Trafficking in women

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Warning poster for emigrants to the USA , around 1900–1910.

With trafficking in women is human trafficking especially of women referred to, that illegal, for-profit and often organized carry-over or carry- . Trafficking in girls , a form of child trafficking , is particularly difficult . Purposes are mostly the exploitation of labor, which goes in the direction of slavery , sexual exploitation ( forced prostitution ), but also marriage mediation and forced marriage .

Concept and debate

In contrast to human trafficking, the term trafficking in women is now more a political than a legal term, but it corresponds to the legal definition of criminal trafficking in most European countries, which was valid until a few years ago and which was only used in the late 1990s and early 2000s It has expanded beyond human trafficking for the purpose of prostitution to a more general definition that affects all human beings. According to the non-governmental organizations specializing in women's rights , this area of human rights violations , in which women are the main victims, has been neglected for a long time by human rights organizations, but also by the international community and the governments of the “target countries” of trafficking in women.

From a theoretical point of view, it is discussed whether the phenomenon of trafficking in women should be analyzed with reference to gender theories, theories of organized crime or microeconomic theories of utility maximization: In some countries such as China, Cambodia and Thailand, the traditional son preference contributes to the spread of the trade. In many areas it is still a question of marrying girls who are as young as possible. But even in the context of labor and prostitution, the economic interests of women themselves cannot be ignored, areas of origin are mostly economically desolate regions. Therefore, the concept of trafficking in women as such is difficult to separate from pure smuggling ( people smuggling ).

Another problem is therefore the implementation of protective provisions and legal prosecution: The women affected by the cases discovered are usually deported again immediately because they entered illegally - unless the authorities are interested in the usability of their statements; in this case they will be shown after the end of the process. This approach leads to the fact that all women abducted only partially with their own consent support the trafficking of women as a process - often solely because the smugglers pretend to be false in the target area. Like many migrants , women have broken bridges behind them.

history

Later modern Europe

Trafficking in women, which has always existed in various forms, spread internationally and intercontinentally from around 1860 with the abolition of slavery , the processes of social modernization as a result of urbanization and above all with the development of telegraphy and steam shipping . In England the term White Slavery was coined for this because white women were often deported to the former colonial areas. Above all, it was passless, often Jewish women from Eastern Europe , Austria-Hungary , but also from poor areas in Germany, who were abducted to the New World (especially Argentina, Uruguay) and via the Ottoman Empire to the Middle East or under false promises - for example, with the prospect of a job with a revue troupe or music band - were lured there.

The smugglers and the brothel owners, however, often came from the same regions and cultures as their victims. However, it is difficult to distinguish it from voluntary emigration, and a quantitative assessment is impossible. The victims' economic and legal predicaments were often exploited. For example, Jewish women in Russia were only officially allowed to move from rural ghettos to cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg if they registered as prostitutes.

The spread of trafficking in women was accelerated after the First World War by the impoverishment of large parts of the population of the former Austria-Hungary and by another wave of globalization as a result of the opening of the Panama Canal . Since then, members of (semi) colonized nations have also been above average, e. B. Chinese, among the perpetrators and victims.

The first bilateral intergovernmental agreements to prevent trafficking in women existed in the 1860s (e.g. 1866 between Belgium and the Netherlands, 1889 between the Netherlands and the German Empire). The protective conventions initially only related to underage women ( trafficking in girls ). In the Habsburg Monarchy, the phenomenon assumed such proportions that the Austro-Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs took measures in 1887 to stop the trade in Austrian and Hungarian girls to South America. issued the first anti-trafficking laws apart from the slavery problem. The Austrian League to Combat Trafficking in Girls was founded in 1902.

In Germany, Bertha Pappenheim played a central role in the fight against trafficking in women. Since around 1898 she has been involved in Frankfurt for its victims, most of whom were the discriminated and threatened Jewish women in Galicia, Russia and the Balkans. Pappenheim traveled several times to the affected areas to find out about trafficking in girls and published her results in several books. In doing so, she never concealed the large role that Jewish traffickers play in the crime. She also provided practical support on site and organized actions at the train stations, where she warned the arriving young women of the impending dangers. In 1901, she founded the Female Welfare Association , which supported girls who had fled from Eastern Europe. A year later, the first conference on combating trafficking in girls took place in Frankfurt.

