Human Trafficking in [Bulgaria Street Children in [Bulgaria] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Bulgaria] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the early years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Bulgaria.htm
Bulgaria is a source, transit, and, to a
lesser extent, a destination country for men, women, and children from
Ukraine, Moldova, and Romania trafficked to and through Bulgaria to Germany,
Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Norway, the Czech Republic, Poland,
Greece, Turkey, and Macedonia for the purposes of commercial sexual
exploitation and forced labor. Ethnic Roma women and children remain highly
vulnerable to trafficking. Children are trafficked within Bulgaria and to
Greece and the United Kingdom for the purposes of forced begging and forced
petty theft. Around 15 percent of identified trafficking victims in Bulgaria
are children. Bulgarian women and some men are trafficked internally,
primarily to resort areas along the Black Sea coast and in border towns with
Greece, for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced
labor. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report] |
|
||
|
CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Children from The Sofia Echo, Jun 28 2007 sofiaecho.com/2007/06/28/651263_children-from-bulgaria-victims-of-human-trafficking-most-often [accessed 24 January 2011] Bulgarian children are most often
the victims of trafficking and ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/bulgaria.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] CHILD
LABOR LAWS AND ENFORCEMENT - The Constitution prohibits forced labor. The Law on Combating Trafficking in Human
Beings, which entered into force in January 2004, includes measures for the
protection and assistance of child victims of trafficking, and created the
National Anti-Trafficking Commission to coordinate and construct policy on
trafficking. Bulgarian law penalizes
trafficking a minor with 2 to 10 years imprisonment and fines.
Inducement to prostitution, which is often associated with trafficking, is
punishable by 10 to 20 years imprisonment, if the victim was a minor. Human Rights Reports » 2005
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61641.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] CHILDREN
– Widespread poverty
led many Romani children to turn to begging, prostitution, and petty crime on
the streets. There were reports of child smuggling rings paying Romani women
for babies that were later sold to couples in Western Europe. Police launched
17 investigations in the Burgas and Peshtera areas in connection with the reports, all of
which were ongoing at year's end. TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Girls
and young women were often approached by persons who gained their trust,
frequently other young women and acquaintances, who described glamorous work
opportunities abroad. Some were sold into bondage to traffickers by
relatives. Unaccompanied young women trying to cross the border into
Macedonia, Romania, or Turkey reportedly were at risk of being abducted into
trafficking. In larger cities, organized crime groups were often responsible
for trafficking, although they used various front companies to pose as
employment agencies, escort and intimate services businesses, or tour
operators. Small crime groups and freelance operators monopolized trafficking
in smaller cities and towns. According to AAF, the process of
transforming victims into prostitutes generally took place before they left
the country. Victims typically were taken to a large town, where they were
often kept for weeks, isolated, beaten, and subjected to severe physical and
psychological torture to make them more submissive before they were
transported to their destination points. Once the victims left the country,
their identity documents were routinely confiscated, and they found
themselves forced to work as prostitutes in cities across Europe. The victims
could be required to pay back heavy financial debts to the agency that helped
them depart the country, leaving them in indentured servitude. Traffickers
punished victims severely for acts of disobedience and threatened the
victims' families and family reputations to ensure compliance. Concluding Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of
The Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 7 and 8 January
1997 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/bulgaria1997.html [accessed 24 January 2011] [9] The Committee is concerned at the lack of an
integrated strategy on children as well as of a systematic mechanism to
monitor progress in all areas covered by the Convention, and in relation to
all groups of children in urban and rural areas, especially those affected by
the consequences of the economic transition. The Committee is also concerned
about the need to strengthen the State party's capacity to collect and
process data to evaluate progress achieved and to assess the impact of
policies adopted on children, in particular the most vulnerable groups of
children. Over One Billion Euros Per Year from Human Trafficking for
Bulgarian Mafia Bulgarian News Network, 4/7/2009 – Source (restricted): www.bgnewsnet.com/story.php?lang=en&sid=23942 businesstravellers-org.web26.winsvr.net/Default.aspx?tabid=36&EntryID=1609 [accessed 24 January 2011] The annual profit from human
trafficking and prostitution for the Bulgarian mafia is over one billion
euros, a RiskMonitor report revealed on
Tuesday. Every year the victims of
human trafficking in Bulgaria are around 10,000. The schemes for money
laundry of human trafficking profits include luxury boutiques, outlets and
car stores. It has also been revealed
that such criminals have started to invest in agriculture, where they could,
for example, file reports of producing far more than what they actually do,
thus laundering the money. According
to the report, 70 percent of the prostitutes in Belgium are of Bulgarian
origin. There is also a trend that has appeared recently - Bulgarian girls
are being trafficked to countries like the USA and South Africa. Sofia News Agency, December 4, 2007 www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=88170 [accessed 24 January 2011] Officials have
previously announced that the total number of people sentenced for human
trafficking for the first nine months of 2007 was 26. Bulgarian officials say legalizing prostitution could spur
human trafficking Associated Press AP, Sofia, October 9, 2007 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 4 September 2011] Former foreign minister Nadezhda Mihailova, whose
Institute for Democracy and Stability in Southeast Europe organized the
conference last week, estimated that some 10,000 Bulgarian women are
trafficked each year — mostly to Germany and the Netherlands, where
prostitution is legal. 10 000 Bulgarian Women Per Year Victims of Human
Trafficking Olga Yoncheva, news.bg, 05.10.2007 international.ibox.bg/news/id_867476283 [accessed 24 January 2011] Around
10 000 Bulgarian women per year become victims of trafficking towards EU
countries. For the
last two years, 32 organized criminal groups which deal with women
trafficking have been cracked down. 16 leaders have been caught. READING ROOM: Libby Gomersall, The Sofia Echo,
Aug 13 2007 sofiaecho.com/2007/08/13/655260_reading-room-bulgarias-working-girls [accessed 24 January 2011] The dark side of prostitution is
not that it exists at all, but the fact that a pimp controls most girls and
that their exploitation is not just confined to roadside prostitution.
