Author:	Vanessa von Struensee JD, MPH Attorney at Law
Subjects:	Prostitution Sex oriented businesses Slavery Women - social conditions
Issue:	Volume 7, Number 2 (June 2000)
Category:	Comment

Contents

• Introduction
• Exploitation of Women from Developing Countries
• Public Health Ills of Trafficking
• Human Rights Violations and Trafficking
• Russian and Ukrainian Trafficked Women
• Prostitution as Violence Against Women
• Wired Trafficking
• Limited United States Actions Against Trafficking
• Being Trafficked is Not Voluntary But is a Desperate Act
• Lack of Rule of Law and Trafficked Women
• Trafficking and International Law and Institutions
• Conclusion
• Notes

Introduction

1. Trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation is an increasing type of international organized crime[1] generating high profits with low risk for traffickers.[2] Thousands of women are being trafficked from developing to Western Europe and brought into conditions in which their basic human rights are violated.[3] Only a minority of cases is reported and convictions of traffickers are rare.[4]

2. Public concern and international awareness have increased through the work of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the United Nations,[5] and the Council of Europe.[6] The Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council of the European Union agreed to a set of recommendations in November 1993 to the Member States to counter trafficking[7] and in addition to a number of resolutions, the European Parliament produced a unanimous report and resolution on trafficking in human beings in December 1995.[8]

   Exploitation of Women from Developing Countries

3. For years, trafficking rings have thrived on the exploitation of women[9] from developing countries.[10] Recently countries of the former Soviet Union have become their latest targets.[11] Where old Soviet economic systems have been disrupted or discarded, there has been economic contraction and hyperinflation, which has wiped out people's savings and security. Many of these countries are still writing their laws and developing their constitutions.[12]

4. In Ukraine, where women account for more than 60% of those who have lost their jobs in recent years, trafficking in women[13] has become a goldmine.[14] Lured by false promises, misled by false information on migration regulations, many women fall prey to unscrupulous traffickers, allowing their dream for a better life to be exploited. The United Nations estimates that 4 million people are trafficked each year,[15] resulting in $7 billion in profits to criminal groups.[16] Many countries have weak, unenforced or no laws against trafficking in human beings, often making it less risky and more profitable to criminal groups than drug or arms trafficking.[17]

   Public Health Ills of Trafficking

5. With increased economic globalization,[18] trafficking in women from poor to wealthier countries appears to be on the rise,[19] accompanied by economic and public health ills. Trafficking networks may recruit and transport women legally or illegally for slavery-like work, including forced prostitution, sweatshop labor, and exploitative domestic servitude.[20]

6. Increased economic globalization and privatization[21] has resulted in an increased feminization of poverty, forcing greater numbers of women worldwide to migrate in search of work.[22] Seeking economic opportunities abroad, women turn to a variety of resources, including newspaper ads, acquaintances, marriage agencies, labor recruiters, and modeling agencies.[23] They accept positions as nannies, maids, sex workers, dancers, factory workers, and hostesses.[24] Many of these migrants end up as victims of illegal and unscrupulous trafficking networks. Trafficking, according to U.S. Senate Resolution 82 on Trafficking, "involves one or more forms of kidnapping, false imprisonment, rape, battering, forced labor, or slavery-like practices which violate fundamental human rights." [25]

7. Contemporary population movements are characterized by increasing pressures by individuals seeking, through migration, either to escape war, persecution, poverty, or human rights violations, or simply to find better economic opportunities.[26] This is the irregular migration phenomenon of which trafficking is one part - albeit often a particularly abusive part, especially as it relates to women and children.[27]

8. In discussions on trafficking, particular attention has to be given to the question of the voluntariness [28] of the migrants' movement, because it has legal consequences as we will see below. Trafficking in women has severely negative consequences for the women[29] and societies involved. It is an issue that involves both gender and basic human rights abuses.[30]

9. The human rights of women include their right to have control over, and decide freely on matters relating to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence.[31] Trafficking in women is violence against women. The 4th World Conference on Women[32] addressed the physical, sexual, and psychological harm that this poses to its victims. It proposed several recommendations to governments of origin, transit and destination.

10. Studies on the health of women in the sex industry indicate that many women have serious health problems and are exposed to life-threatening risks. Female prostitutes suffer from infectious diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, injuries from violence, drug and alcohol addictions, depression and other mental health problems as a result of trauma.[33] Women who are prostitutes or trafficked have serious health problems and cannot get out of prostitution whence they discover its evil horror.[34] While female sexual slavery is permitted to exist on a monumental scale, we cannot assert that violence against women is a problem taken seriously beyond politically correct rhetoric.

    Human Rights Violations and Trafficking

11. Today, women are trafficked from South to North, from South to South and from East to West[35] the flows are from poorer countries to countries where the standard of living for an average person is relatively higher. The fact that lesser developed countries' populations are used for trafficking supports the recognition of a right to development as a human right.[36] Trafficking is linked with forced prostitution[37] that follows false promises of well-paid jobs.[38]

12. However, not all women are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Many are traded for marriage, as domestic and construction workers, or as beggars. And too many of these women become victims of forced labor, in many cases suffering deprivation of freedom and appropriation of income, or being forced into slave-like[39] practices.[40] Selling desperate women into sexual bondage is an entrenched criminal enterprise in the robust global economy.[41]

13. The seemingly economic hopelessness in the Newly Independent States transitional economies opened what experts call the most lucrative market of all to Russian criminal gangs: Eastern European women with little to sustain them but their hopes.[42] Pimps,[43] law-enforcement officials and relief groups all agree that Ukrainian and Russian women are now the most valuable in the trade.[44] Because their immigration is often illegal, and because some percentage of the women choose to work as prostitutes, statistics are difficult to assess. But the United Nations estimates that 4 million people throughout the world are trafficked each year.[45]

14. Trafficking in women and girls[46] for the purpose of sexual exploitation[47] is an open and flagrant human rights[48] violation occurring around the world.[49] When a woman or child is trafficked or sexually exploited, they are denied the most basic human rights, and in the worst case, they are denied their right to life. Prostitution and sexual exploitation have devastating health and quality of life effects on its victims.[50]

15. In Western Europe alone, the International Organisation for Migration[51] estimates that around 500,000 women per year are trafficked from poorer regions in the world.[52] Several factors lead women to look for working possibilities in other countries. In Eastern Europe, women have been the victims of the political and economic changes of the 90s with the dismantlement of the former Soviet Union social security structures and are today highly represented in unemployment statistics.[53]

16. In Europe, an increasing portion of the trafficked women comes from the former socialist countries.[54] A growing amount of women who want to search for work abroad are deceived by traffickers into leaving their countries, believing that they will work as dancers or hostesses, or even as prostitutes, but instead end up living under slave-like conditions where their fundamental human rights[55] are abused by the profiteer/pimp. For criminal groups, trafficking in women is a very profitable with revenues more than seven billion dollars annually from trafficking in human beings.[56]

    Russian and Ukrainian Trafficked Women

17. The political and economic transition during the 90s has altered almost every aspect of life in Eastern Europe and the newly independent Baltic States. Along with the welcomed political liberty came vast economic problems with inflation, unemployment and lack of social programs to support the transition.[57]

18. Women proved to be major victims of the negative effects of the privatization, globalization, and related changes.[58] With less access to the formal labor sector women are over represented in unemployment statistics throughout the former Soviet Union with greater feminization of poverty as a consequence.[59] In the Russian Federation women represent between 70 and 95 percent of the unemployed.[60] For many women, sexual services and domestic work are the only survival options available.[61] With the closing of public childcare centers and reduction of pensions, women found themselves with the responsibility of being the support of the family with no possibilities for employment.

19. There are sound economic justifications for women of the newly independent Baltic States to seek employment outside their countries, for women who do have jobs, wages are low and sexual harassment at the workplace is common.[62] Also, in the post socialist mixture of old traditions and new ideas, old ideals and new western influence, accepting the offers of a trafficker may be a fantasy for young women to break away from the authority of the old traditions, a way of trying to manifest freedom. Migration to Western Europe for work appears at first a promising option for women in Eastern Europe. However, there are very few ways of legally migrating for work in the European Union. Thus, the courageous women who have decided to try their luck and realize their dreams have to rely on middlemen and traffickers in order to migrate. The criminal groups exploit the fact that visas and working permits are required and can continue doing this because of government inaction, or even worse, government complicity in the form of corrupt officials.[63] Ukraine, and to a lesser degree its Slavic neighbors Russia and Belarus, have replaced Thailand and the Philippines as the epicenter of the global business in trafficking women.[64]

20. The Ukrainian problem has been worsened by their ravaged economy, an underdeveloped and underfunded system of law enforcement, and criminal gangs that grow more brazen each year.[65] Young European women are in demand, and Ukraine, a country of 51 million people, can supply. Sources far and wide, including the World Bank and the popular press present a clear story of chaos and economic dislocation in Russia, Ukraine, and the other newly independent states and their struggling, disastrous, transitional economies.[66]

21. Federal employment statistics in Ukraine indicate that more than two-thirds of the unemployed are women.[67] Of those who have lost their jobs since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, more than 80 percent are women.[68] The average salary in Ukraine today is slightly less than $30 a month, but it is half that in the small towns that criminal gangs favor for recruiting women to work abroad.[69]

22. In that climate, looking for work in foreign countries has increasingly become a dream of survival. Money, newly found freedom after living in repressive countries, village life disintegrating throughout much of the former Soviet world, and women trying to explore and adapt all result in their taking this risk. "After the wall fell down, the Ukrainian people tried to live in the new circumstances," said Ms. Shved. "It was very hard, and it gets no easier. Girls now have few opportunities yet great freedom. They see 'Pretty Woman,' or movies and ads with the same point, that somebody who is rich will rescue them. The glory and ease of wealth is almost the basic point of the Western advertising that we see. Here the towns are dying. What jobs there are go to men. So they leave."[70]

23. The women answer ads from employment agencies promising to find them work in a foreign country, where Russian crime gangs play a central role.[71] Often the ads are vague or blatantly untrue. Most of the thousands of Ukrainian women who go abroad each year are illegal immigrants who do not work in the sex business. Often they apply for a legal visa, to dance, or work in a bar, and then stay after it expires.[72]

