The trafficking of women and girls for forced prostitution is an abuse of human rights, most notably the right to physical and mental integrity. It violates the rights of women and girls to liberty and security of the person, and may even violate their right to life. It exposes women and girls to a series of human rights abuses at the hands of traffickers and of those who buy their services. It also renders them vulnerable to human rights violations by governments, who fail to protect the human rights of trafficked women. Amnesty International considers the trafficking of women for the purposes of forced prostitution to be a widespread and systematic violation of the human rights of women, a situation which is detailed in the new report, “So does that mean we have rights?”, focusing on violence against women trafficked into Kosovo.
Since the July 1999 deployment of an international peacekeeping force (KFOR) and the establishment of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo Civilian Administration (UNMIK), Kosovo has become a major destination country for women and girls trafficked into forced prostitution. By late 1999 the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) had reported on significant organized prostitution in four locations close to major concentrations of KFOR troops. Most of the clients were reported to be members of the international military presence, while some KFOR soldiers were also alleged to be involved in the trafficking process itself. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) publicly identified KFOR and UNMIK in early 2000 as factors in the increase of trafficking for prostitution.
Most women are trafficked into Kosovo from Moldova, Bulgaria and Ukraine, usually by way of Serbia. At the same time, increasing numbers of local women and girls are being internally trafficked within Kosovo, as well as trafficked out of Kosovo. Although some women are abducted or coerced, many start their journeys from their home countries voluntarily, believing that the work they were offered - usually in western Europe - will enable them to break out of poverty or escape violence or abuse. Often as soon as their journey begins, so does the systematic abuse of their rights in a strategy that reduces them to dependency, first on their trafficker and later on their "owner". As their horrific journey continues, the realization grows that the work they have been offered is not what was promised. Their documents are taken away from them; they may be beaten; they will be raped.
When they reach Kosovo, they are beaten and raped by clients, by "owners", and by other staff that may be working for the “owner” in the brothel or bar. Many of these women are imprisoned, locked into an apartment, a room, or a cellar. Some become virtual slaves, working in bars and cafes during the day and locked into a room forced to sexually service 10 to 15 men a night. Some find that their wages – the very reason they were willing to leave their homes in the first place - are never paid, but rather are withheld to pay off their "debt", to pay arbitrary fines, or to pay for food and accommodation. If the women are sick, they may be denied access to health care. They have no legal status in Kosovo and are denied their basic rights. Some of them are girls as young as 12 years old.
Even if they manage to escape their captors or are "rescued" by the police, some women continue to suffer human rights violations at the hands of officials. Some trafficked women are arrested and imprisoned for prostitution or immigration offenses, without being afforded the basic rights of detainees. Those recognized as victims of trafficking are denied rights to reparation and redress, and few receive appropriate protection, support, or services. Some women find that they have little or no protection from their traffickers if they testify in court. Throughout the process, women face discrimination on the basis of their gender, ethnic origin and/or their perceived occupation.
Respect for the rights of women and girls in Kosovo who have been trafficked not only requires that authorities investigate the abuses highlighted above and bring to justice those responsible for abuses, but also to ensure the victims of such abuses effective redress, including reparation. It also requires authorities in Kosovo - as well as in the trafficked women’s countries of origin and other countries to which they may be resettled - to ensure respect for the full range of their rights including their rights to dignity, security, privacy, the highest attainable standard of health, an adequate standard of living, safe and secure housing, work, education and social security.
Do something: Amnesty International
Federal judge says partial-birth abortion ban unconstitutional
DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2004
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(06-01) 11:06 PDT SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --
A federal judge Tuesday declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional, saying the measure infringes on a woman's right to choose.
The ruling applies to the nation's 900 or so Planned Parenthood clinics and their doctors, who perform roughly half of all abortions in the United States.
U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton's ruling came in one of three lawsuits challenging the legislation President Bush signed last year.
"The act poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion," she wrote.
Federal judges in New York and Nebraska also heard challenges to the law earlier this year but have yet to rule.
Planned Parenthood lawyer Beth Parker welcomed the ruling, saying it sends a "strong message" to Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Bush administration "that the government should not be intruding on very sensitive and private medical decisions."
Government attorneys did not immediately return calls for comment.
Bush signed the law in November, saying "a terrible form of violence has been directed against children who are inches from birth while the law looked the other way."
The law represented the first substantial federal legislation limiting a woman's right to choose an abortion, and abortion rights activists said it ran counter to three decades of Supreme Court precedent.
In the banned procedure -- known as intact dilation and extraction to doctors, but called partial-birth abortion by opponents -- the living fetus is partially removed from the womb, and its skull is punctured or crushed.
Justice Department attorneys argued that the procedure is inhumane, causes pain to the fetus and is never medically necessary.
Abortion proponents, however, argued that a woman's health during an abortion is more important than how the fetus is terminated, and that the banned method is often a safer solution that a conventional abortion, in which the fetus is dismembered in the womb and then removed in pieces.
The measure, which President Clinton had twice vetoed, was seen by abortion rights activists as a fundamental departure from the Supreme Court's 1973 precedent in Roe v. Wade. It shifted the debate from a woman's right to choose and focused on the plight of the fetus.
Abortion advocates said the law was the government's first step toward outlawing abortion. Violating the law carries a two-year prison term.
Late last year, Hamilton, a Clinton appointee, and federal judges in New York and Lincoln, Neb., blocked the act from being enforced pending the outcome of the court challenges. They began hearing testimony March 29.
Doctors have construed the Supreme Court's decision in Roe. v. Wade to mean they can perform abortions usually until the 24th to 28th week after conception, or until the "point of viability," when a healthy fetus is thought to be able to survive outside the womb. Generally, abortions after the "point of viability" are performed only to preserve the mother's health.
Doctors at about 900 abortion clinics practice under the Planned Parenthood umbrella, performing about half the nation's 1.3 million annual abortions.
The Nebraska and New York cases are expected to conclude within weeks. The outcomes, which may conflict with one another, will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court.
The New York case was brought by the National Abortion Federation, which represents nearly half the nation's abortion providers. The Nebraska case was brought by a few abortion doctors.
The U.S. Supreme Court had overturned a Nebraska partial-birth abortion law because it did not allow the banned procedure even when a doctor believes the method is the best way to preserve the woman's health.
To get around the decision, Congress simply declared that the procedure is never medically necessary -- and during weeks of testimony, doctors testifying for the government stressed that same point -- claiming that there are better alternatives to the method, and that it may even be harmful to women.
Witnesses for the abortion providers, however, testified in all three trials that the banned method is often preferred and sometimes necessary to preserve a woman's health.
Congressional sponsors said the ban would outlaw only 2,200 or so abortions a year. But abortion providers testified the banned method can happen even at times when doctors try to avoid it, such as when they attempt to remove the fetus from the womb in pieces.
Because of the possibility that the fetus may partially exit a woman during an otherwise legal procedure, abortion rights advocates said the law could ban almost all second-trimester abortions, which account for about 10 percent of all abortions in the United States.