Billions Made on White Slavery and Trafficking
"Trafficking in human beings is ‘big business' with profits in the billons of dollars every year," said Boucault. "And prosecution of the perpetrators is difficult because while trafficking knows no borders, prosecution is state-based." Boucault adds that progress will be reached only when the traffickers are treated by the courts in the same manner as drugs and gun runners, for if people are afraid they won’t take any action, not even for money. “The number of victims trafficked inside the country and accross the entity lines reaches alarming levels. Foreign women – victims of trafficking are not found only in bars and nught clubs, but also in private appartments and their services are offered trough phone or over the internet. That makes it more difficult to locate them. The Bosnian women are on the streets and in bars, so that the majority of women in our shelters are in fact Bosnian citizens”, she warns. Although national legislation in B&H treats trafficking in human beings as serious criminal offence, the results of the prosecution are dissapointing. Consider, for example, the case of late Olena Popik. Although the brutality of the whole case shook the whole region, only two sentences were proclaimed, to two and one and half year prison terms. The legal restrictions faced by investigation authorities often play in favour of the perpetrators. Samir Rizvo, B&H National Coordinator for Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings, blames the lenient penal policies and the complex political structure that puts obstacles for a more efficient action. “Whatever you do, you have to deal with at least 13 different institutions, you have to balance between them, secure the political support in at least 13 places and do everything 13 times”, says Rizvo. |
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