24. Although trafficked women can be found almost anywhere, the destinations for most trafficked women are countries and cities where there are large sex industry centers and where prostitution is legalized or widely tolerated. Although some women may appear to voluntarily enter prostitution, this number could never meet the demand. If prostitution were a desirable, rewarding, lucrative job, traffickers would not have to deceive, coerce and enslave. Popular destinations for trafficked women are countries where prostitution is legal such as the Netherlands and Germany. According to Michael Platzer, Head of Operations for the United Nation's Center for International Crime Prevention, "The laws help the gangsters. Prostitution is semi-legal in many places and that makes enforcement tricky. In most cases punishment is very light."[73] Many go to Turkey and Germany, where Russian crime groups are particularly powerful. Officials in Italy estimate that at least 30,000 Ukrainian women are employed illegally there now.[74] Most are domestic workers, but a growing number are prostitutes, some of them having been promised work as domestics only to find out their jobs were prostitution, others knew it would be prostitution, but had no idea what they were getting into and then cannot get out.[75]

    Prostitution as Violence Against Women

25. Many non-government organizations (NGOs) view trafficking in women as an important issue.[76] There is disagreement on whether prostitution is violence against women,[77] on how to handle trafficking and prostitution and the key conflict lies in differing viewpoints on prostitution.[78]

26. Some organizations want to treat trafficking and prostitution as aspects of the same problem and consequently fight both at the same time. This causes problems for organizations wanting to stop trafficking in women but to legalize prostitution.[79] Discussions are underway and many NGOs try to exclude prostitution from the discussion of trafficking in order to obtain some sort of consensus. However, when examining the nature of prostitution deeply, its health effects, its dynamics, it is clear that notions of legalizing prostitution are incompatible with maintaining the dignity of a human being. Prostitution and trafficking are not victimless crimes, or just another form of work, as pimps and apologists for the sex industry would have us believe. Even when women voluntarily enter into these situations, in hope of making money or finding a better life, the dynamics of the brutal, often illegal sex industry, quickly leave the women with few other options and powerless to leave.[80] Observers of the evolution of the United Nations World Conferences on Women would attest that building a consensus for resolutions has not come easily at many of these forums.[81]

27. Since the trafficking of women for purposes of sexual exploitation is not a new phenomenon and international laws were drafted and ratified in the earlier half of this century. In 1949, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. The convention states that "prostitution and the accompanying evil of the traffic in persons for the purpose of prostitution are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person and endanger the welfare of the individual, the family and the community."[82]

28. Ukraine is a signatory of the 1949 Convention (1954), along with Latvia (1992), Belarus (1956), and the Russian Federation (1954). The 1949 Convention states that consent of the trafficked person is irrelevant to the prosecution of the exploiter. The 1949 Convention was not widely ratified and did not create a monitoring body, so there has been no ongoing evaluation of its implementation or effectiveness. In 1998 at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, the World Federation of the Ukrainian Women's Organizations and World Movement of Mothers called for governments to work toward suppressing the trafficking of women and girls and implementing the 1949 Convention. Currently, the 1949 Convention is under strong attack by those who favor legalized prostitution and even "consensual trafficking." The trend toward legalization of the sex industry and narrower definitions of trafficking which require proof of coercion or force will make the conviction of traffickers very difficult and will greatly benefit transnational criminal networks. Another approach to ending trafficking is to end the demand for women to be used in prostitution. In 1998, Sweden passed a law on violence against women that created a new offense: "gross violation of a woman's integrity." Prostitution was included as a type of violence against women. As of January 1, 1999, the "purchase of sexual services" was prohibited, punishable by fines and/or imprisonment up to six months.[83]

29. The Swedish government was clear that this new offense marked Sweden's attitude toward prostitution as an "undesirable social phenomenon" and an act of violence against women. The new offense of gross violation of a woman's integrity and the prohibition on purchase of sexual services aims to eliminate acts of violence that stand in the way of equality for women. Sweden's approach recognizes the harm done to women under conditions of sexual exploitation. Their approach starts from the premise that women have the right to dignity, integrity and equality. Legalization of prostitution is sometimes thought to be a solution to trafficking in women, but evidence seems to show that legalized sex industries actually result in increased trafficking to meet the demand for women to be used in the legal sex industries. Increased activity of organized crime networks also accompanies increases in trafficking.[84]

    Wired Trafficking

30. The Internet has become the latest place for promoting the global trafficking and sexual exploitation of women.[85] The information superhighway is used to actively engage in the buying and selling of women and children. Catalogs of mail order brides, commercial sex tours, video-conferencing bringing live strip shows to the Internet: it is all there, and worse.[86] Because there is still scant regulation of the Internet, the traffickers and promoters of sexual exploitation have virtual carte blanche.[87]

31. Currently, there are details on finding and buying prostitutes available for 97 European cities.[88] A few countries in Europe[89] and the United States[90] have now made it possible to press charges against men for their sexual abuse of children while in other countries. Every country should have such a law, and enforce it.[91] In addition, it should be illegal to use the Internet to post information on the finding and sexually exploiting women and children.[92]

32. As we all know the new technologies of the Internet have leapt over national borders and lawmakers are scrambling to catch-up.[93] Internet users have adopted and defend an unbridled libertarianism. Any kind of regulation or restriction is met with vigorous protest. Even limited restrictions on the transmission of child pornography are greeted with cries of restriction of freedom of speech. If expressions of concern or condemnation of forms of sexual exploitation of women and children on the Internet are minimized by claims of the need for internet freedom and free speech,[94] it is imperative that we must define sexual exploitation as human rights violations and crimes against women,[95] which we will not allow in our communities or on the Internet.[96]

    Limited United States Actions Against Trafficking

33. On a trip to Ukraine late in 1997 Hillary Rodham Clinton[97] spoke out about the new slave trade that has developed so rapidly there.[98] The United States and the European Union have worked together to educate young women[99] about the dangers of working abroad. Other initiatives, such as of deportation for prisoners, victims' shelters and counseling, have also been discussed.[100] Yet the problem is complex, and involves matters such as countries' still legalizing prostitution,[101] faulty concepts behind the victims voluntariness and choice in participating[102] and an entrenched, criminal network with more money and power than some governments.

34. United States Senate bill number S.600 introduced in the U.S. Senate called the "International Trafficking of Women and Children Victim Protection Act"[103] This Act and its companion House Bill HR. 1238[104] are aimed[105] at providing temporary asylum for immigrant victims and stopping federal assistance to the foreign governments that are directly involved in the international sex trafficking trade.[106] On March 11, 1999, U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone introduced in the U.S. Senate Bill S.600[107] for the purpose of condemning and combating international trafficking in women and children and protecting victims' rights. This Bill, co-sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer and Patty Murray, if enacted, would begin to tackle this hideous form of slavery.

35. But solutions are not simple.[108] Criminal gangs risk little by ferrying women out of the country; indeed, many of the women go voluntarily. Laws are vague,[109] cooperation between countries rare[110] and punishment of traffickers almost nonexistent.[111] International organizations' mainstreaming[112] of gender[113] and attempting to raise the status of women are occurring, but the problem is far more complex, deep, insidious, corrupt, and multifaceted,[114] involving significant criminal enforcement challenges and the darkest realms of human nature.

36. Broadening the concept of asylum in the United States would be helpful in alleviating part of this tragic problem.[115] Asylum is provided for in the modern law of civilized nations to protect victims of selected human rights violations occurring globally.[116] The typical human rights victim is portrayed in both legal and human rights literature as a male dissident, tortured or imprisoned by the State. The statistics, however, prove most of the world's asylee population is female.[117] Frequently, officials of the government are directly responsible for such acts of violence.[118] Other times, the government of a State knowingly tolerates or approves of a social pattern of widespread violence against women, making the government indirectly responsible for the violence.[119]

37. Some women may end up as victims of trafficking and exploitation through officially legal routes.[120] In other instances, women knowingly agree to migrate for work in the sex industry, but then are coerced into debt bondage where they are forced to repay their trafficker and/or employer for transportation and other "fees."[121] Further, because these women may have entered the U.S. or other countries illegally and are often working in an illegal industry, they are afraid to turn to local authorities for help and are unable to file civil suits against their abusers or have access to other protections provided by labor laws. In such cases, the criminalization of prostitution where the victim prostitute is prosecuted "adds to the burden of women who are already victims," noted Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.[122]

    Being Trafficked is Not Voluntary But is a Desperate Act

38. Since January 1999, 102 countries have been meeting at the United Nations in Vienna to draft a new Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.[123] The purpose of the Convention is to define areas of law enforcement cooperation, legal procedures and other measures between States relating to all forms of transnational crime. Three "Additional Protocols" are also being drafted that address Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children; Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air and Sea; and Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition. There have been three ad hoc sessions during 1999 where the Protocol on the Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children has been discussed. In the beginning sessions, the texts of the main Convention and the Trafficking in Persons Protocol reflected the history and the principles of past human rights instruments,[124] including the 1949 Convention on the Suppression of the Trafficking in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, CEDAW Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. At this point in the drafting, all of these human rights convention references have been deleted from the text.[125]

39. The core and most contentious part of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol is the definition of trafficking itself. In the present version of Article 2 of the Draft Protocol on the Trafficking in Persons, there are two competing definitions of trafficking.[126] In general, the pro-sex work lobby and some governmental delegations are trying to edit the terms "trafficking for prostitution" and "sexual exploitation" from the entire text. With the exception of the definition of trafficking being debated in Article 2, Option 2, the word "prostitution" is not mentioned in any other article of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol. The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and its partner organizations have responded that since most trafficking is for sexual exploitation, a trafficking Convention should name and specify the major purpose for which trafficking occurs.[127]

    Lack of Rule of Law and Trafficked Women

40. Ineffective privatization, the lack of law enforcement, lack of rule of law[128] the professionalization of organized crime, and the absence of a legal culture have allowed organized crime to flourish from trafficking. The Russian mafiya is one of the premier actors. Recruiting methods and the trafficking problem and its relation to Russian crime gangs were exposed in a two-year study by the Washington-based non-profit group Global Survival Network (GSN).[129] The GSN network, after undercover interviews with gangsters, pimps and corrupt officials,[130] found that local police forces, often those best able to prevent trafficking, are least interested in helping.[131] That is not the view at Ukraine's parliament, which has passed new laws[132] to protect young women.[133]

41. In addition to a lack of relevant property and criminal law,[134] the Newly Independent States also lack relevant contract law.[135] The longer a government waits to take action against organized crime the harder the mafiya will be to dislodge. If the mafiya does become so entrenched in the former Soviet Union that the local governments cannot remove it, then it poses not only a domestic threat but also an international threat.[136] A major threat is that the mafiya is in charge of nuclear weapons.[137] If governments cannot control the mafiya, how do we expect trafficked women to stand up against them? [138] The Russian economy has been a disaster story of corruption.[139] Organized crime controls Russian politics, economics, and society.[140]

