Image via WikipediaThursday, 06 August 2009 10:59
Governments and non-governmental organisations must raise awareness of the growing problem of male trafficking in Eastern Europe if victims are to get the help they need, people trafficking monitors say.
More and more men are falling victim to people traffickers, although unlike most trafficked women who end up in prostitution, these men are instead forced to work as virtual slaves by gang masters.
Hundreds of thousands of men are believed to have fallen victim, with Eastern European states such as Belarus and the Ukraine experiencing some of the worst of what migration watchdogs say is a “growing problem” worldwide.
Public perception
“This is a growing problem, and awareness of the issue of male trafficking has to be raised if we are to help its victims,” Jean-Phillipe Chauzy, head of communications at the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) head office in Brussels, told IPS.
“The public perception is that human trafficking victims are all vulnerable females forced into prostitution and sexual slavery, but this is not the case. It does not occur to many people that the scale of trafficking is much broader, and that it affects a sizeable amount of men. Organisations have to work now to make sure people know about this.”
Human trafficking has become a global business worth many billions of euros. Estimates of people trafficked every year run into the millions. Figures from the IOM show that a large percentage of trafficked people are men.
In a report on Belarus and the Ukraine released earlier this year, the IOM said that in these two countries male victims respectively accounted for 28.3 per cent and 17.6 per cent of all victims assisted by IOM and partner groups between 2004 and 2006.
Tricks and incentives
Like female victims, men are tricked into going abroad for work. When they arrive, gang masters use a combination of abuse, threats, non-payment of wages and restriction of movement to stop them going home.
A small number, according to organisations like the International Red Cross, are forced into sexual slavery. The majority, however, are put to work in appalling conditions for up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week for little pay, mostly on construction sites.
In Belarus alone it is thought that up to 800,000 “missing” people – both men and women – could be working in Russia against their will. It’s not illegal in Russia for employers to retain staff passports or keep workers virtually imprisoned in a work compound.
Joe Lowry, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies representative for the Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, told IPS: “Russia is a primary end destination for trafficked men. No visas are needed for people from Belarus and the Ukraine, and checks in and out of Belarus are not as tight as there is a customs union between Belarus and Russia.”
The economic crisis has plunged already poor countries in the region into even deeper poverty and increased the social vulnerability that makes people easy prey for traffickers.
Lowry says that this is especially true for men during the economic crisis. “The number of males being trafficked is rising…The economic crisis has put pressure on men to go out and find work to support their families, and in such times people begin to take more risks,” he told IPS.
Support networks
Experts say that like female trafficking victims, men are also left physically and mentally harmed by their ordeals. However, they say that these men often have a harder time getting help than women do if they escape their traffickers.
The stigma which can be a barrier to many women seeking help after they are trafficked is felt just as strongly, if not more strongly, by male victims: “for men who went abroad to find work, to come back and admit they were conned and fell victim to traffickers is something that the male psyche may not handle very well,” Lowry points out.
Yet, many male victims are simply unaware that there is any help available for them.
“If you end up in a country with no passport, no job and no money, the chances are that you will end up being exploited. But the safety net in such cases is much broader for women than for men,” the IOM’s Chauzy told IPS.
Yet, growing awareness of the problem among the general public, as well as among NGOs in the field, can now help get the message to victims that there are organisations who can help them, Chauzy notes.
PAVOL STRACANSKY - IPS
Focus shifts to trafficking of males
No comments:
Post a Comment