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Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Latvia.htm
Latvia is a source
and destination country for women trafficked for the purposes of commercial
sexual exploitation and forced labor. Latvian women are trafficked to
Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Denmark,
Switzerland, Greece, Ireland, and Japan for commercial sexual exploitation.
Latvian teenage girls are trafficked within the country for the purpose of
commercial sexual exploitation. Latvia is a destination country for women
trafficked from Belgium and Portugal for the purpose of commercial sexual
exploitation and for women from Thailand who may have been trafficked for the
purpose of forced labor. - |
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Awareness of Human Trafficking Among Young
People in Alison Y. Boak,
Kenneth W. Griffin, Debra Jones & Vita Karklina
-- 29th Annual Conference, Global Health in Times of Crisis, 28-31 May 2002 72.3.236.96/conference_2002/abstracts/a5.php3 [accessed 17 April 2012] CONCLUSIONS - While youth in From Ballroom
Dancer to Stripper: Surviving Chicago's sex slave trade Series: Sex and
Sorrow: The Modern Slave Trade Annie Sweeney, Crime Reporter, www.ipsn.org/organized_crime/prostitution/surviving_chicago.htm [accessed 17 February 2011] To Z, Mishulovich's offer was exhilarating. It was also a lie -- something she
discovered shortly after landing at O'Hare Airport. Put up in a cramped apartment with other
Latvian women, she was watched constantly, beaten and threatened with being
sold as a prostitute. Her passport was taken away. And the dancing? Really it was stripping.
For maybe $20 a night. She was a
virtual slave -- a sex slave, a victim of "human trafficking." ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2003 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2003/latvia.htm [accessed 17 February 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Statistics on the number of working children under
the age of 15 in Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61658.htm [accessed 17 February 2011] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– The country was primarily a source and transit point for trafficked
victims. The main countries of destination were Traffickers,
primarily organized criminal groups, usually lured victims through false
offers of employment for jobs such as dancers, bartenders, and babysitters in
European countries. A large number of victims were drawn from the
economically depressed areas of the country's eastern regions. While some
victims were recruited through job advertisements or modeling and travel agencies,
most victims were solicited through direct contact with traffickers.
Traffickers often recruited their victims at cafes and clubs, and victims
themselves recruited new victims for the traffickers Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,
26 January 2001 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/latvia2001.html [accessed 17 February 2011] [33] The Committee
expresses its concern at the fact that the current legislation regulating
adoption is out of date and does not guarantee adequate protection of the
child involved, as recognized in the Convention. From Ballroom
Dancer to Stripper: Surviving Chicago's sex slave trade Series: Sex and
Sorrow: The Modern Slave Trade Annie Sweeney, Crime Reporter, www.ipsn.org/organized_crime/prostitution/surviving_chicago.htm [accessed 17 February 2011] To Z, Mishulovich's offer was exhilarating. It was also a lie -- something she
discovered shortly after landing at O'Hare Airport. Put up in a cramped apartment with other
Latvian women, she was watched constantly, beaten and threatened with being
sold as a prostitute. Her passport was taken away. And the dancing? Really it was stripping.