42. In Russia today, there are over 5,000 gangs, 3,000 hardened criminals, 300 mob bosses, and 150 illegal organizations with international connections. Approximately 40,000 Russian business and industrial enterprises are controlled by organized crime. Their combined output is higher than the gross national product of many members of the United Nations. The Russian mafiya is estimated to turn over in excess of $10 billion a year. More Russians died of criminal violence in 1993 than were killed during nine years of war in Afghanistan.[141] In 1994, criminals took 118 people hostage in Moscow alone. Ten Western businessmen were kidnapped for ransom in 1995, and one of them murdered.[142] The situation in the other Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union is worse, with criminal gangs even controlling the value of some national currencies.[143]

43. Investigations by the Global Survival Network documented the involvement of government officials in the trafficking of women from Russia.[144] Trafficking in women has arguably the highest profit margin and lowest risk of almost any type of illegal activity. According to Michael Platzer, United Nations Center for International Crime Prevention, "There's a lot of talk about drugs, but it's the white slave trade that earns the biggest money for criminal groups in Eastern Europe." Corruption of officials through bribes and even collaboration of officials in criminal networks enables traffickers to operate in communities and states. Officials in key positions and at many levels use their authority to provide protection to criminal activities. During a two-year investigation of trafficking in women from Russia, the Global Survival Network found evidence of government collaboration in the Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As the influence of criminal networks deepens, the corruption goes beyond an act of occasionally ignoring illegal activity to providing protection by blocking legislation that would hinder the activities of the groups. As law enforcement personnel and government officials become more corrupt and members of the crime groups gain more influence, the line between the state and the criminal networks starts to blur. This merging of criminal networks and the government seems to have occurred in many of the states that have emerged from the Soviet Union. Under these circumstances it is difficult to intervene in the succession of corruption, collaboration, crime and profit.

44. Trafficking in women as a shadow economy does not bring financial prosperity to local communities. The women often end up with nothing, or any money they earn comes at great cost to their health, emotional well being and standing in the community. The money made by the criminal networks does not stay in poor communities or countries, but is laundered through bank accounts of criminal bosses in financial centers, such US, Western European countries or in off-shore accounts. Centered in Moscow and the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, the networks trafficking women run east to Japan and Thailand, where thousands of young Slavic women now work against their will as prostitutes, and west to the Adriatic Coast and beyond. Russian crime gangs based in Moscow control the routes.[145] Israel is a fairly typical destination. Prostitution is not illegal there, and with 250,000 foreign male workers, most of whom are single or here without their wives, the demand is great. Police officials estimate that there are 25,000 paid sexual transactions every day.[146]

45. The efficient, brutal routine endured by trafficked women in dozens of countries, rarely varies. Women are held in apartments, bars and makeshift brothels; there they service, by their own count, as many as 15 clients a day; often they sleep in shifts, four to a bed.[147] Few ever testify against their traffickers. Those who do risk death. In 1998 in Istanbul, Turkey, according to Ukrainian police investigators, two women were thrown to their deaths from a balcony while six of their Russian friends watched. In Serbia, in 1998, said a young Ukrainian woman who escaped in October, a woman who refused to work as a prostitute was beheaded in public.[148] As Senator Sam Nunn has argued, "crime, and particularly organized crime, has become one of the most dangerous forces to arise from the collapse of the Soviet system."[149]

46. In the Newly Independent States of the former Soviet Union, the mafiya has undermined economic reform, aggravated the public's dissatisfaction with their current regimes, and subverted government decisions. Nevertheless, in spite of all the negative effects associated with the presence of the mafiya in these transitional states, several academics and economists, like Yegor Gaidar, Yeltsin's first deputy Prime Minister, maintain that corruption in a market economy is not unprecedented.[150] Despite the fact that the presence of the mafiya in a transitional economy may have certain benefits, and that opportunistic American and other government sponsored advisors participated in the corruption,[151] the reform that would render the mafiya obsolete might never occur, if a transitional government does not take immediate action against the mafiya.

47. Crime and its impact on the development of democracy is the primary concern of many Russian politicians. In April 1994, another Russian Member of Parliament was gunned down in front of his home on the outskirts of Moscow in a gang-style shooting.[152] In commenting on this incident, members of the Duma have expressed their displeasure with having to serve alongside other members of the Duma who are connected, or believed to be connected, to organized crime groups. In fact, Mafiya leaders actually encourage criminals to seek seats in the Duma because of the broad immunity conferred on those elected to the Russian parliament, and it is a well-known fact that a number of individuals have run for office solely to avoid prison sentences.[153]

48. Law enforcement sources report a dramatic increase in this problem over the last two years in the New Jersey and New York area.[154] The Baltic trafficked women in the United States are recruited, managed and transported by Russian Organized Crime (ROC) syndicates into the United States, as in other countries, and used primarily as sex slaves, go-go dancers, and indentured household workers. The Russian mafiya is a very powerful, grave, international threat. Some sources argue it has had the support of international organizations and the United States Agency for International Development contractor Harvard Institute for International Development as a necessary evil in the privatization efforts of newly independent Russia.[155]

49. The United Nations has estimated that 4 million people (both men and women) are trafficked annually, resulting in profits to criminal groups of up to $7 billion.[156] In Russia, a country already suffering from political and economic disaster, it is reported that an estimated 80 percent of the private enterprises and commercial banks are forced to pay a tribute of 10 to 25 percent of their profits to organized crime. They use the banks to launder money and avoid paying taxes desperately needed by the government to pay salaries and debts.[157] All too often we hear of government and military personnel in Russia not being paid for months.[158] To further cripple the economy, these crime groups dominate economic sectors, such as petroleum distribution, pharmaceuticals and consumer products distribution.

50. Law enforcement agencies throughout the United States are now taking the activities of ROC seriously. ROC is spreading rapidly to states like California, Colorado, Illinois, and Florida. One of the reasons for this rapid spread is because ROC in the New York / New Jersey area is forced to pay a "tax" to the La Cosa Nostra (LCN) crime syndicate on the profits they make on illegal activities.[159] There are over 12,000 crime groups in Russia - triple what it was in 1992 - with no sign of slowing down. These groups are getting stronger and stronger and using Russia as the base for their global activities. Currently, there are about 30 ROC syndicates operating in the United States. Many of these ROC groups in the United States continue to have strong ties to organized crime groups in Russia and Ukraine. There was one individual who was sent from Russia "to control all Russian organized crime in the United States and Canada." He is Vyacheslav Ivankov, who is currently serving a 9-year federal prison sentence in New York for extorting $3.5million from two Russian businessmen.[160]

51. Just recently, billions of dollars have been channeled through the Bank of New York in the last year.[161] This is believed to be the largest money laundering operation ever uncovered in the United States.[162] ROC's sophistication poses grave challenges to legislative and law enforcement authorities, and their violent nature has rendered their victims extremely vulnerable. Trafficking in women and children is a global human rights issue that requires a comprehensive response from government and non-government organizations around the world. These organizations have to work on a parallel level to develop anti-trafficking programs. The victims, instead of support, face "prosecution or shocking indifference," says Caldwell of the Global Survival Network.[163] Until now, the trafficking in Russian women has taken a back seat to U.S. law enforcement's efforts to fight such Russian mafiya activities as extortion, medical insurance fraud, and scams to evade gasoline excise taxes. But several important cases have recently demonstrated the possible connection between the trafficking in women and other forms of racketeering, according to Justice Department sources.[164]

52. Ukrainian-American police management consultant, Walter Zalisko, recommends that United States policy should do more for trafficking victims.[165] The next session of the UN Transnational Crimes Commission is to discuss and debate the Trafficking in Persons Protocol during the week of February 28-March 3, 2000. There is to be an "informal meeting" on the Trafficking in Persons Protocol from January 17-28 from which NGOs have been excluded. Other sessions at which the Trafficking in Persons Protocol is to be discussed during the week of June 12-16 and during the week of July 24-28 2000. There will also be a four week session in October, 2000, with all these sessions taking place at the United Nations in Vienna. The United States is pushing for this Convention and its Protocols to be finished quickly by the end of the year 2000. Many NGOs and governments want to do away with the 1949 Convention arguing that it is "ineffective, regressive, outmoded and moralistic." Barring that, they want to supersede it with this new Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the Trafficking in Persons Protocol.

53. Ever since the UN Declaration on Violence against Women and the Platform of Action[166] emerging from the 4th World Women's Conference in Beijing, "forced prostitution" has been the language advocated in UN circles. The sex industry can only benefit from this terminology since it helps shield pimps and profiteers from prosecution and goes a long way toward making pimping legitimate.

54. The United Nations has recognized trafficking as a form of slavery and violence against women. It has also been condemned by numerous international human rights documents.[167] Moreover, because trafficking is a problem that transcends national borders, it demands a trans-national response. Collaborative relationships must be formed between the "sending countries" of the former Eastern Bloc, Asia, Africa and Latin America, and "receiving countries" in the wealthier nations of North America and Western Europe. What governments have failed to understand, or have chosen to ignore, is that trafficking is a contravention of basic human rights that has been condemned by an array of international conventions, treaties, and other instruments. Furthermore, practices routinely used by traffickers, such as debt bondage, threats, intimidation, and withholding of wages are illegal under national laws. A trafficked person must be treated not as a criminal but as a fully empowered human being. If each government focused on these human rights abuses when they are inflicted on foreign women residing within their national borders, they would be addressing fundamental human rights violations associated with trafficking operations. A broader, more consistent approach to stopping the traffic in women is clearly needed. State action in and of itself is only part of the solution, It is therefore important that any attempt to curb trafficking addresses not only law enforcement and immigration authorities, but the need to educate women worldwide.