The International Convention to Combat Trafficking in Girls of May 4, 1910 obliges its member states (as of 1989: 71 contracting states) to criminalize the seduction of female minors into prostitution and forced prostitution in their countries. On the international level, the International Convention for the Suppression of Trafficking in Women and Children was concluded in Geneva on September 30, 1921 , which was intended to curb the trafficking of women and children ; the age of consent was increased to 21 years. This distinction between underage and adult women was abolished in 1933. After the Second World War, the Convention on the Prevention of Trafficking in Human Beings and the Exploitation of Prostitution of Others (entered into force in 1951) was created - a controversial agreement that also includes voluntary prostitution and has not been ratified by Germany. The diversity of national legal norms that continues to this day is confusing and makes prosecution more difficult.

globalization

Trafficking in women received a new boost in the course of globalization in the later 20th century, in which many regional forms and local actors spread around the world. The number of unreported cases is still extremely high today, and the industry is still growing rapidly. According to the UN, 700,000 women are abducted and forced into prostitution every year; according to a UN report from 1999, there should be 500,000 victims of human trafficking in Western Europe every year, most of them women, because labor trafficking hardly plays a role here. In Germany, for example, there were only 317 completed proceedings in 2005 with 642 proven victims of human trafficking. The profit skimming in 23 cases brought in a sum of 1,160,000 euros.

National

Germany

In Germany today, the trade in women and girls from Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and the Balkans, Africa, East and Southeast Asia and Latin America plays a role. Other destination countries are the Czech Republic, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (especially the emirate of Dubai), Israel, Spain and France, other countries of origin China, Cambodia and Myanmar.

Ban Ying eV is a coordination and specialist advice center against human trafficking. It campaigns for the rights of migrant women who have experienced violence, exploitation or human trafficking as well as for those around them.

Austria

In 2017 orf.at reported the investigation and arrest of nine members of a suspected human trafficking ring that brought 50 girls from China to Austria and forced prostitution in whorehouses.

Trafficking in women in literature and film

Trafficking in women is a common subject in literature and feature films, but it is also the subject of many documentaries.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the work of Nobel Prize winner Gary S. Becker on crime or the publications by Birgit Sauer : (online at: homepage.univie.ac.at/birgit.sauer ) .
  2. ↑ Jasper Fabian Wenzel: Cultural history: Jewish girls as commodities for brothels. In: welt.de. August 27, 2012. Retrieved October 26, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Trafficking in women in the 19th century , dieuniversitaet-online.at ( Memento from April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Irene Stratenwerth : Girls trafficking: Also a Jewish topic around 1900. on: jg-berlin.org , October 1, 2012, accessed October 4, 2012.
  5. ↑ Lars Amenda: External Perception and Self-Sense. The 'Chinese Quarter' and Chinese Migration in Hamburg 1910–1960. In: Angelika Eder (ed. With the collaboration of Kristina Vagt): We are there too! Life by and with migrants in major European cities. Munich / Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-935549-50-4 , pp. 73-94.
  6. ^ Josef von Malfatti di Monte Trento: Handbook of the Austro-Hungarian Consular System , Volume II, Vienna 1904, pp. 220 f; According to Rudolf Agstner : From emperors, consuls and merchants: The k. (U.) K. Consulates in Arabia, Latin America, Latvia, London and Serbia , Volume 2 (= Volume 7 of Research on the History of the Austrian Foreign Service ), LIT Verlag Münster, 2012, ISBN 978-3-643-50459-3 , pp. 112 ff ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  7. ^ Official section - International Convention of May 4, 1910 for the Suppression of Trafficking in Girls. In:  Wiener Zeitung , February 20, 1913, p. 1 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz
  8. ^ Jürgen Nautz: Trafficking in women in Austria 1918–1938. (PDF; 1.2 MB) Accessed October 4, 2012.
  9. ↑ Trafficking in women and forced prostitution. ( Memento of the original from June 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. to: amnesty-maf.de , accessed October 4, 2012.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.amnesty-maf.de
  10. ↑ Facts and Figures - Trafficking in Women. on the website of SOLWODI - Solidarity with women in distress - Solidarity with women in need. Accessed October 4, 2012.
  11. ↑ Mission statement - Ban Ying eV Coordination and specialist advice center against human trafficking. Retrieved January 25, 2016 .
  12. ↑ Chinese trafficking in girls exposed orf.at, May 15, 2017, accessed May 15, 2017.
  13. ↑ List of documentaries on the website Action Alliance Against Trafficking in Women