By Natalia Churikova in Brussels Published: FT, March 16 2001 20:54GMT | Last Updated: March 16 2001 21:38GMT The European Union is stepping up its attack on one of the EU's fastest growing crimes: trafficking in women and children. EU justice and home affairs ministers on Friday agreed with their counterparts from the applicant countries from central and eastern Europe to increase co-operation to combat trafficking in humans. Thomas Bodstrom, the Swedish justice minister, said: "There is great agreement on increasing efforts against trafficking in human beings. It is completely unacceptable that slavery exists in today's Europe." Trafficking has grown almost 50 per cent in the last five years, bringing revenues of the criminal gangs operating it to an estimated $10bn a year. About 700,000 women and children are thought to be smuggled worldwide each year, with about 120,000 in western Europe. So far the EU has failed to produce a co-ordinated policy against trafficking; the traffickers are rarely convicted and sentences usually do not exceed two years. The European Commission has proposed tougher minimum punishments for traffickers and allowing victims to apply for asylum in member states if they testify against their tormentors. The European parliament, meanwhile, promises legislation against traffickers by May. Romano Prodi, Commission president, last week underlined the concern of policymakers when he spoke of the "tragic situation" of the women, many of whom are sold into sexual slavery. Anna Diamantopoulou, social affairs commissioner, said trafficking was "a shame on our civilisation". Maj Britt Theorin, chairperson of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities at the European parliament, welcomed a recent Commission proposal for more severe punishment of traffickers. "We will support the proposal to introduce a minimum six-year punishment for traffickers," she said. "It is important that all countries in the Union have the same standard for punishment of traffickers to prevent them going from one country to another in search of more lenient legislation." Ms Theorin also supported the Commission's suggestion to allow the victims of trafficking to apply for asylum in member states in order to testify in courts. Only two EU countries, Belgium and Italy, grant temporary residence permits to victims if they agree to provide evidence against traffickers and pimps. In other countries they are treated as illegal immigrants and deported as soon as they are released from the criminal gangs' grip, leaving the courts without witnesses. Ms Theorin said a European parliament resolution last April had speeded up the proposals of the Commission and she hoped draft legislation for combating trafficking and sexual exploitation could be ready in two months. "We will try to finish work on this legislation by the end of May, hoping that with the support of the Swedish presidency [of the EU] it can be adopted by the end of this half-year. We can then bring it up with the applicant countries, where a lot of the sex trade originates," she said. Women's poverty, unemployment and a paucity of information are seen as the main causes of human trafficking, so migration experts say tougher punishments of traffickers may not be enough to uproot this crime. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), about 50 per cent of world migrants are women, and the risk of them falling prey to traffickers has increased. To combat trafficking, the IOM suggests more should be done to provide opportunities for legal migration for women. Ndioro Ndiaye, deputy director general of the IOM, said: "Perhaps another way to combat this deadly and abusive traffic would be for governments to consider creation of more legal migration opportunities so women are not compelled to resort to dubious job offers to find ways to support their families." Although a more open immigration policy remains highly controversial in European politics, several European countries have taken steps to regularise work migration. Among the most high profile cases is the German "green card" programme for information technology specialists. But the IOM says the gaps in the European labour market exist not only in the high-technology sector. "The recent initiative of the Italian government to issue 5,000 temporary working visas to Albanians to work as nurses or in services generally shows that solutions can also be found for less qualified migrants," an IOM spokesman said. _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