    Trafficking and International Law and Institutions

55. Trafficking of women is symptomatic of the globalized world economic order and socio-political climate polarizations, corruption, and tensions. The global landscape continues to be defined by a constellation of dependent relationships, and intractable forces of change continue to create violations and inequities. The credibility of the rule of law appears ineffective to alleviate oppressions and address criminal networks around the globe. Alongside the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few non-governmental authorities, sprout human rights campaigns and documents aspiring to the protection of human dignity. Although there is a steadily evolving global culture of adherence to human rights standards, breaches and abuses remain flagrant and deplorable. An obvious constraint on the international human rights regime lies in the nature of those who govern, and the nature of conciliatory power. Although common interests and the adverse repercussions of flagrant abuse in the international arena generally motivate sovereign States to fulfill their treaty obligations in good faith, systematic reliance on the political will and cooperation of the States is clearly insufficient. Governments have a long history of disparity between the theory and practice of their pronouncements and ideals. So do individuals. The complexities of the trafficking issue underscores the fact that there is as much a need to develop effective implementation mechanisms for the protection of human rights as there is to proclaim those rights. While legal rights do exert some influence, they are essentially dependent variables. Even when accompanied by stiff mechanisms that monitor reception and implementation, they have a limited capacity to compel any particular course of action. Rights impose correlative duties on others to refrain from acting against the interests of the persons holding the rights. Hence, human rights are of practical significance only if corresponding legal obligations are established. By the same token, unless a duty can be effectively enforced, it is merely a voluntary obligation subject to the whim of the addressee. Given the decentralized character of the world arena and the complexity of most of the issues it handles, the ideals and objectives of socio-legal reform require implementation measures that are both more aggressive and independent from existing power structures.

56. Global problems are those that by their very nature transcend the capacity of the nation-state to deal with them effectively as an independent entity. For instance, global threats to the environment; massive, persistent gross violation of human rights; and the protection and use of natural resources in the global commons are problems that are far beyond the capabilities of even the strongest nation-states.[168] The U.N. may have a constructive role to play as a forum for the determination of the public interest of the globalizing international community, as the main U.N. organs have directly contributed to promoting the international "public interest", a notion well-known in domestic public law.[169] The U.N.'s role in promoting participation of non-state Actors in international lawmaking, dispute resolution, and forming a network of global governance, can also be directed to solving trafficking and corruption problems. There is a need to develop a global legal framework in order to curb the power and influence of such global actors as corrupt governments, multinational corporations (MNCs) and powerful interest groups. The U.N.-initiated code of conduct for MNCs is an early example for what is advocated as the U.N.'s legislative role in dealing with certain global problems.[170]

57. Finally, The role of the U.N. in promoting the progressive development of interactions in the field of global concerns can also be applied to trafficking: promoting the understanding of public interest norms such as erga omnes and/or jus cogens norms.[171] If humankind is to survive, the global challenges such as effective global environmental protection, prevention of gross violations of human rights such as trafficking in women and children, and starvation, torture, must be addressed. "The ability of individual States, particularly the larger ones, to choose freely to opt out of a global governance for survival, cannot be viewed as compatible with the notion of a legal order. Given the record of the U.N. General Assembly in promoting the notion of international public interest as a legitimizing factor in the pursuance of vital interests of the international community, it could also play an important role in reconsidering and reshaping the very basis of the international legal order itself and making it fit to be the normative framework, not only of a system of self-interested States, but of that of an emerging global society."[172] They can try these traffickers ala Pinochet[173] and view trafficking as crimes against peace and against humanity.[174]

58. Although the clandestine and criminal nature hides the actual incidence of trafficking, it is perceived to be a growing problem since its root causes, (poverty, scarce resources, lack of opportunities for and low status of women, and political and economic instability, as well as the growth of networks of trans-border organized crime), continue to be global factors. Strategies to address these root factors should be facilitated and supported by the United Nations and its Member States, and at the same time measures should be strengthened to discourage traffickers, protect those who are vulnerable to trafficking, offer legal, physical and psychological protection and empowerment to victims of trafficking, and address the futures of women and children who have been victims of trafficking. States should accord the highest priority to crime prevention and law enforcement policies in relation to this issue. They should ensure that specific offences related to trafficking exist and are widely and clearly defined, and that the penalties for these offences adequately reflect their gravity. International, regional, sub-regional and bilateral intergovernmental agreements should be formulated and enforced in order to ensure and facilitate the prosecution of offenders, irrespective of location. States should introduce legislation incorporating extra-territorial jurisdiction to facilitate the prosecution of traffickers, as well as clear extradition procedures for trafficking-related offences. Measures should also be introduced to allow confiscation of the criminal revenue of trafficking networks. Judicial cooperation and information sharing between Member States should be encouraged and facilitated.

59. Measures to encourage victims of trafficking to identify traffickers and act as witnesses in criminal prosecutions should also be explored. These might include restrictions on deportation where victims are prepared to act as witnesses, and witness protection measures. Victims of trafficking should have access to legal, psychological and medical assistance. Victims of trafficking should be awarded compensation through criminal compensation schemes, which could be financed through the confiscated criminal revenue of traffickers. Intergovernmental agreements to guarantee the voluntary and safe return of women and ensure that protection and support is provided to trafficked women awaiting repatriation proceedings should be elaborated. The human rights of victims should be assured and steps should be taken to ensure they are not criminalized or imprisoned. Bilateral agreements obliging cooperation between local immigration officials and consulates to assist trafficked women should be developed and publicized. Measures to guarantee the voluntary and safe return of trafficked women should be put in place, and any barriers for trafficked women to return to their countries, with or without passports or identification documents, should be eliminated. Broad efforts to strengthen training and public awareness of civil servants dealing with migration, particularly those at embassies and consulates and those in charge of the delivery of visas, should be increased, and Governments should train law enforcement officials at all levels with respect to trafficking, violence against women and recognition of trafficking situations, including identification of front companies and groups. Broad-based ongoing educational and awareness-raising campaigns, including the media, to combat domestic and international trafficking should be introduced nationally, regionally, regionally and internationally. Vulnerable groups should be particularly targeted and community-based strategies employed. Relevant cases and evidence should be collected, shared, and the modus operandi of traffickers should be encouraged so as to provide a concrete basis for legal and policy change.

    Conclusion

60. By all means, strategies aimed at trafficking should focus on trafficking and the criminal nature of this activity and those involved in this conduct, rather than on the activity of the victims of trafficking, whose human rights should be assured.

Notes

[1] For excellent links go to Q Web http://www.qweb.kvinnoforum.se/trafficking/links.html, and for exhaustive resources and papers go to Women's Human Rights Resources at http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/Diana/; See generally Bassiouni, Cherif M Enslavement as an International Crime, 23 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLITICS, 445-517 (1991);Brussa, Lica, SURVEY ON PROSTITUTION, MIGRATION AND TRAFFIC IN WOMEN: HISTORY AND CURRENT SITUATION (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1991) See also Dolgopol, Ustinia, Women's Voices, Women's Pain, 17 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY, 127-54 (1995). The author was a member of an mission sent by the International Commission of Jurists to the Philippines, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the Democratic People's of Korea to interview government officials and victims of military sexual slavery; See also Hsu, Yvonne Park, "Comfort Women" from Korea: Japan's World War II Sex Slaves and the Legitimacy of Their Claims for Reparations, 2 PACIFIC RIM LAW AND POLITICS JOURNAL, 97-129 (1993). See also Lassen, Nina, Slavery and Slaverylike Practices: United Nations Standards and Implementation, 57 NORDIC JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, 197-227 (1988); See also Parker, Karen & Chew, Jennifer, Compensation for Japan's World War II War Rape Victims, 17 HASTINGS INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW REVIEW, 497-549 (1994); See also Toepfer, Susan J. & Wells, Bryan S., The Worldwide Market for Sex: A Review of International and Regional Legal Prohibitions Regarding Trafficking in Women, 2 MICHIGAN JOURNAL OF GENDER AND LAW, (1994), 83-128; See also Yu, Tong Reparations for Former Comfort Women of World War II, 36 HARVARD INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL, 528-40 (1995). Zoglin, Kathryn, United Nation Action Against Slavery: A Critical Evaluation, 8 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY, 306-39 (1986).

[2] See Specter infra note 12.

[3] Id.

[4] See Zalisko infra note 72.

[5] See, e.g., infra notes 27, 31 and 154.

[6] U.S.-EU Joint Initiative To Prevent Trafficking in Women Fact Sheet released by the Bureau of European and Canadian Affairs December 5, 1997. The U.S.-EU initiative featured an information campaign aimed at warning potential victims of methods used by traffickers. The U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration has provided funding to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to develop and implement an information campaign in Ukraine see infra note 10. The European Commission has contracted La Strada, a Polish non-government organization with previous experience in this field, to develop and implement a similar campaign in Poland. La Strada is now very active in Ukraine see http://www.brama.com

[7] Recommendations on Trade in Human Beings - Council Press Release 10550/93 of 29-30 November 1993.

[8] Report on Trafficking in Human Beings of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, Rapporteur Mrs. Maria Paola Colombo Svevo, of 14 December 1995, A4-0326/95.

[9] The IOM (International Organisation for Migration) estimates that some 500,000 women were trafficked in 1995, most of them illegally, to the countries of the EU, and research by the NGO International Campaign to End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (EPCAT) recently observed clear trends involving large numbers of women and girls from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus being transported westwards. IOM, as an inter-governmental migration organization, has identified combating trafficking in women as one of its priority action areas. Within its mandate, IOM is committed to, and has focused particularly on, addressing violence against women at two stages in the process: firstly, through prevention before victimization occurs, by organizing information campaigns in areas of origin, and secondly, through assistance to those who have already suffered the consequences, in the form of rescue and rehabilitation. At the same time, IOM has also sought to provide a forum for discussion among governments on such issues, with the aim of fostering and coordinating measures to combat trafficking Moreover, at the EU's request, IOM organized the Conference on Trafficking in Women to countries of the European Union which the EU held in Vienna in1996. - the STOP Programme - which sets out to combat trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation in EU member States. With regard to countries of origin, information dissemination programs are an important part of IOM's action to work on the prevention side of the equation women. Figures reported by national NGOs also suggest an increasing number of women originating in Central and Eastern Europe. What are the causes? IOM studies indicate that the causes of migration related to trafficking in women can be found, inter alia, in the lack of opportunity in the countries of origin, extreme poverty in many developing countries and marginalisation of women in the source countries. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) conducted a survey of 1,189 women and girls, aged 15 to 35, in ten urban regions of Ukraine. The purpose was to assess women's attitudes and intentions toward migration. The IOM concluded that 40 percent of the women in Ukraine are at risk of becoming victims of trafficking mainly due to their interest in emigrating or seeking employment abroad. Although many young women are eager to travel to seek jobs, prostitution was viewed as absolutely unacceptable. When asked if "a job in the sex industry" was an "acceptable job abroad," none of the women and girls in any age group (Ages 15-17, 18-19, 20-24, 25-15) said yes. When asked if being a "dancer" or "stripper" was an "acceptable job abroad," however, all of the girls aged 15-17 indicated that it was, while none of the older women said yes." Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe," IOM, May 1995)[hereinafter IOM study]. Poor or non-existent education is also of critical importance, and in areas where unemployment is high, women tend to be more severely affected than men. It also appears that demand for "exotic" prostitutes is growing, and women from countries that have a sex tourism industry are more likely to be trafficked abroad. Increasingly strong organized crime networks also act both to stimulate demand, and to lure potential victims into the trade. Which countries are involved? It appears that trafficked women come from almost all over the world: more from some regions and countries than others. For example, Ghana, Nigeria and Morocco in Africa, Brazil and Colombia in Latin America, the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, and the Philippines and Thailand in South East Asia appear to be particularly affected. IOM research also shows that there are well-established links between certain source and host countries. Furthermore, after the emergence of the New Independent States and the fall of the Berlin wall, it has been noted that a large number of Central and East European countries have become source and/or transit countries. The flow is towards industrialized countries, and involves, to a greater or lesser extent, all EU Members. See Trafficking in Women for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation: Mapping the Situation and Existing Organisations Working in Belarus, Russia, the Baltic and Nordic States by the Foundation of Women's Forum/Stiftelsen Kvinnoforum, Stockholm, August 1998 [hereinafter Swedish study].

