and 8 percent from the Russian Federation.(11)

In 1998, the Ukrainian Ministry of Interior estimated that 400,000 Ukrainian women were trafficked during the previous decade; other sources, such as non-governmental organizations, thought the number was higher.(12) The International Organization for Migration estimated that between 1991 and 1998, 500,000 Ukrainian women had been trafficked to the West.(13) Popular destination countries for women from Ukraine include: Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Spain, Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, United Arab Emirates, Syria, China, the Netherlands, Canada and Japan.(14) According to a Ukrainian diplomatic source, there are 6,000 Ukrainian women in prostitution in Turkey, 3,000 in Greece, and 1000 in Yugoslavia.(15) Ukrainian women are the largest group of foreign women in prostitution in Turkey(16) and the second largest group of foreign women in prostitution outside the US military bases in Korea.(17)

Similarly, as a result of trafficking, Russian women are in prostitution in over 50 countries.(18) In some parts of the world, such as Israel and Turkey, women from Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union are so prevalent, that prostitutes are called "Natashas."(19)

THE INTERNATIONAL SHADOW MARKET FOR WOMEN: A MODERN DAY SLAVE TRADE

The growth of shadow economies and transnational criminal networks in newly independent states are negative effects of globalization, arising from expanding economic, political and social transnational linkages that are increasingly beyond local and state control. An important component of globalization is the transnational linkages created by migration. Members of organized crime rings establish contacts with willing collaborators in diaspora communities throughout the world and work within migrating populations to build international criminal networks. Increased migration also serves as a cover for traffickers in transporting women to destinations in the sex industry.

Privatization and liberalization of markets have created wider and more open marketplaces throughout the world. Another important component of globalization, computer communication of international financial transactions, increases the opportunities for transnational crime and decreases the probability of detection and apprehension. This technological aspect of globalization enables the money gained through illegal activities, like trafficking in women, to be transferred and laundered.

In the former Soviet Union, the illicit economy began long before the collapse of communism. The state economy did not supply the general population with the goods and services they needed or wanted. For decades, a shadow economy operated to meet those demands. There is even evidence that shortages were planned, so as to benefit those controlling and profiting from the informal economy.(20)

When the political and economic system weakened and collapsed, existing organizations leaped to fill the vacuum. Following the end of a government-run economy, privatization enabled previously illegal markets of the shadow economy to operate legally and expand, but they retained the same methods of doing business...