Bulgaria is one of the largest human traffickers in the world, providing
enslaved girls to brothels all over Europe. Currently, Bulgarian laws on
prostitution are unclear. Existing legislative provisions date back to before
1944. When communism came to Bulgaria, sleazy practices like this, along with
other such crimes against women like domestic violence, were considered to
exist solely in the Western world. Children from The Sofia Echo, Jun 28 2007 sofiaecho.com/2007/06/28/651263_children-from-bulgaria-victims-of-human-trafficking-most-often [accessed 24 January 2011] Bulgarian children are most often
the victims of trafficking and Shock human trafficking case Agence France-Presse
AFP, www.iol.co.za/news/world/shock-human-trafficking-case-1.349584 [accessed 24 January 2011] Ten Bulgarians involved in
trafficking women to Between 2002 and 2005, the group
transferred at least 105 Bulgarian girls to France and forced them to work as
prostitutes, Ivanova said. Bulgaria to extradite human trafficking suspects to France Agence France-Presse
AFP, www.expatica.lu/news/local_news/bulgaria-to-extradite-human-trafficking-suspects-38693_35294.html [accessed 24 January 2011] The five men were allegedly part
of an organised crime group involved in trafficking
Bulgarian women to 80 human trafficking cases submitted to National Security
Service in 2006 www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n107358 [Last access date unavailable]] "Eighty cases of trafficking
in human beings from Bulgaria were submitted to the National Security Service
in 2006", NSS deputy director Rumen Georgiev
said at a press conference entitled “Action against Trafficking in Human
Beings”, a journalist of FOCUS News Agency reported. Twenty-two cases have
already been closed. “The number of
human trafficking cases is higher than the drug trafficking cases”, Georgiev explained. Human Trafficking Epidemic In Make Way Partners, 27 Dec 2006 www.makewaypartners.org/Humantraffickingepidemicinbulgaria.htm [accessed 24 January 2011] Human trafficking and drug
smuggling were epidemic in Bulgaria, France Crash Human Trafficking Channel Sofia News Agency, 2006 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 4 September 2011] A channel for traffic in people to
Police in Bulgaria's Russe and French Marseille acted in close cooperation in
crushing the channel. Six people were questioned in the Bulgarian city and 5
homes were searched. A total of 20 cell phones, many personal belongings as
well as bank transfers documents were confiscated during the search. How the new Fagins are bringing
child slavery to Britain Olga Craig, Bojan Pancevski and David Harrison, The Telegraph, 04/06/2006 [accessed 24 January 2011] Two years ago, when she was 10, Dochka lost what was left of her innocence when she was
sold to a band of child traffickers by her mother and aunt in New arrests on charges of human trafficking in Bulgaria The Sofia Echo, Jun 05 2006 sofiaecho.com/2006/06/05/642586_new-arrests-on-charges-of-human-trafficking-in-bulgaria [accessed 24 January 2011] The actions of Bulgarian police
were co-ordinated with Europe-Wide Human-Trafficking Ring Cracked Associated Press AP & Reuters, May 29, 2006 www.rferl.org/content/article/1068749.html [accessed 24 January 2011] Authorities across Corruption and Human Trafficking Hinder The Sofia Echo, May 17 2006 sofiaecho.com/2006/05/17/645186_corruption-and-human-trafficking-hinder-bulgarias-eu-entry [accessed 24 January 2011] According to the article, the
European Commission report from May 16 meant Revealed: kept in a dungeon ready to be sold as slaves David Harrison in [accessed 24 January 2011] The women, aged 18 to 24, are from across eastern Europe, lured from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria, with promises of good jobs as waitresses, au pairs and dancers. Instead, they have been forced into modern-day slavery in western Macedonia, locked in the dirty cellar and only summoned upstairs by their masters to perform sexual services for customers who are usually drunk and often violent. When they were found, the victims, some of whom had been "broken in" as prostitutes in other countries on the way to Macedonia, barely knew where they were. They had no idea what the future held but knew that it was beyond their control. Balkans Urged To Curb Trafficking Imogen Foulkes,
BBC News, 31 March, 2005 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4397497.stm [accessed 24 January 2011] Countries in Initiative to Help Fight Human Trafficking in Three SEE
Countries Robert Herschbach, Southeast
European Times, 05/04/05 www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2005/04/05/feature-03?print=yes [accessed 24 January 2011] Atrocious Pimping Suspect Arrested In Sofia Sofia News Agency, Apr 29, 2005 www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=47227 [accessed 4 September 2011] At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
A man suspected of kidnapping, abusing and forcing
women into prostitution has been arrested in The Protection Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/bulgaria.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - According to a recent study,
among identified female victims of trafficking in Women are lured into the industry
through false job advertisements offering jobs as models, dancers, and au
pairs. Many of the girls recruited are orphans or come from disadvantaged
families, making them more vulnerable to the promises of traffickers offering
them work abroad. Teenage girls are