[10] See, e.g., Alliance Against Traffic in Women (GAATW), Removing the Whore Stigma: Report on the Asia and Pacific Regional Consultation on Prostitution (Bangkok, Thailand: GAATW, 1997). GAATW, Practical Guide to Assisting Trafficked Women (Bangkok, Thailand: GAATW, 1997). GAATW, Regional Meeting on Trafficking in Women, Forced Labor, and Slavery-like Practice in Asia and Pacific (Bangkok, Thailand: GAATW, 1997). Global Survival Network (GSN), Crime & Servitude: An Expose of the Traffic of Women for Prostitution from the Newly Independent States (Washington, D.C.: GSN, 1997). GSN, Trafficking of NIS Women Abroad: Moscow Conference Report (Washington, D.C.: GSN, 1998)[hereinafter GSN study]. Human Rights Watch, Women's Rights Project, Trafficking of Women and Girls into Forced Prostitution and Coerced Marriage (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1995). Human Rights Watch, Women's Rights Project, Asia Watch, A Modern Form of Slavery: Trafficking of Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993). Siriporn Skrobanek, Nattaya Boonpakdee and Chutima Jantateero, The Traffic in Women: Human Realities of the International Sex Trade (Bangkok, Thailand: Foundation for Women, 1997). Marjan Wijers and Lin Lap-Chew, Trafficking in Women, Forced Labour and Slavery-like Practices in Marriage, Domestic Labour and Prostitution (The Netherlands: Foundation Against Trafficking/STV, 1997). Bruno, Ellen. Sacrifice: The Story of Child Prostitutes from Burma. 50 minute documentary.

[11] Specter, Michael. Contraband Women -- A special report. Traffickers' New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women. The New York Times. January 11, 1998; see also Kanics, Jyothi. Foreign Policy in Focus: Trafficking in Women. Global Survival Network Vol. 3, No 30 October1998; see also Pope, Victoria "Trafficking in women: Procuring Russians for sex abroad--even in America " US News and World Report Online, http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/970407/7ring.htm (April 7, 1997).

[12] See generally Gennady M. Danilenko Implementation of International Law in CIS States: Theory and Practice 10 Eur. Jnl. Intl Law 1 (1999)(the entire first 9 years of the Journal are now available in full text on the Journal website www.ejil.org.); See also Futey, Bohdan (Judge Futey gave an excellent presentation on the legal challenges facing Ukraine at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute in November 1999. See generally The American Bar Association Central and Eastern European Law Initiative at http://www.abanet.org/ceeli/home.html

[13] Irene Jarosewich, "Reports on Trafficking of Women in Europe: Most who Seek Rescue are from Ukraine," The Ukrainian Weekly, August 9, 1998, No. 32, Vol. LXVI http://www.ukrweekly.com/Archive/1998/329802.shtml. The largest number of women in Europe who seek to be rescued from forced prostitution and other forced sexual activity are from Ukraine, according to statistics from European police reports. Therefore, first from among all the republics of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine was chosen as the country in which to open a field office of the international anti-trafficking organization La Strada. Kateryna Levchenko is the national coordinator of La Strada-Ukraine.

[14] The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has carried out an Information Campaign in Ukraine as part of a joint US-EU Initiative on Prevention of Trafficking in Women. In order to establish a sound basis for its information dissemination activities, IOM conducted research in regions across Ukraine and gathered first-hand information on the problem of trafficking in women as well as the profile of potential victims. The report is an analysis of the surveys and interviews carried out in ten regions of Ukraine as part of the research activities. Documents related to the information campaign against trafficking in women from Ukraine: Information Campaign Against Trafficking in Women from Ukraine Research report - July 1998; Trafficking and Prostitution: The Growing Exploitation of Migrant Women from Central and Eastern Europe, (MIP) May 1995. Available on line at IOM website http://www.iom.int/iom/Publications/books_studies_surveys.htm#trafficking [hereinafter IOM study]

[15] General Assembly Distr.: General 1 September 1998 Original: English. Fifty-third session Agenda item 103 Advancement of women: Trafficking in women and girls Report of the Secretary-General Summary Pursuant to General Assembly resolution 52/98 of 12 December 1997, the present report provides information about steps taken within several forums of the United Nations, as well as regionally and nationally, to implement the recommendations for action contained in that resolution. The report identifies areas where further efforts are needed.

[16] Jyothi Kanics, Global Survival Network Editors: Tom Barry (IRC) and Martha Honey (IPS) In Focus; Trafficking In Women 3 In Focus 30 (October 1998) on line at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol3/v3n30wom.html; See also Specter supra note 12.

[17] Specter supra note 12 .

[18] See generally Zillah Eisenstein, "Stop Stomping on the Rest of Us: Retrieving Publicness from the Privatization of the Globe", 4 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 59 (1996) and Susan H. Williams, "Globalization, Privatization, and a Feminist Public," 4 Ind. J.Global Legal Stud. 97 (1996) (arguing the process of globalization is leading to increasing privatization, and that privatization, compounds to substantial suffering for women globally.) "Globalization" as the process through which forces and persons that transcend national boundaries shape the quality of life and law within nations. Multinational corporations are one of the major actors in globalization. Globalization is also driven by economic forces other than transnational corporations (e.g., the interrelationship of monetary systems) and noneconomic forces which cross national boundaries and destroy economic assets (e.g., the destruction of the environment, the transmission of diseases).

[19] With the globalization of public health and looking at the global problems posed by infectious diseases, a case can be made for the need for the mobilization of public health efforts in connection with health effects and diseases caused by trafficking. This transnational health issue should be a matter of great concern. See James Grant Snell, Mandatory HIV Testing and Prostitution: The World's Oldest Profession and the World's Newest Deadly Disease, 45 Hastings L.J. 1565, 1568 (1994). See e.g., David P. Fidler, Globalization, International Law, and Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2 Emerging Infectious Diseases 77 (Apr.-June1996); David P. Fidler, Mission Impossible? International Law and Infectious Diseases, 10 Temp. Int'l & Comp. L.J. 493 (1996); David P. Fidler, Return of the Fourth Horseman: Emerging Infectious Diseases and International Law, 81 Minn. L. Rev. 771 (1997); David P. Fidler, The Role of International Law in the Control of Emerging Infectious Diseases, 95 Bull. de l'Institut Pasteur 57 (1997). Jeffrey Dunoff, From Green to Global: Toward the Transformation of International Environmental Law,

[19] Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 241(1995). The Institute of Medicine defined "public health" as "organized community efforts aimed at the prevention of disease and promotion of health. It links many disciplines and rests upon the scientific core of epidemiology." Institute of Med., The Future of Public Health 41 (1988)[hereinafter Future of Public Health]. Epidemiology is "[t]he branch of medicine that deals with the incidence and transmission of disease in populations, especially with the aim of controlling it . . . ." The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 836 (1993). Seth F. Berkley, AIDS in the Global Village: Why U.S. Physicians Should Care About HIV Outside the United States, 268 JAMA 3368, 3369 (Dec. 16,1992) (stating that the distinction between domestic and international health is obsolete); James W. LeDuc, World Health Organization Strategy for Emerging Infectious Diseases, 275 JAMA 318, 318 (Jan. 24, 1996) ("national health has become an international challenge"); George A. Gellert et al., The Obsolescence of Distinct Domestic and International Health Sectors, 10 J. Pub. Health Pol'y 421,421 (1989) ("traditional and historical bases for differentiating domestic and international health in Western nations have . . .lost meaning"). The Institute of Medicine noted that in the United States "the earliest definition of public health's mission was . . . control of epidemic disease." Although the concept of public health has broadened to include more than the control of infectious diseases, this goal remains a fundamental element of public health strategies in the United States and at the World Health Organization see World Health Organization, World Health Report 1996: Fighting Disease, Fostering Development (1996) [hereinafter World Health Report 1996]. In addition, as the Institute of Medicine points out, the role of the government in public health is "indispensable.". Fidler, Globalization, International Law, and Emerging Infectious Diseases, supra at 78 (arguing that public health policy has been denationalized because a country cannot tackle emerging infectious diseases by itself); Laurie Garrett, The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance 263 (1994) (noting the unprecedented scale of multiple-partnering during the late twentieth century). See also World Health Report 1996, at 17 (stating that "[i]ncreases in the number of sexual partners have been the main factor in the spread of HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases"). World Health Report 1996, at 33 (stating that the WHO estimates "that at least 333 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases, other than HIV infection, occurred in 1995"). By the year 2000, twenty-six million adults will be infected with HIV worldwide. Id. at 31. The WHO notes, for example, that "tuberculosis has formed a lethal partnership with HIV." Id. at 27; see generally Mary E. Wilson, Travel and the Emergence of Infectious Diseases, 1 Emerging Infectious Diseases 39 (Apr.-June 1995); See also Summary: The Global Burden of Disease: A Comprehensive Assignment of Mortality and Disability from Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors in 1990 and Projected to 2020 32 (Christopher J.L. Murray & Alan D. Lopez eds., 1996) [hereinafter Global Burden of Disease]. Allyn L. Taylor, Making the World Health Organization Work: A Legal Framework for Universal Access to the Conditions for Health, 18Am. J.L. & Med. 301, 302 (1992). The U.S. Department of State, for example, has argued that HIV/AIDS alone "threatens the sustainable development of many countries." U.S. Department of State, United States International Strategy on HIV/AIDS (Dept. of State Pub. 10296) (Sept. 1995), at 1 [hereinafter U.S. International Strategy on HIV/AIDS]. See also Confronting a Calamity, 31 UN Chron., June 1994, at 48, 49 (stating that AIDS "threatens to undermine development efforts, depleting workforces and striking many sectors of the economy").

