Working for Women Worldwide - Embassy of the United States

Success Story
Fighting Human Trafficking in
Europe and Eurasia
Of the 600,000 to 800,000 persons the
U.S. government estimates are trafficked across
international borders each year worldwide,
Europe and Eurasia probably have the
highest percentage of victims per capita.
gOver the past decade, as organized crime exploited the
chaos and new poverty that followed the collapse of the
Soviet Union, that region has been the fastest-growing
source in the world. It is second only to Southeast
Asia in total numbers, with a minimum of 175,000 to
500,000 persons trafficked annually. This figure does
not count those who are trafficked within countries.
Katya is one of those unlucky women trafficked
across borders. With a two-year-old daughter and a
failing marriage in the Czech Republic, Katya took the
advice of a “friend” and decided to make good money as
a waitress in The Netherlands. Leaving her daughter
behind, she and four other young women were driven
to Amsterdam, where a Dutch trafficker joined their
Czech trafficker. Katya was taken to a brothel. After
saying “I will not do this,” she was told, “Yes, you will,
if you want your daughter back in the Czech Republic
to live.”
After years of threats and forced prostitution,
Katya was finally rescued by a cab driver. She is now
working at a hospital and studying for a degree in
social work.
Supported in part by U.S. funding, people like
Sister Eugenia Bonetti of Italy are on the frontlines of
fighting human trafficking in Europe and Eurasia.
Bonetti, coordinator of anti-trafficking strategies for
the Italian Union of Major Superiors, has seen firsthand
the injustice suffered by trafficked women over
her 24-year career in Kenya and Italy. Bonetti and her
team of some 200 sisters, working full-time in the
fight against trafficking in persons (TIP), have opened
their homes throughout Italy to provide shelter, security,
and care to hundreds of victims. She also has
worked with nuns in Nigeria, encouraging local efforts
in the remotest and poorest communities to prevent
trafficking and to assist in the rehabilitation of repatriated
victims.
Efforts such as Bonetti’s are the reason why the
U.S. government has provided more than $70 million
for anti-trafficking programs around the world in the
last fiscal year alone.
Progress in the battle against human trafficking is
difficult to quantify, largely because it is an underground
criminal activity, and also because awareness of
the crime is relatively recent. However, U.S. programs
are having good effects. The U.S. annual Trafficking in
Persons Report, for example, has stimulated action by
offering frank assessments of countries that may have
laws but fail to implement them or that fail to prosecute
the traffickers. The report has proven useful to
U.S. embassies in engaging governments around the
globe.
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