translated from Spanish: Trafficking: strategies for combating this modern-day slavery

trafficking is one of the main sources of income of the crime organized around the world. According to estimates by the Organization for security and cooperation in Europe, OSCE, the illegal trafficking of human beings could already have surpassed to the weapon, having reached in 2005 a higher business volume of the 32,000 million dollars annually, a business where are exploited 2.5 million people.
Most of the victims are women and children who fall into the hands of criminals without scruples. They are sexually exploited and forced to work in conditions of slavery. It is estimated that more than half of the victims are under 18 years of age and there is no country that is immune to this modern form of slavery.
A conference convened by the OSCE in Vienna, brought together specialists from around the world to discuss strategies to combat this dangerous form of crime. Sweden for example, introduced a bill that criminalizes the purchase of sexual services and decriminalizing the sale of such services since 1999. In that country, prostitution is considered as a form of male violence against women and children. “Since then the numbers of victims have been reduced considerably”, said Gunilla Ekberg, the Swedish Government Advisor. Thanks to this legislation, the sex trade in the streets has virtually disappeared in big cities. The expert stressed that criminal networks make their own market studies and business in Sweden has complicated for them.
In the United States, for example, already not only punished sexual exploiters, but also to the American tourists who have sex with minors overseas. In that country the offender can be sentenced to a penalty of up to 30 years in prison. 103 cases of sex tourism has been during the past four years.
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in Germany, even though the federal Government allocates more resources to combat trafficking in human beings, the sentences imposed to those who committed this crime are still low. 145 adult convicts in 2005 only 51 received prison sentences. According to the police for criminal (BKA), in that year were reported 642 cases of victims of white traders, most women from countries of Central and Eastern Europe, who came to the country lured with all sorts of promises by bands criminals.
Often the victims responded to an ad in a newspaper that promised fantastic opportunities for work. They believed that they would come to a rich country and gain money easily, working as models, in a bar and even caring for children. To the less naïve, prostitutes who came dreaming of easy money, once here, they were treated as slaves.
Experts say that the victims of this crime are usually who have less chance of getting ahead in their own country. “In their naive quest for a better future and wellbeing risk to go overseas and thus fall in globalized crime networks,” says Ekberg.
Attack the root problem most victims come from marginal strata and sexual exploitation is not the first form of violence that live in the flesh. Therefore, different organizations to propose initiatives to attack the root problem. Most importantly, inform and educate potential victims and offer them alternatives. “The victims have no alternatives in their country of origin, but are countries destination, where there is generally little interest in this subject, who dictate the rules of the market,” says Eva Blaudet, the Special Representative of the OSCE to combat trafficking of people.
Blaudet, of Finnish origin, called in Vienna on 56 countries members of the Organization to create mechanisms that accounted for the number of victims of that crime to combat the problem effectively it is necessary to harmonize national statistics on the the number of victims. There are large differences in the figures collected by different organizations. According to the of the United Nations Fund for children (UNICEF), in 2001 there were 1.75 million people affected. In contrast to the International Labour Organization (ILO) the figure was only 400,000.
According to Blaudet the existing figures could well be the tip of the iceberg. The diplomat warned that without good information the problem not you may face.” You will be punished the perpetrators or the victims will help”, he says.

Original source in Spanish