[20] Dorchen Leidholdt Position Paper of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Coalition Against Trafficking in Women http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw/posit1.htm

[21] Forms of privatization arise by this process of globalization. Economic privatization is encouraged. Economic privatization is the abdication of public responsibility for the economic welfare of the people. Eisenstein supra note 19 points to moves to deregulate workplaces and to cut back on welfare programs--including medical coverage for the poor and elderly and vaccinations for children--as typical of this abdication. Economic privatization is related to the fact that "[t]ransnational capital needs privatization of multiple publics." Multinational corporations do not wish to bother with a different regulatory and administrative systems in the different countries in which they function. The corporations can choose to locate their operations where they are least likely to be hindered by laws, thus generating a race to the bottom: countries must compete for corporate capital by reducing regulations that serve the welfare of their people in order to pander to the corporations. See also A Citizen's Guide to the World Trade Organization by the Working Group on the WTO/MAI July 1999, available at http://www.Citizen.org/pctrade/gattwto/gatthome.html (arguing how the WTO favors deregulation at the expense of health, labor and the environment); See also Jean Grossholtz, Globalization-What it Means for Activists in Peacework Issue 299 at 9 (October 1999). Political privatization is another form. The increasingly global scope of issues, forces, and institutions affecting persons leads to a decrease of the significance of the local and national political arenas in which they exercise citizen rights. People respond to this change by focusing more on the individual material consumption made possible by global markets and less of their attention on the construction of a collective social world. In other words, globalization encourages people to see themselves as private consumers rather than as public citizens. See Eisenstein supra note 19, See also Alfred C. Aman, Jr., Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies: "An Introduction", 1 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 1, 1-2 (1993); Jost Delbrück, "Globalization of Law, Politics, and Markets--Implications for Domestic Law--A European Perspective," 1 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 9, 10-11 (1993); See Katherine Van Wezel Stone, Labor and the Global Economy: Four Approaches to Transnational Labor Regulation, 16 Mich. J. Int'l L. 987, 989 (1995). Contemporary observers have argued that many of the forces of modern life, including but not limited to globalization, have a similar effect. Cf. Michael Sandel, Democracy's Discontent 200-08 (1996) (the increasing scale and complexity of twentieth century life has led to "the loss of a public realm within which men and women could deliberate about their common destiny"). Alfred C. Aman, Jr. has pointed out that globalization "means different things in different contexts . . . ." Alfred C. Aman, Jr., An Introduction, 1 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 1, 1 (1993). See, e.g., Benedict Kingsbury, TheTuna-Dolphin Controversy, The World Trade Organization, and the Liberal Project to Reconceptualize International Law, 5 Y.B. Int'l Env. L.1, 4 (1994) ( "'[g]lobalization' may have many different meanings"). Delbrück, supra argues that globalization "denotes a process of denationalization of clusters of political, economic and social activities." Jost Delbrück, Globalization of Law, Politics, and Markets--Implications for Domestic Law--A European Perspective, 1 Ind. J.Global Legal Stud. 9, 11 (1993). See also Gordon R. Walker & Mark A. Fox, Globalization: An Analytical Framework, 3 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 375, 380 (1996) ( "[t]he key feature which underlies the concept of globalization . . . is the irrelevance of national boundaries in markets ").

[22] See Swedish Study supra note 10; IOM study supra note 10; Specter supra note 12.

[23] Specter supra note 12.

[24] Specter supra note 12.

[25] The resolution, which was introduced in 1998, states: on Trafficking, "involves one or more forms of kidnapping, false imprisonment, rape, battering, forced labor, or slavery-like practices which violate fundamental human rights." " Trafficking consists of all acts involved in the recruitment or transportation of persons within or across borders, involving deception, coercion or force, abuse of authority, debt bondage or fraud, for the purpose of placing persons in situations of abuse or exploitation such as forced prostitution, battering and extreme cruelty, sweatshop labor or exploitative domestic servitude." U.S. Senate Resolution 82.

[26] FORTY SECOND SESSION THE COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMENSTATEMENT BY MRS. NARCISA ESCALER Deputy Director General ITEM 3(c): FOLLOW-UP TO THE FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN New York, 2 March 1998 STATEMENT BY THE INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MIGRATION (IOM) TO THE COMMISSION ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN

[27] Id.

[28] For many migrants who struggle to escape poverty or political and social insecurity, and are insufficiently aware of the pitfalls of irregular migration, it seems worth paying a fee to try their luck, allowing their dream for a better life to be exploited by traffickers. Yet in many instances, trafficked migrants are misled by erroneous information on conditions and driven by economic despair or large-scale violence. In such cases, the migrant's freedom of choice is so seriously impaired that the voluntariness of the transaction must be questioned. IOM supra note 10. On the issue of voluntariness see e.g. , Catharine A. MacKinnon, Prostitution and Civil Rights, Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, Volume 1: 13-31 (1993). (arguing that women in prostitution are denied every imaginable civil right, prostitution as consisting in the denial of women's humanity, no matter how humanity is defined). The legal right to be free from torture and cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment is recognized by most nations and is internationally guaranteed. In prostitution, women are tortured through repeated rape and in all the more conventionally recognized ways. Women are prostituted precisely in order to be degraded and subjected to cruel and brutal treatment without human limits; it is the opportunity to do this that is exchanged when women are bought and sold for sex. Pointing to a study of street prostitutes in Toronto (Fry infra)which found that about ninety percent of prostitutes wanted to leave but could not, MacKinnon persuasively argues that if they cannot leave, they are sexual slaves. Id. MacKinnon writes " The Thirteenth Amendment, which applies whether or not the state is involved, may help. The Thirteenth Amendment prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude. It, and its implementing statutes, was passed to invalidate the chattel slavery of African-Americans and kindred social institutions. Its language that slavery "shall [not] exist" gives support to its affirmative elimination. The Thirteenth Amendment has been applied to invalidate a range of arrangements of forced labor and exploitative servitude. The slavery of African-Americans is not the first or last example of enslavement, although it has rightly been one of the most notorious. To apply the Thirteenth Amendment to prostitution is not to equate prostitution with the chattel slavery of African-Americans but to draw on common features of institutions of forcible inequality in the context of the Thirteenth Amendment's implementation. Compared with slavery of African-Americans, prostitution is older, more pervasive across cultures, does not include as much non-sexual exploitation, and is based on sex, and sex and race combined. " Id. (Catharine A. MacKinnon is Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. She engineered the legal claim for sexual harassment as sex discrimination and is currently representing women and children survivors of genocidal rape and prostitution in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina). See also ELIZABETH FRY, SOCIETY OF TORONTO, STREETWORK OUTREACH WITH ADULT FEMALE STREET PROSTITUTES 13 (May 1987) ("Approximately 90% of the women contacted indicated they wished to stop working on the streets at some point, but felt unable or unclear above how to even begin this process. U.S. CONST. amend. XIII. § 1 ("Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."); See also Robertson v. Baldwin, 165 U.S. 275, 282 (1897) (Justice Brown said that "involuntary servitude" was added to "slavery" to cover the peonage of Mexicans and the trade in Chinese labor); Butler v. Perry, 240 U.S. 328, 332 (1916) ("[T]he term involuntary servitude was intended to cover those forms of compulsory labor akin to African slavery which in practical operation would tend to produce like undesirable results."); See Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U.S. 219, 241 (1911) ("[T]he words involuntary servitude have a 'larger meaning than slavery."') (quoting The Slaughter-House Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36, 69 (1872)). Also the Ninth Circuit has stated: [Y]esterday's slave may be today's migrant worker or domestic servant. Today's involuntary servitor is not always black; he or she may just as well be Asian, Hispanic, or a member of some other minority group. Also, the methods of subjugating people's wills have changed from blatant slavery to more subtle, if equally effective, forms of coercion. United States v. Mussry, 726 F.2d 1448, 1451-52 (9th Cir. 1984) cert. denied, 469 U.S. 855 (1984). United States v. Kozminski, 487 U.S. 931, 949-50 (1988). For an analysis of combined psychological and economic coercion, see United States v. Shackney, 333 F.2d 475 (2d Cir. 1964). See Kozminski, 487 U.S. at 952 (mental retardation); United States v. King, 840 F.2d 1276 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 894 (1988) (children); United States v. Mussry, 726 F.2d 1448, 1450 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 855 (1984) (non-English speaking, passports withheld, paid little money for services); Bernal v. United States, 241 F. 339, 341 (5th Cir.1917), cert. denied, 245 U.S. 672 (1918) (alienage without support, "did not know her way about town"). "Indentured servitude has long been legally prohibited in the United States, even prior to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. In interpreting the Thirteenth Amendment in contemporary peonage contexts, courts have been far less concerned with whether the condition was voluntarily entered and far more with whether the subsequent service was involuntary. That victims believe they have no viable alternative but to serve in the ways in which they are being forced has also supported a finding of coercion, and with it the conclusion that the condition is one of enslavement. Involuntary servitude has embraced situations in which a person has made a difficult but rational decision to remain in bondage. If the legal standards for involuntary servitude developed outside the sexual context are applied to the facts of prostitution, the situations of most of the women in it are clearly prohibited. In prostitution, human beings are bought and sold as chattel for use in "distinctly personal service.")" MacKinnon supra nn. 40-46

