3071-The political economy of new slavery

94 Responses to Sexual Slavery
some women who know that they risk being taken into prostitution,
believe that they will be financially better off, working in a Western
country, or also speculate on the possibility of marrying a ‘Western
man’. An argument commonly advanced in the countries of origin is
that most women are aware of their future conditions as prostitutes.
Interviews carried out with Romanian nationals have corroborated the
aforementioned view that ‘these women’ who choose to emigrate know
the nature of their work abroad, and therefore only have themselves to
blame for their situation. 4 Not only does this type of opinion exonerate
the countries of origin to carry out awareness programmes, it also
trivializes the experience of women in sexual slavery. Indeed, some are
aware of the risks that they are taking, however, others do not know
what to expect. The aforementioned argument blames exclusively the
trafficked women, who are supposedly responsible for their misfortunes.
It therefore subjects them to yet another type of abuse. For many
trafficked women, another harsher reality seems to be the cause of what
is perceived by too many as their ‘self-inflicted’ displacement. George
Mulheir, Country Director of Hope and Homes for Children in Romania,
explains that a significant number of young women who have spent
their childhood in Romanian orphanages are subsequently lost to the
vortex of sexual slavery, mainly in the Balkans or the Middle East. 5
The social exclusion suffered by these young women in crowded state
orphanages makes them easy prey to the sex industry upon their discharge
from these institutions, where they have not been introduced to
human interaction or the outside world. Moreover, while their craving
for affective bonding will be utilized by unscrupulous individuals, their
social inexperience will ensure the permanence of their state of captivity
once displaced. Some Romanian prostitutes interviewed in Jounieh,
Lebanon, did not perceive their situation as necessarily entailing
captivity, although if allowed at all, they would only leave their homes,
accompanied, for a maximum of one hour a week. While one might
assume that their relationship with other Romanian sexual slaves aware
of their own conditions could have triggered a realization of their
captive status, the reality was often different, as some would not be
emotionally equipped to face reality. The vulnerability of many individuals
in their country of origin is therefore a strong enticement for
traffickers, as it provides a certainty that they will not seek freedom
once working in foreign places. This phenomenon can be compared
with the state of false-consciousness experienced by women within the
patriarchal order, whose questioning might entail a psychic collapse
of the symbolic order they have known and abided by all their lives,