January 2001

WOMEN FROM POOR NATIONS VICTIMS OF MODERN SLAVERY

Many women from Eastern Europe, South America, Africa and South-East Asia have ended up as victims of modern slavery after having been lured to West European countries and later being left stranded there. The Counsel of Europe is proposing that all its 43 member nations adopt common legislation against modern female slavery, which currently is not considered a crime in most European countries.

By Julio Godoy

Paris: For Angela P, a fragile-looking 30-year-old teacher from the Russian city of St Petersburg, a trip to Paris was a life-long dream. Recently, her dream came true - as a nightmare.

Angela’s story began on 5 January, when she came to Paris on the invitation of a German businessman whom she met through a marriage agency based in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin.

Angela lived for one week with the man she thought was her fiance in his apartment in Paris.

But six days later, the German businessman threw her out of his flat, even though he was aware that Angela did not know anyone in France and did not speak French.

‘We had some disputes over my role in his life,’ Angela told IPS. ‘He repeated all the time that I had to forget my Russian heritage and only think of pleasing and loving him. I did my best, but it was not enough.’

After a week in Paris, Angela had only a few dollars, the telephone number of acquaintances in the German city of Hamburg, the clothes she was wearing, and a distinct feeling of deception.

Angela wouldn’t believe it, but in a way she was lucky. At least, she did not fall into the hands of modern slave lords. With the help of her Hamburg acquaintances, she obtained an air ticket to St Petersburg and could immediately go back home.

According to the Geneva-based International Office on Migration, some 500,000 East European women are currently forced to practise prostitution on the streets of Western Europe.

Experts add to that figure at least another half a million women from South America, Africa and South-East Asia, who through very simple schemes are drawn into modern female slavery in Western Europe.

‘Most of the time, men pretend they only want to get to better know their future wives,’ Michele Blanc, a lawyer at the Paris-based Committee against Modern Slavery (CAMS), told IPS.

‘Women in the Philippines, in Colombia, or in Senegal do not see this trip and this trial time as a threat, but as a confirmation of their hopes,’ the law expert said.

But men mostly abuse the so-called ‘trial time’. ‘These men are often unattractive, clumsy and unscrupulous. They have found in marriage agencies an easy, inexpensive way to temporarily supply their beds with young innocent women,’ Blanc said.

A report on modern female slavery presented by the Counsel of Europe (CoE) earlier this month in Paris summarises the process. The CoE, in which 43 European countries are represented, is the first international organisation to scrutinise modern female slavery.

Yvette Roudy, President of the Commission on Equality among Women and Men at the CoE, and co-author of the report, said that in most European countries, ‘this modern form of female slavery is not considered a crime’.

France, which prides itself as a cradle of human rights, ranks among such countries.

The report proposes a homogeneous legislation for all 43 members of the CoE. ‘At   least,   a common  code  of   servants’  rights,   an   indemnity  fund,   and   a   clear condemnation of modern forms of slavery should be put in place,’ Roudy said.

The story of Thi Canh Thai, a 40-year-old Vietnamese woman, is typical of the plot uncovered by the CoE. She came to France in 1997, accompanying her future husband, a French citizen from Savoy, near the border with Italy. After their marriage, Thi had her passport taken away and had to work more than a year as a servant for a friend of her husband.

Although she sometimes worked up to 20 hours per day, she never received a single penny, and ate only residues of her abuser’s meals. Even her eight-year-old daughter was forced to serve.

Thi and her child eventually escaped from the residence of her husband’s friend and hid themselves for some months. In the meantime, her husband obtained a divorce from her, arguing that she had left the common domicile.

When Thi demanded a prolongation of her residence permit, the police arrested her and escorted her to the airport. A judge had ordered her expulsion from France, on the ground that the initial basis for her residence permit - her marriage to a French citizen - had disappeared.

After another court suspended the expulsion order against her, Thi continues to temporarily live in France. But her residence permit has not been revalidated.

Experts at the CAMS in Paris say that in some cases, foreign diplomats bring young women from Africa and South-East Asia into Europe, and force them to work without adequate payment. The Committee has since 1994 documented some 50 such cases.

Although all the cases have been brought before French courts, the diplomats have, through their immunity, eluded all monetary and judicial sanctions.

As a result, the CoE is demanding the revision of the Vienna Convention, in order to render diplomats responsible for criminal acts they commit as private persons while serving in foreign countries.

Only in one recent case has a French justice been able to convince the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to cancel the immunity of a foreign member of its staff who is under accusation of committing modern slavery.

Experts affirm that the worst form of female slavery remains prostitution. But it is also the most difficult to combat. Some weeks ago, a 19-year-old Kosovo Albanian woman was found dead on a street of Paris. She was a known prostitute and had tried to escape from her pimp, counsellors at the CAMS said. - Third World Network Features/IPS

About the writer: Julio Godoy is a correspondent for Inter Press Service, with whose permission the above article has been reprinted.

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