[29] The devastating psychological effects on trafficked women are immeasurable. Suicides are common, sexually transmitted diseases are being spread at a faster rate, and the death toll due to HIV/AIDS is rising dramatically. In Ukraine alone, there has been a 440% increase in reported cases of HIV/AIDS in the last two years. In a country where modern medical care is virtually unknown, this death problem is catastrophic. See Zalisko infra note 72. The New York Times reported that the "selling of naive and desperate young women into sexual bondage has become one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises in the robust global economy." Specter supra note 12. In a November 1997 address in Lviv, Ukraine, First Lady Hillary Clinton denounced trafficking in women as a fundamental "violation of human rights...nothing less than modern slavery." Mrs. Clinton added that, "the U.S. Government has now identified Russian Organized Crime and this problem as a priority issue." Quoted in Zalisko infra note 72. But isn't that what the Ukrainian community has been telling them for years? An example of this global problem is the recent arrest of "Peter G., a German citizen, on 36charges of trafficking in human beings, promoting prostitution and bribery. He had at least 30 Slavic women working for him in brothels he owned, and police suspect he was responsible for trafficking up to 600 women and young girls under false pretenses. One of Peter G.'s victims was a 15-year old girl, who answered an ad for a baby-sitter in America", and stated that two men confiscated her passport, raped and beat her, and forced her to have sex with as many as twenty clients a day. Another example is the case of a young woman in Monmouth County (NJ) who was hired as a homemaker. The young woman was not allowed to leave the house, telephone family in Ukraine, or go shopping unescorted. She was sexually assaulted by the homeowner when his wife was not home, and threatened if she were to expose these assaults. She was told that the police would not believe her, and that if she did happen to contact the police they would imprison her and subsequently deport her. Cited in Zalisko infra note 72. Not all trafficked women wind up as go-go dancers or prostitutes. Many find themselves in jobs we might believe are perfectly legitimate. The job itself may be legitimate, but the conditions under which the women work are not. In most cases the woman's passport is taken away, she is not permitted contact with the outside world, wages are typically below minimum wage, no medical benefits are provided, and most often she is required to work at least 18 hours a day. The very same people whom they have come to trust often victimize them in the home. This form of enslavement is no less insidious than one in which the woman is forced into sexual slavery and all her personal freedoms and choices are denied. Some Walter's article For data on rape in prostitution, see Leidholdt, infra note 44; See also Mimi H. Silbert & Ayala M. Pines, Occupational Hazards of Street Prostitutes, 8 CRIM. JUST BEHAV. 395, 397 (1981) (70% of San Francisco street prostitutes reported rape by clients an average of 31 times); COUNCIL FOR PROSTITUTION ALTERNATIVES, 1991 ANNUAL REPORT 4 (48% of prostitutes were raped by pimps an average of 16 times a year, 79% by johns an average of 33 times a year). For data on beatings, see COUNCIL FOR PROSTITUTION ALTERNATIVES, supra at 4 (63% were beaten by pimps an average of 58 times a year). For data on mortality, see PORNOGRAPHYAND PROSTITUTION IN CANADA: REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON PORNOGRAPHY AND PROSTITUTION, VOLUME II 350 (1985) (finding that in Canada the mortality rate for prostituted women is 40 times the national average); Leidholdt, infra note 44 at 138 n.15 (the Justice Department estimates that a third of the over 4,000 women killed by serial murderers in 1982 were prostitutes). See Mimi H. Silbert & Ayala M. Pines, Entrance into Prostitution, 13 YOUTH & SOCIETY 471, 479 (1982) (60% of prostitutes were sexually abused in childhood); Leidholdt, infra note 44 , at 136 n.4 (quoting MIMI SILBERT, SEXUAL ASSAULT OF PROSTITUTES: PHASE ONE 40 (1980)) (66% of subjects are sexually assaulted by father or father figure); THE COUNCIL FOR PROSTITUTION ALTERNATIVES, 1991 ANNUAL REPORT 3 (85% of clients have histories of sexual abuse in childhood, 70% most frequently by their fathers). For a discussion of the "voluntariness" illusion, see Leidholdt, infra note 44 at 136-138.

[30] See generally Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Sept. 3, 1981, 1249 U.N.T.S. 14.; International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic of Women and Children, Sept. 30, 1921-Mar. 31, 1922, 9 L.N.T.S. 415; Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, Mar. 19, 1950, 96 U.N.T.S. 271; International Agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, Mar. 18, 1904, 35 Stat. 1979, 1 L.N.T.S. 83; International Convention for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic, May 4, 1910, 211 Consol. T.S. 45; International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women in the Full Age, Oct. 11, 1933, 150 L.N.T.S. 431; Human Rights Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery (25 Sep 26); and Protocol (7 Dec 53)Convention Concerning Forced Labor (28 Jun 30)Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). The United Nations Convention Concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize (9 Jul 48); Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (9 Dec 48);Convention Concerning the Application of the Principles of the Right to Organize and to Bargain Collectively (1 Jul49);Geneva Convention (I) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field. (12 Aug 49);Geneva Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members of Armed Forces at Sea (12 Aug 49)Geneva Convention (III) Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (12 Aug 49);Geneva Convention (IV) Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (12 Aug 49); Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (21 Mar50);European Convention on Human Rights (4 Nov 50); Convention on the Political Rights of Women (31 Mar 53); Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (7 Sep 56); Convention Concerning the Abolition of Forced Labor (25 Jun 1957); International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (7 Mar 66); International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (16 Dec 66).International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (16 Dec 66); and Optional Protocol Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (31 Jan 67); American Convention on Human Rights (22 Nov 69); Convention Concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment (26 Jun 73); Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (18 Dec 81); Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (10 Dec 84).Convention on the Rights of the Child (20 Nov 89); International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of all Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (18Dec 90); Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (1992), International Indian Treaty Council Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (29 May 93); United Nations World Conference on Human Rights: Vienna Declaration and Action Programme (25 Jun 93); 1994 Draft Declaration of Principles on Human Rights and the Environment Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Co-operation in Respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children (19 Oct 96); Council of Europe: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (4 April 1997). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), ratified by the United Nations in 1948, has grown into the primary accepted definition of human rights. The UDHR, in article two, maintains: "Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." It further proclaims that "[a]ll are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law." The most powerful language in the UDHR is found in article fourteen. It sets forth the expectation that all member countries will protect against human rights violations and provide the remedy of asylum to those who cannot gain protection from human rights violations in their countries of origin. Specifically, it declares that "[e]veryone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution." The UDHR is the linchpin in the generally accepted human rights definition. Although the UDHR is not directly binding upon non-signatory countries, it does embody the international consensus regarding the definition of human rights. The UDHR proves extremely useful in the analysis of physical violence against women and its treatment in the law of asylum. For example, articles three and five identify bodily integrity and safety as basic human rights. Therefore, rape, torture, assault, and other physical abuses committed against women necessarily constitute human rights violations. The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (1967). Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, G.A. Res. 2263, U.N. GAOR, 22nd Sess., Agenda Item 53, U.N. Doc. A/RES/2263 (1967) [hereinafter DEDAW])The Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (DEDAW was the first major instrument to focus exclusively on the issues of sex discrimination and women's rights. DEDAW calls for all U.N. Member Nations to "abolish existing laws, customs, regulations and practices which are discriminatory against women, and to establish adequate legal protection for equal rights of men and women." The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was subsequently enacted to put into effect the recommendations of DEDAW and create legally binding obligations upon signatory nations. Unfortunately, some western States have made several reservations to the CEDAW; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, opened for signature Mar. 1, 1980, 19 I.L.M. 33 (1980) [hereinafter CEDAW]. CEDAW defines sex discrimination as "any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women . . . of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field of public life." Id. art. 1. Natalie K. Hevener, International Law and the Status of Women 215 (1983). Human Rights in a Changing East-West Perspective 350 (Allan Rosas & Jan Hegleson eds., 1990); Hilary Charlesworth et al., Feminist Approaches to International Law, 85 Am. J. Int'l. L. 613, 633 (1991). The pattern of reservations to [CEDAW] underlines the inadequacy of the present normative structure of international law. The international community is prepared to formally acknowledge the considerable problems of inequality faced by women, but only, it seems, if individual States are not required as a result to alter patriarchal practices that subordinate women. See Phillip R. Trimble, International Law, World Order, and Critical Legal Studies, 42 Stan. L. Rev. 811 (1990). Reservations to the CEDAW constitute an implicit recognition by the international community that the reserving countries have the authority to continue to mistreat their female citizens. Id many of these reservations appear to be based upon the concept of a patriarchal relationship between men and women. Hilary Charlesworth has noted that CEDAW establishes much weaker implementation procedures than other U.N. human rights conventions, such as those related to racial discrimination and political and civil rights, and CEDAW has been subject to many more reservations than comparable human rights documents. The continued existence of reservations to CEDAW most certainly deteriorates the protection of the human rights of women globally. Schenk infra note 115 nn. 45- 52.

[31] United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women - Beijing 1995.

[32] 2 Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, 4-15 September 1995 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.13), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.

