Human Trafficking In South-Eastern Europe

Human trafficking in Europe over the years has increasingly become a huge issue. It’s one of the longest established of organized crimes but one of the most ignored. Human Trafficking is based on the neglect of human rights, greed, and corruption of the authoritative powers such as police officers. Trafficking in European countries has been an issue for several decades but it was not until the 1970s to the 1980s that it became a part of the international and political agendas due to a change in sexual mores and the international emergence and awareness of the aids epidemic (Carina, Breuil, Siegel, Reenen, Beijer, Roos 2011). Traffickers profit by forcing their victims to “engage in illicit activities or in highly exploitative ones” in ways

In Eastern Europe during its transition to a market economy, there was a massive decline in women’s employment, in some countries by 40%, and the women who remained employed, the quality of employment depreciated drastically. Wars in South-Eastern Europe have also changed the social structure of the lives of women, who tend to be more negatively affected by poor economic circumstances in post-war areas, these situations tend to make the female population especially vulnerable. Many women illegally travel to foreign European countries in search of work with the fantasy of a better life in the "Golden West" which become traffickers' opportunity to obtain new slaves and due to these women being illegal immigrants and illegal workers, traffickers take advantage of the lack of legal and societal protection these victims have. Traffickers can move easily through borders of some European countries due to the corruption of law enforcement. Authorities in the Balkans "openly concede that ill-equipped and underpaid police and border guards are often bribed to help traffickers” (Konrad 2002). Police often help by generating false documents, providing protection, or by simply being silent. High-ranking politicians are often bribed to allow such activities to continue. The victims are often seen as the criminals and are not entitled to sympathy or support and are usually charged with immigration offenses or procuring prostitution. These women know that as illegals and prostitutes the best treatment they can hope for is deportation, while the offenders get away with human rights violations such as forced labor, illegal confinement, and assault (Konrad