Silence protects

– Most of the court cases on trafficking take so long to come to court that many of the women have managed to establish a new life, where nobody knows what they have previously gone through. They are then called as witnesses in the country where the case comes to court, and perhaps they have to travel abroad for a week or two. What explanation do you give your family and friends, who do not know what you have previously had to endure? Asks asks Lise Bjerkan, Social Anthropologist and researcher with the research organisation FAFO.

She refers to a trial that took place here in Norway. One of the foreign witnesses was assured that the hearing in Oslo would take a week, but then she had to be here for two, because everything took longer than expected.

– In her home country her new boyfriend and their child waited in ignorance of the real reason she was in Oslo. When she didn’t come home as expected, the man grew suspicious and finally discovered the truth. It ended with separation. This shows just how fragile the new life the women try to establish can be, says Bjerkan.

Serbian–Norwegian project

She is one of four researchers behind the report, A Life Of One’s Own: Rehabilitation of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation. In collaboration with Linda Dyrlid from Trondheim and Sør-Trøndelag University College, and Biljana Simeunovic-Patic and Vesna Nikolic-Ristanovic from the University of Belgrade she received a grant from the Norwegian Research Council in 2003 to do a study on women who had been the victims of trafficking. The report from the project was published in 2005.

– We wanted to look more closely at what happens in relation to the identification, rehabilitation and re-integration of women who have been the victims of sex-trafficking. We wanted to find out whether the women’s needs were being met, and, additionally, what the women felt it was that met their needs - what had helped them to move on. The women themselves were our most important sources, but we also interviewed others involved in the process from when a women is identified as a victim of trafficking until her return home – involved parties from the Police, the judicial system, social workers, psychologists etc. We also conducted interviews in Moldova and Italy, because many of the women who were the victims of sex-trafficking in the Balkans come from Moldova and are sold to Italy, Bjerkan explains.

Vague promises

Some women choose to testify against their exploiters. Some hope to receive financial compensation for what they’ve been through, and so the chance to get back on their feet. Other are motivated first and foremost by the desire for revenge or justice.

– Here in Norway we have until now been quite vague about what we can offer a woman who is considering witnessing, says Bjerkan. In interviews conducted in Serbia and Moldova researchers have learned that the women want clear information, so that they know what is going to happen if they testify, when the case will come to court, how long it will take, what to expect, and what they will get in return in terms of witness protection, for example.

Access to shelter

One of the Serbian researchers, Vesna Nikolic-Ristanovic, is also the director of the Serbian NGO, Victiomology Society of Serbia (VDS), a well-known NGO that runs various projects aimed at victims of violence, including victims of trafficking. Through their and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM)’s network the two researchers made contact with trafficking victims in Serbia and Moldova, and with key people in the rehabilitation process in Serbia, Moldova and Italy.

– We gained access to women – both Serbian and foreign – who lived in a shelter for the victims of trafficking in Serbia. We secured the opportunity to follow the Serbian women for a whole year, thanks partly to additional funding from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Norwegian researchers said.

The women in the shelter told us many powerful stories. To escape from the traffickers’ grip and to identify themselves as the victims of trafficking was only one part of a long process. For many of the women to return to a “normal” life was even more difficult.

– We saw that what create real problems for the women are the attitudes in their local communities. Prejudice against prostitutes is strong, and combined with that people do not realize that a victim of human trafficking is also a victim of criminal activity and a situation that she has not entered into voluntarily. Therefore, a silence develops around what the women have encountered. The result is that the women cannot share their painful and burdensome secrets. Moreover, the silence prevents other girls in the local community from knowing what has happened, Bjerkan says.

Recruited by acquaintances

The fact that most of the women are recruited by people whom they know, be they neighbours, relatives, or friends, does not make it any easier to start again.

The Norwegian researchers would like to know more about what makes people recruit in this manner. They hope to gain a research grant in order to investigate this area.

– We can hope and believe that some of those who recruit, those who are the initial contacts, do not know what will happen to the women, but in many instances they do. Nevertheless, we have seen that in Moldova many of the women, who previously have been sold, themselves, later recruit others. Is this institutionalised evil? Well, next to Albania Moldova is Europe’s poorest country, which means that many women become involved due more to desperation rather than to wickedness. Seen in this way both those who recruit and those who are recruited are victims of a failing social structure, says Bjerkan.

Groups at risk

It can seem quite arbitrary which women are recruited and sold to the sex industry. Among the victims of trafficking you will find both the well-educated and those who barely have a basic education. Some are married, while many are not. Some believe that they are being offered a real job abroad. Others know that it is has to do with selling sex, but they are ignorant as to under what conditions.

Having said this, Bjerkan and the other researchers believe it is possible to identify certain risk factors and certain risk groups.

– Many of them leave home in an effort to do something about their socially or financially hopeless circumstances. Perhaps they have been exposed to sexual abuse, or come from a violent family or relationship. And we see that if there has been a crisis, such as a divorce or a death in the family or an acute financial problem, many suddenly decide to leave, Lise Bjerkan points out, using Lilja, the girl from Lukas Moodysson’s film Lilja 4Ever, as an example.

– Lilja’s life is miserable to start off with. However, the crisis really takes place when her mother abandons her. If there was a child welfare service, a social office or something similar that had picked her up and compensated for her family, maybe everything would have been different for her. However, in many of the former Soviet countries the social services have disappeared, while at the same time there is much poverty.

More preventive measures

Therefore, the four researchers believe that further resources should be employed in preventive measures in the communities where the recruitment of women for human trafficking is taking place.

– It is clearly easier, however, for the countries that are the main donors to anti-trafficking work – which are also the target countries – to first react only when human trafficking has actually taken place, Bjerkan says, and refers to Lilja 4Ever once again. – More than two thirds of the film follows Lilja’s life in her home country. Nevertheless, it is her experiences after arriving in Sweden that have upset the most people, and it these that have received the most attention.

Translated by Matthew Whiting KILDEN