For maybe $20 a night. She was a
virtual slave -- a sex slave, a victim of "human trafficking." Warnings of human trafficking taught to
children Annie Sweeney, Crime Reporter, Chicago Sun
Times, tvol.blogspot.com/2005/08/warnings-of-human-trafficking-taught.html [accessed 17 February 2011] She was 17, the
daughter of unemployed alcoholics in a struggling country where good work can
be difficult to find. So she took a
job that, though it required leaving the Baltic state, would help pay the
family's bills. She was going to pick
strawberries in Finland. But as her
new employers drove across the Latvian border and into Estonia, everything
changed. She was ordered to take off
her clothes and pose for photos that would be posted on the Web. One snapshot shows her wearing only a black
bikini bottom, coyly hiding behind an overgrown plant. Another has her arched
against a cinderblock wall. If you didn't know better, you'd think she wanted
to be there. She made it to Finland
all right, but as a virtual slave who was forced to work as a prostitute and
give almost all of her earnings to her captors. Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 1 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/latvia [accessed 26 June 2012] Stop Violence Against Women – Country Page The Advocates for Human Rights, November
13, 2003 [accessed 17 February 2011] At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] Library of Congress Call Number DK502.35
.E86 1996 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/lvtoc.html [accessed 17 February 2011] Cypriot held in www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/cypriot-held-latvia-flesh-trade-charges [accessed 30 November 2010] According to the
Latvian police the suspect was allegedly involved in trafficking in women
under the pretext of recruiting them as waitresses and cleaners when in fact
they would be pushed into prostitution. Prevention of Youth Trafficking Initiative www.iofa.org/prevention.html [access date unavailable] IOFA AND YOUTH
TRAFFICKING PREVENTION - PROJECTS IN THE PREVENTION,
INVESTIGATION, & REPATRIATION OF VICTIMS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN LATVIA: This project
provides training to encourage cooperation among law enforcement officials
and NGO leaders in combating trafficking of young people in Latvia. Regional
Trafficking Response Teams have been established in three regions. STRENGTHENING SOCIAL
SERVICE PROVISION TO VICTIMS OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN LATVIA: This project
strengthens social service provision to victims of human trafficking by
assessing current services, creating partnerships between service providers
and a local shelter; and by ensuring that the shelter staff is properly
trained to respond to victims' needs. Trafficking Alert - Trafficking and the NGO
Community Vital Voices, Trafficking Alert, June 2002 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 8 September 2011] [scroll down] NEW YORK-BASED
ORGANIZATION EDUCATES LATVIAN ADOLESCENTS ABOUT SAFELY WORKING ABROAD AND
WARNS ABOUT TRAFFICKING
- . PPAT integrates an educational module on human trafficking into the
existing curriculum of teen centers in Latvia. Before traveling abroad,
adolescents can receive consultations in the center in order to ensure safe
travel. The centers keep copies of the young peoples' passports, and provide
them with information about embassies and NGOs that can help if they find
themselves in dangerous situations overseas. Women’s Anti-Discrimination Committee
Experts Urge Latvia to Update Laws to Protect Women from Domestic Violence UN Information Service UNIS, www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2004/wom1457.html [accessed 17 February 2011] COUNTRY MAKES FIRST
PRESENTATION TO COMMITTEE; TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN, EQUAL PARTICIPATION IN
POLITICAL LIFE AMONG OTHER ISSUES RAISED - Turning to a related issue, experts
expressed deep concern over the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of women
trafficked or lured in to Latvia from other countries. Portugal’s expert
lamented the apparent lack of programmes in place
to rehabilitate those women once they were removed from harm. Granted,
some cooperative initiatives were underway with neighbouring
and transit countries, but the problem should be made a national priority.
Other experts stressed the need to target and prosecute the client side of
the equation -- usually middle-aged, married men. Addressing that
issue, Ms. Druviete said Latvia adhered to major
international conventions and treaties aimed at preventing human trafficking.
Also, the country had recently established the National Programme
for Prevention of Human Trafficking (2004-2008), which focused on improving
legislation, rehabilitating victims and raising awareness. To limit
trafficking in persons for sexual exploitation, the Government had created a
special police unit, strengthening its cooperation with neighbouring
countries and cooperating with non-governmental organizations. Finnish man faces charges of human
trafficking in Latvia Helsingin Sanomat
International Edition, 19.2.2004 www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20040219IE6 [accessed 17 February 2011] A Finnish man in
his 40s is suspected of human trafficking and pimping in Human trafficking
is not often encountered in the Nordic countries and for the time being the
Finnish penal code has no reference to this issue. However, this fault will
be corrected soon. The charges against
the man will be heard shortly and if found guilty he will be sentenced under
Latvian law. Any sentence is expected to be rather heavy - particularly as it
is suspected that some kind of pressure was used and an international
criminal organization was involved, and because one of the women was a minor
aged 17. Awareness of Human Trafficking Among Young
People in Alison Y. Boak,
Kenneth W. Griffin, Debra Jones & Vita Karklina
-- 29th Annual Conference, Global Health in Times of Crisis, 28-31 May 2002 72.3.236.96/conference_2002/abstracts/a5.php3 [accessed 17 April 2012] CONCLUSIONS - While youth in All
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