2024-10-06 06:20:27
- They return to the small town with the stigma of “prostitutes”, which leads to a high risk of retrafficking
Asya Alexandrova leads the programs for “Prevention, rehabilitation and integration of people injured or at risk of trafficking” at the P.U.L.S. Foundation. She is also specialized as a criminal psychologist. He has a certificate for conducting and leading interrogations of children, victims and perpetrators of crime, in a blue room.
– What is the type of trafficking victims by gender and what age are the victims most often?
– Women and girls are most often victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Men – on labor exploitation. We also have cases of young men who have been involved in sexual exploitation, but they are fewer in number. We also have women who are victims of trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation. Our case studies also include girls and young men, victims of human trafficking for pickpocketing, organized begging, etc. But they are also less. About age – when we talk about children, most often they are 10-12-year-old girls. The reasons for becoming victims of trafficking are a difficult economic and social situation, lack of loved ones and parents, as a result of which they are placed in an institution and are neglected. They are a risk group and are easily involved in traffic. For adults – most often it is about up to 30-35 years old.
– What are the methods of involving the victim in the traffic, when we are not talking about kidnapping?
– We have cases of a number of women who were lured to go to other countries in order to do different types of work, but in the end they became the object of sexual exploitation. The more modern and notorious manipulations at the moment are the conclusion of marriage for the purpose of acquiring financial and economic benefits. At the same time, they become victims of trafficking. According to our studies, most often our compatriots become victims in Greece. They are sent there to work and lured with promising conditions, but even before the border or shortly after it, they are already trafficked for sexual abuse. Also in Germany, but the difference is that there prostitution is legal and identifying that you are a victim of trafficking is very difficult. Traffickers take the identity documents of almost all their victims.
– Do you have a case of concluding a fictitious marriage in another country for benefits?
– Recently, a woman came to me, who has been in Bulgaria for a long time, but years ago she traveled to Greece with the idea of a profitable job. When she arrives in our southern neighbor, they explain to her that if she enters into a fictitious marriage with a person of another nationality, she will be more easily accommodated in a post and she will receive high social benefits from the state. She does. In the end, they take away her documents and force her into prostitution. Fortunately, he manages to escape. She comes home to us, where she meets love and gives birth to two children. At one point, he realizes that the marriage he concluded fictitiously in Greece was quite real. For inquiries in all systems, she is listed as married. For 5 years now, she has been trying to divorce the foreigner in order to legitimize the real father of the children, because the man in question is currently considered their parent. According to our laws, when children are born in Bulgaria, they are registered in the name of the spouse with whom you have an official marriage. In order for them to receive from our legislation support, child benefits, change of address, etc., she conducts divorce proceedings. He does it on our territory. We are talking about heavy legal proceedings. He told me that he was in the final and they managed to track down the man in which country he was. Paternity tests are required of him so that he has no claims.
– When it comes to fictitious marriage, what nationalities do they make them sign with?
– Pakistanis and Iranians. The women have no idea what will happen next. Due to their difficult economic and social situation, they are ready for anything.
– Is there a moment of dependency towards the trafficker if the victim is from a small town and is ashamed to return or has been sold by her relatives?
– Total isolation and control lead to the adoption of a distorted self-image. The consequences are in two categories – emotional, which includes mental trauma, and social. One of the mechanisms of control over the victim includes not only rape, but also taking away her documents and money, which makes her completely dependent. There is always some debt that he cannot repay. Sometimes it is totally made up by the trafficker, but it is attributed to her. In other cases, we are talking about a real debt – they are forced to pay back, that is why they are put into traffic, that is, they are forced to pay back. In a number of cases, they also make them use psychoactive substances. So they last for hours, taking more and more customers for more money. In the social consequences, I include the lack of tolerance on the part of the victim’s environment – to accept her again and support her. In the small town she comes home with the stigma of “prostitute”. The past of these girls does not allow them to reintegrate easily. This leads to an extremely high risk of retrafficking. The topic of silence is also delicate. They are threatened to keep quiet and not share as their relatives will be abused if they have any. A large proportion of people who become part of trafficking have been victims of violence in their past.
– Is there still the trafficking of pregnant women for the purpose of selling their newborns?
– I can’t say if he has it to date. In terms of trauma to the victims – they are big, but they are anesthetized. It’s like repeatedly hitting a child on the arm and at one point he says – it doesn’t hurt. Yes, it stops hurting, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
– What is labor exploitation for men?
– Going to work abroad, most people do not realize that what they are promised, they do not see on paper as an employment contract. They go to a country, often without knowing the language and with little idea what documentation they are signing or will be given on the spot. They rely on verbal promises. They put their signature on a text in a foreign language. They often take their documents before they even cross the border. In the end, the conditions turned out to be different – slave. They find themselves in a situation of irregular work – much more than what was agreed, they don’t even have anything secured than what was promised. Including squalor in the places where they sleep.
– Are victims of human trafficking who contact you also looking for the police? Do they give alerts?
– We work with the so-called unidentified victims of trafficking. World statistics say that every year the EU reports over 7,000 victims, but these are the identified ones. In Bulgaria we have the so-called a national mechanism to refer and assist victims of trafficking. According to him and according to our legislation, there are two types of victims of trafficking. One is the “self-identified” who turn to NGOs. But in order for a man, woman or child to benefit from all the rights of the state as victims, they have to be officially identified. This is done only by the investigative bodies – police and prosecutor’s office. If it is not shared with them, no testimony is given, and the person does not respond to a criteria questionnaire, they cannot be identified. In this line of thought, it is not included in the official statistics of our country. Only if he is in them, he could use the support mechanisms – the right to state and legal aid, the right to financial compensation, the status of a victim or witness in the proceedings, pecuniary and non-pecuniary compensation against the trafficker. Sometimes, even if the victim meets the criteria, she is afraid to go to the police because the system is slow and she needs very fast protection and help.