often kidnapped and, among the Roma minority, frequently sold to traffickers
by their families. – htcp Seduction, Sale & Slavery:
Trafficking In Women & Children For Sexual Exploitation In Jonathan Martens, Maciej ‘Mac’ Pieczkowski, Bernadette van Vuuren-Smyth,
International Organization for Migration (IOM), May 2003 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 4 September 2011] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The major findings may be summarized as follows: Russian and Bulgarian mafias traffic Russian and other Eastern European women on South African visas fraudulently obtained in Moscow to upscale South African brothels. These Eastern European women are promised jobs as waitresses, dancers, strippers, and hostesses in South Africa, but are not told that they must pay a debt of US$2000 per month for six months or more as sex workers until they arrive in South Africa. If they refuse to cooperate, they and their families back at home are threatened with violence. Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2009&country=7575 [accessed 24 January 2011] Human Rights Overview Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/europecentral-asia/bulgaria [accessed 24 January 2011] Stop Violence Against Women – Country Page Liliya Sazonova,
National VAW Monitor for [accessed 24 January 2011] Library of Congress Call Number DR55 .B724 1993 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/bgtoc.html [accessed 24 January 2011] Miss Humanity Velina Nacheva,
The Sofia Echo, Jan 15 2004 sofiaecho.com/2004/01/15/631113_miss-humanity [accessed 24 January 2011] Magi spends
most of her time in In conversations with children from orphanages and schools, Magi explains the dangers that children might encounter when talking to strangers who offer strange work opportunities. In response she is always greeted with much love and affection by the children in Blagoevgrad and said that these children do mean a lot to her. "They ask questions, share their dreams and are natural," she said. - htcp Face to Face Bulgaria FACE2FACE 2004-2006 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 4 September 2011] The poor economy of a country is the main factor that makes these girls potential victims. They are trying to run away from poverty and to have a better future for them and for their families by accepting shady offers from unknown people and agencies. Once they choose this road, they rarely escape from this trap alive. It is proven that girls from orphanages and small towns and villages are most vulnerable because of uneducation and desire for quick earnings. Michael Cory Davis, Screenwriter of Svetlana’s Journey
film, based on true events American Chamber of Commerce in At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 4 September 2011] Many people are mis-educated about the forced prostitution industry, thinking that these young girls ask for this to happen to them, simply by their desire for money. In fact, many of the statistics show the initiation and involvement of young girls in this industry, comes from abductions, kidnappings, and out right lying by the sex peddlers. These peddlers use many tactics, usually finding girls in poor areas and promising them opportunities as secretaries, models, waitresses, and even schooling. Svetlana’s story is one of the thousands that pour into the office of Face to Face daily. Kosovo: Trafficked women and girls have human rights BRAMA News, May 6, 2004 www.brama.com/news/press/2004/05/040506amnestyinternational.html [accessed 24 January 2011] Some 406 foreign women were assisted
by the IOM in Kosovo between December 2000 and December 2003. According to
the IOM, 48 per cent of women who have entered its repatriation program -
enabling them to return to their home country - originated from Moldova. Of
the remainder, 21 per cent came from Romania, 14 per cent from Ukraine, six per cent from Bulgaria, three per
cent from Albania and the remainder from Russia and Serbia proper. Susan Phillips, Z Magazine, June 2002 www.zcommunications.org/bulgaria-traffic-in-women-by-susan-phillips [accessed 24 January 2011] For young women from small towns
and smaller options, Minkova says they are often lured by offers they find
hard to resist. “They tell them, ‘you look great, you’re very nice, I think
you’d make a great baby-sitter,” says Minkova. Minkova says that although
some women go voluntarily, knowing they will be prostitutes, none are
prepared for the cruel working conditions. Few women successfully escape from
forced prostitution. But those who do, tell a grim story. Both Human Rights
Watch and Animus report of repeated rapes and beatings by their captors. They
are put through a process of psychological torture designed to make them
compliant towards, and dependent on, the pimp. Traffickers confiscate their
passports and papers. Often moved and sold, the trafficked women become
unaware of even the country in which they are working. Former victims report
being forced to work up to 20 hours a day. They receive little, if any,
payment and are told they are in debt to their pimps. If they get pregnant,
say the Animus volunteers, they are often left by the side of a road. Of all
the money that exchanges hands, the sex workers themselves see little of it. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking
& Modern-day Slavery - |
|||
Human Trafficking in [Bulgaria Street Children in [Bulgaria] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Bulgaria] [other countries]