Odessa Resorts Serve Scenery, Sex, and Slavery | End Human Trafficking | Change.org

by Amanda Kloer July 22, 2010 07:00 AM (PT)

Odessa, Ukraine, is a beautiful resort town located on the Black Sea with scenic views of the water, elegant architecture, and some of the best spas in the region. But resorts in Odessa are serving up a lot more than just beautiful scenery. The area is a crossroads of human trafficking between Eastern Europe and the rest of the world.

Ukraine has long been a major source and transit country for women and girls trafficked into the sex industry. In fact, it was Ukrainian, Russian, and Eastern European women who first drew notice of many law enforcement agencies and human rights groups, creating an initial impression that human trafficking was a regional problem. While we now know human trafficking to be a global phenomenon, Ukraine remains a major player in the sex trafficking industry and Odessa remains a hub for transit.

Why is Odessa such a popular spot for transporting human trafficking victims? First, it's a tourist location and resort town, which means demand for commercial sex may be higher than other areas of the Ukraine. Second, it's a port town with enough tourism that a few more women being loaded onto boats, planes, and trains will likely go unnoticed. And third, it's almost the exact midway point between Europe and the former Soviet countries and Russia. Add to that the fact that it's close to Romania and Moldova, also source countries for trafficked women, and you have the perfect staging ground for an international trafficking ring.

Barnardo's warns of Britain's secret trade in child sex - Times Online

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Nico Hines
Times Online

A secret network of organised child sex traffickers is operating within Britain according to the charity Barnardo’s.

Approximately one in six of the sexually exploited children currently being helped by the organisation say they have been moved between cities and passed around between paedophiles.

Martin Narey, chief executive of Barnardo’s, warned of a “hidden” problem in which vulnerable youngsters, many of whom have run away from home, are shunted around the country to increase their isolation.

“Through our work with children abused through prostitution, it became apparent that some young people were being moved around the UK, or from town to town, by abusing adults who would use the children for the purpose of sexual exploitation,” he said.

“An apparently kind man will buy them food, will buy them drink and give then a mobile phone, and then a few months later they will be isolated and alone, sometimes in a different town and sleeping with that man and his friends.”

No national records are kept on the number of children exploited in this way. Barnardo’s is calling for police and authorities across the UK to develop a greater awareness of the problem.

The charity said it was currently working with 609 sexually exploited children and young people, 90 of whom appeared to have been trafficked within the UK.

One of the victims of this trade, Imogen, ran away from her care home at the age of 12 with an older man she thought was her boyfriend.

She was groomed by a man who treated her well – giving her a mobile phone and the keys to a flat to use – before he began to abuse her.

“He was much older, he was protective – I felt looked after, wanted, loved even. He gave me everything I wanted,” she said, but soon she was being driven to “parties” around Britain where she was told to have sex with his friends.

“I didn’t have any choice – I felt so guilty. Eventually, he’d take me all over the country: Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, London. He’d take me to hotels, some nights two or three.

“I never saw any money change hands. Some men asked ‘How old is she?’ Some asked ‘Have you got any younger?’ They were really sick.”

The man was arrested and eventually Imogen went back to school and then on to university.

“It’s really hard to talk about girls being trafficked in this country; no one wants to believe it,” she said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6920001.ece