[33] Janice G. Raymond, Health Effects of Prostitution, Ph.D. Co-Executive Director Coalition Against Trafficking in Women 1998. .http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw/health.htm Selected national and international studies, research projects and various women's programs have begun to address the health burden of violence against women. Such projects have especially focused on the health consequences to women of battering or domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, child sexual abuse and incest, and female genital mutilation. See, e.g., World Bank Discussion Papers 255, Violence Against Women: the Hidden Health Burden. In depicting the health effects of such forms of violence against women, these projects attempt to make the violence, harm and human rights violations to women visible. When violence against women is considered, prostitution is often exempted from the category of violence against women. However, a consideration of the dire health consequences of prostitution demonstrates that prostitution not only gravely impairs women's health but firmly belongs in the category of violence against women. The health consequences to women from prostitution are the same injuries and infections suffered by women who are subjected to other forms of violence against women including physical injuries (bruises, broken bones, black eyes, concussions). A 1994 study conducted with 68 women in Minneapolis/St.Paul who had been prostituted for at least six months found that half the women had been physically assaulted by their purchasers, and a third of these experienced purchaser assaults at least several times a year. 23% of those assaulted were beaten severely enough to have suffered broken bones. Two experienced violence so vicious that they were beaten into a coma. Furthermore, 90% of the women in this study had experienced violence in their personal relationships resulting in miscarriage, stabbing, loss of consciousness, and head injuries. See Ruth Parriott, Health Experiences of Twin Cities Women Used in Prostitution: Survey Findings and Recommendations. Unpublished, May 1994. Available from Breaking Free, 1821 University Ave., Suite 312, South, St. Paul, Minnesota 55104; The sex of prostitution is physically harmful to women in prostitution. STDs (including HIV/AIDS, chlamydia, gonorrhea, herpes, human papilloma virus, and syphilis) are alarmingly high among women in prostitution. Only 15 % of the women in the Minneapolis/St. Paul study had never contracted one of the STDs, not including AIDS, most injurious to health (chlamydia, syphilis, gonorrheal, herpes). General gynecological problems, but in particular chronic pelvic pain and pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), plague women in prostitution. The Minneapolis/St. Paul study reported that 31% of the women interviewed had experienced at least one episode of PID which accounts for most of the serious illness associated with STD infection. Among these women, there was also a high incidence of positive pap smears, several times greater than the Minnesota Department of Health's cervical cancer screening program for low and middle income women. More STD episodes can increase the risk of cervical cancer. Another physical effect of prostitution is unwanted pregnancy and miscarriage. Over two-thirds of the women in the Minneapolis/St. Paul study had an average of three pregnancies during their time in prostitution, which they attempted to bring to term. Other health effects include irritable bowel syndrome, as well as partial and permanent disability. The emotional health consequences of prostitution include severe trauma, stress, depression, anxiety, self-medication through alcohol and drug abuse; and eating disorders. Almost all the women in the Minneapolis/St. Paul study categorized themselves as chemically addicted. Crack cocaine and alcohol were used most frequently. Ultimately, women in prostitution are also at special risk for self-mutilation, suicide and homicide. 46% of the women in the Minneapolis/St. Paul study had attempted suicide, and 19% had tried to harm themselves physically in other ways. More succinctly, women in prostitution suffer the same broken bones, concussions, STDs, chronic pelvic pain, and extreme stress and trauma that women who have been battered, raped and sexually abused endure. In fact, the case can be made that women in prostitution -- because they are subject to being battered, raped and sexually abused all at the same time over an extensive period of time -- suffer these health consequences more intensively and consistently. For example, in another survey of 55 victims/survivors of prostitution who used the services of the Council for Prostitution Alternative in Portland, Oregon, 78% were victims of rape by pimps and male buyers an average of 49 times a year; 84% were the victims of aggravated assault and were thus horribly beaten, often requiring emergency room attention and hospitalization; 53% were victims of sexual abuse and torture; and 27% were mutilated. Susan Kay Hunter, quoting oral testimony collected by the Council for Prostitution Alternatives in "Prostitution is Cruelty and Abuse to Women and Children." Feminist Broadcast Quarterly, Spring 1993. Available from the Council for Prostitution Alternatives, 519 Southwest Park Avenue, Suite 208, Portland, Oregon 97205; also available from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. Jodi L. Jacobson, "The Other Epidemic." World Watch. May-June 1992, pp. 10-17.

[34] Malka Marcovich , "Peace or War: An International Approach to Prostitution and Trafficking," Movement for the Abolition of Prostitution and Pornography , International Seminar on Militaries and Gender 25th - 26th November 1999 Leeds, UK (perplexed at Europe's legalization of prostitution inquires "Do we accept that Europe, pretending to be the cradle of Human Rights, promotes in the name of peace, consensus, liberty, democracy and economic empowerment, a system which by legalizing prostitution normalizes domination, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment"; See also Katherine M. DePasquale,The Effects of Prostitution, http://www.feminista.com/v1n5/depasquale.html; See also Specter supra note 12. Similar to child sexual abuse, the female child prostitute may experience the psychological feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. She may also commit suicide. Judith Lewis Herman noted that survivors of prolonged sexual abuse suffer from complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTS) CPTS is the psychological alteration of consciousness, self-perception, and relationships with others. First, Herman notes that victims may have an alteration in consciousness which may include amnesia, blackouts, and transient disassociative episodes. Second, the victim's exposure to continuous abuse leads to the alteration of self-perception. The victim may feel a sense of helplessness, shame, guilt, and a sense of defilement. Survivors of abuse are vulnerable to repeated victimization. The child victim may suffer from chronic suicidal preoccupation and inflict self-injury. Self-injury has been characterized as a pathological soothing mechanism and can take the form of vomiting, purging, using drugs, and exposing oneself to danger Furthermore, the long term effects on the child victim may result in her inability to integrate with society. Her alteration in relations with others may result in her being isolated, withdrawn, distrusting, and unable to sustain intimate relationships. As noted above, trauma depends on the individual involved and "on the degree of resilience of the affected person." In response to being raped, some rape victims may suffer from lingering fear and may "spend a lifetime dealing with the trauma and lasting terror." Judith Lewis Herman Trauma and Recovery (New York 1992) nn 9-96.

[35] Dorchen Leidholdt , Position Paper for the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, Special Seminar on Trafficking, Prostitution and the Global Sex Industry, United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Organized by Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, International Movement Against Discrimination and Racism, International Human Rights Law Group and Anti-slavery Geneva, Switzerland June 21, 1999, http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw/posit1.htm

[36] Women in the Law Project, "Token Gestures: Women's Human Rights and UN Reporting", The International Human Rights Law Group, (Washington, D.C., 1993), p. 3. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Report of the Fourth World Conference on Women, UN Doc. A/CONF.177/20, para. 145(d). For example, see Report of the Human Rights Committee, UN Doc. Supplement No. 40 (A/47/40); Report of the Human Rights Committee, UN Doc. Supplement No. 40 (A/49/40); Official Records of the Human Rights Committee, 1990/1991, Vol. 1; United Nations, International Instruments, Chart of Ratifications as at 30 June 1995, (New York and Geneva, 1995). UN Fact Sheet No. 22, "Discrimination Against Women: The Convention and the Committee", p. 63. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/49/308, p. 28; See also The regional and national dimensions of the right to development as a human right, study by the Secretary-General, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1488, paras. 98-110; Katarina Tomasevski, "The World Bank and Human Rights", in Human Rights in Developing Countries, 1989 Yearbook, edited by Manfred Nowak and Theresa Swinehart, (Kehl: N.P. Engel, 1989), p. 101.; Global Consultation on the Right to Development as a Human Right, report prepared by the Secretary-General, UN Doc. E/CN.4/1990/9/Rev. 1, paras. 96 & 97.

[37] Brussa, Licia, SURVEY ON PROSTITUTION, MIGRATION AND TRAFFIC IN WOMEN: HISTORY AND CURRENT SITUATION (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1991); Demleitner, Nora V., Forced Prostitution: Naming an International Offense, 18 FORDHAM INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL, 163-97 (1994);Reanda, Laura, Prostitution as a Human Rights Question: Problems and Prospects of United Nations Action, 13 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY, 202-28 (1991; Scibelli, Pasqua, Empowering Prostitutes: A Proposal for International Legal Reform, 10 HARVARD WOMEN'S LAW JOURNAL, 117-57 (1987); Thomas, Dorothy Q. & Levi, Robin S., Common Abuses Against Women, in WOMEN AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW, v.1, Askin and Koenig (eds.), 139-76 (Ardsley: Transnational Publishers Inc. 1999).

[38] Michael Specter, Contraband Women--A Special Report:New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women, New York Times 1/11/98.

[39] See generally KATHLEEN BARRY, FEMALE SEXUAL SLAVERY (1979).

[40] Crime & Servitude: An Exposé of the Traffic in Women for Prostitution from the Newly Independent States A report prepared by Gillian Caldwell, Steven Galster, and Nadia Steinzor of the Global Survival Network. For presentation at an international conference on "The Trafficking of NIS Women Abroad," Moscow, Russia, Nov. 3-7 (1997)[hereinafter GSN Report].

[41] Specter supra note 12.

[42] Specter supra note 12 , GSN supra note 41.

[43] For a vivid description of the inequality between pimp and prostitute, see Dorchen Leidholdt, Prostitution: A Violation of Women's Human Rights, 1 CARDOZO WOMEN'S L.J. 133 (1993).

[44] The Tropicana, in Tel Aviv's bustling business district, is one of the busiest bordellos. The women who work there, like nearly all prostitutes in Israel today, are Russian. "Israelis love Russian girls," said Jacob Golan, who owns this and two other clubs, and spoke willingly about the business he finds so "successful." "And they are desperate. They are ready to do anything for money." Always filled with half-naked Russian women, the club is open around the clock. There is a schedule on the wall next to the receptionist -- with each woman's hours listed in a different color, and the days and shifts rotating, as at a restaurant or a bar. Next to the schedule a sign reads, "We don't accept checks". There are 12 cubicles at the Tropicana where 20 women work in shifts, eight during the daytime, 12 at night. Business is always booming, and not just with foreign workers. Israeli soldiers, with rifles on their shoulders, frequent the place, as do business executives and tourists. Specter supra note 12 .

[45] Specter supra note 12 ; Jyothi Kanics, Global Survival Network Editors: Tom Barry (IRC) and Martha Honey (IPS)In Focus; Trafficking In Women 3 In Focus 30 (October 1998)on line at http://www.foreignpolicy-infocus.org/briefs/vol3/v3n30wom.html.

[46] Although this paper focuses on women, trafficking of women raises questions which are also relevant to traffic in children. However, current concern about abuse and exploitation of children raises many other issues besides trafficking which must therefore be specifically addressed. The particular needs and situation of children require targeted analysis and responses, both socially and legislatively. The Stockholm World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, concluded that a coherent and coordinated approach is needed, including immediately realizable measures to combat child pornography on the Internet.

[47] The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women is a feminist human rights nongovernmental organization that works internationally to oppose all forms of sexual exploitation. They provide the following definitions. " Sexual exploitation is a practice by which person(s) achieve sexual gratification or financial gain or advancement through the abuse of a person's sexuality by abrogating that person's human right to dignity, equality, autonomy, and physical and mental well-being. Sexual exploitation includes sexual harassment, rape, incest, battering, pornography and prostitution. Prostitution includes casual, brothel, or military prostitution, sex tourism, mail order bride selling and trafficking in women. The Harm: Sexual exploitation preys on women and children made vulnerable by poverty and economic development policies and practices; refugee and displaced persons; and on women in the migrating process. Prostitution victimizes all women, justifies the sale of any woman, and reduces all women to sex. Sexual exploitation eroticizes women's inequality. Sexual exploitation is a vehicle for racism and "first world" domination, disproportionately victimizing minority and "third world" women. Local and global sex industries are systematically violating women's rights on an ever - increasing scale. Sexual exploitation violates the human rights of anyone subjected to it, whether female or male, adult or child, Northern or Southern. The Solution: Decriminalize the women in prostitution. Criminalize the men who buy women and children and anyone who promotes sexual exploitation, particularly pimps and procurers. Reject State policies and practices that channel women into conditions of sexual exploitation. Provide education and employment opp