The ground breaking Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings was signed by an additional 7 countries last week. Ukraine, Macedonia, Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Belgium and Andorra signed making the number of signatory nations 23. The treaty not only commits these countries to adequate laws to punish human trafficking, but also commits them to respecting the human rights of the victim by providing appropriate accommodation, counselling, and at least emergency medical care. Victims would also be given a reflection period before they have to agree to testify against their traffickers – a dangerous step to take – and even the possibility of a temporary visa for victims. It is unclear, however if countries such as the UK will agree to sign and ratify the Convention. At present it seems that the position of the UK government is to reject the convention on the grounds that it is afraid that it will encourage illegal immigration. It is important that all member states of the Council of Europe sign and ratify the convention and understand that a victim of human trafficking is not a criminal, but someone who has suffered a severe human rights abuse.

Marine Poghosyan, a young Armenian woman was convicted this year of trafficking young Armenian women to Dubai to work as prostitutes. As this was her first offence and she has a young daughter she was only given a sentence of 1 year 6 months. Light sentences are often given to traffickers in Armenia with the result that they soon return to the business of exploiting young Armenians who wish to find employment in Dubai.
One such woman testified against Marine Poghosyan:
“I was divorced from my husband and had a daughter to take care of. Our situation was desperate and I agreed to go to Dubai to work in a store. I faxed my passport details to Marine, and went thinking I was going to work in a store,”
“I found out in Dubai that I wouldn’t be working in a store, I’d be a prostitute instead. On Marine’s orders, I visited several clients of different nationalities in the Al Harmud Hotel and had sex with them. I was in an impossible situation, because Marine had my passport, I didn’t know anyone in Dubai, didn’t know the language, and didn’t have any money to survive. Since I didn’t know the language, Marine would talk to the clients instead and tell me how long I had to stay with a client and how much he had to pay me. I would then give all the money to Marine,”
“I kept complaining that she had tricked me and I wanted my passport back, but she wouldn’t give it to me, saying I had to pay her back. In those five months she only sent $400 to my mother, although I earned around $5,000,”
Eventually the woman managed to phone her mother who demanded that her daughter be sent home. Marine agreed as long as she worked a few days more in order to pay for her air ticket.
The large financial gains to be made from the trafficking of women and children will continue to encourage people to become traffickers if stronger sentences are not given to traffickers both in Armenia and also in Dubai.

Health authorities in Ireland have expressed fears that most of the 250 children who have disappeared from care in the last four years have been trafficked and are being sexually exploited. The chief executive of the HSE (East Coast Area), has also claimed that one of the problems is insufficient funding which means that there is inadequate follow up when children are reunited with families or people claiming to be their families. Documents released to the Irish Times seem to indicate that all of the unattached children that the health authorities know about have been either trafficked or smuggled into the country. Some were brought for forced underage marriages, while others were trafficked into prostitution.
In a letter to the Health Department in March of this year, the Health Service Executive warned: “The executive has on several occasions taken children into care following their rescue from desperate situations by the GNIB [Garda National Immigration Bureau]. It also a matter of fact that the vast majority of children coming into care have been trafficked into the country…”
Although there have been improved services for 12 to 16 year olds, there are concerns that the service is still inadequate.
Dr Pauline Conroy, author of two reports on separated children and trafficking said that it was of concern that the government had not “grasped the gravity of the situation”.
“There are serious child protection issues here. There are vulnerable children from outside the EU. We have an absolute obligation to ensure they do not fall into the hands of predatory adults, whether that’s employment or the sex industry.”
To read the full article in the Irish Times, please click here.

A Honduran woman, herself a victim of trafficking, has pleaded guilty at a Newark, New Jersey (USA) court, to being the “enforcer” for a trafficking ring which brought girls as young as 14 to the US and forced them to work in bars. They had to make at least $500 a day to pay off their $20,000 debt to the traffickers for bringing them to the country. It is not yet known if this forced labour included sexual exploitation, but the woman, Xochil Nectalina Rosales Martinez, 29, has admitted to forcing the women to have abortions when they became pregnant. One baby was born, however, in a toilet bowl. The baby died soon after.
“Did you hear it cry when it was pulled from the toilet?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah J. Gannett asked.
“Sí,” Rosales Martinez replied, weeping.
The alleged ring leaders of the gang Medrano and Rosales Martinez’s cousins, Noris Elvira Rosales Martinez and Ana Luz Rosalez Martinez are awaiting trial on conspiracy, alien smuggling and other charges.
The victims of human trafficking will be allowed to remain in the US under a special visa regime.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Juan Miguel Petit has called for a co-ordinated child protection policy in Greece, a country where many children are trafficked into forced begging and prostitution.
Mr Petit said that “After having been a country of origin of migration, in the last decade Greece has increasingly become a country of transit and destination of migrants,”
“The huge and dispersed coastline makes Greece an attractive destination or a gateway to the European Union,” he explained in Athens. “This big flow of people on the move brought along challenges that the country was not prepared to face.”
This flow of people has included children who are trafficked and then exploited.
A recent ILO/IPEC report “Child trafficking - the people involved” (2005) included the stories of children who were being trafficked into Greece from Albania;
“A 17 year-old boy returned to a family that hardly welcomed him: “When I
came back home, I did not really feel welcome. My parents] already knew
that I had escaped from the exploiter. He called and threatened them,
asking them to give back the money he had spent on my trip to Greece if I
did not go back. My father was angry because he could not see a way to pay
him back.”
A mother told a very different story of her son’s return: “The last time my
son left for Greece, he walked for seven days and was caught by Greek
soldiers. The whole group was returned home. When my son came back he
was so exhausted that he couldn’t walk for a week. Since that time I decided
that my son would not go abroad again even if we are starving.”
A father despaired for the future: “We cannot stop our child from being
trafficked again. He doesn’t even listen to us. Now he is 14 years old and
has started smoking. He leaves home without even saying anything. All
these things are concerning us but we cannot do anything. We are even
thinking of all leaving and going to Greece.”

With such pressure on children to go to Greece and beg, or work in forced labour or prostitution, Mr Petit is calling for all departments in Greece to work together and to co-ordinate their efforts with the relevant agencies in Albania. He particularly noted the situation of Roma children and called on the Greek government to
“give Roma children alternatives other than street work or prostitution as survival strategies.”