europe8

In April 2000 the International Centre for Missing and Exploited asked me to research and
prepare an investigative report on the sexual exploitation of children emanating from the
Balkan Crises. I traveled to nine countries, 20 villages and cities, and made 26 stops within
a nine-week period of time in Eastern and Western Europe. Over 500 interviews were
conducted. I interviewed pimps, children, a madam, transvestites, restaurant owners,
concierges, bartenders, hotel maids, local and national police, Interpol agents, immigration
experts, US Customs agents, a pedophile expert, trafficking experts, traffickers, non-
governmental organization representatives, pornography experts, State Department
employees, Mafia, parents, prostitutes, a PHD candidate specializing in sex tourism,
members of the European Parliament, heads of charities, and more. I went to Red Light
Districts in both Amsterdam and Brussels, drove around the boulevards of Milan and
Rome, went into prostitute walkups in London's Soho, hung out with pimps and traffickers in
Vienna and Brussels, interviewed a madam in Paris, and collected names, numbers and
addresses of the pimps and traffickers in Macedonia and Albania.
As in any investigation, one has to assume that rumors are loosely repeated, numbers can
be exaggerated, facts are distorted, and proof even rarer. Skepticism and curiosity are
mandatory. My approach to this investigation was to question as many players in this
drama as possible, work my way from west to east, go into the Balkans, and cross-
reference as much as I could.
My fundamental conclusion: Children are being exploited on a multi-dimensional, multi-
leveled, multi-faceted, transcriminal, cross-cultural, and transnational manner. It is
systematically organized. In many instances, it is in conjunction with traditional organized
criminal organizations, as well as newly formed organized crime syndicates, or local criminal
gangs. This new criminal activity, trafficking in children, has changed local communities.
Some of it is transparent. Some of it is not so transparent. But, what is known is that
Europeans everywhere are talking about the children. Early in the investigation, a UK vice
squad detective stated that this phenomenon is like "a slow tidal wave moving westward." I
concluded that human-trafficking is far more profitable than the smuggling of drugs and
guns, and that no organization truly has a figure on the exact numbers of people — adults
and children — trafficked although it has been cited repeatedly to be 2 million annually.
The children caught up in this tidal wave enter it in one of four primary ways: (1) they are
kidnapped; (2) they are coerced; (3) they are sold; or (4) they leave home voluntarily
based upon a hope that the West will be better than their current situation.
Simply stated, the exploitation of children is about money. It is about economic survivability.
The children are used as commodities for trade, as are weapons, drugs, tobacco, toxic
waste, or nuclear arms. Many NGOs and bureaucrats are focusing on prostitution, but in
order to grasp the understanding of what is occurring in Europe, you have to think very
simply, although it is very offensive, the children are commodities to the traffickers. It is cold
and blunt, and the truth.
The exploitation of children is layered with prostitution, drugs, guns, toxic waste, and
tobacco smuggling. Ten-year-olds are selling drugs. Simultaneously, child prostitution is on
the rise. Child pornography on the Internet features more recently taken pictures. There is
an overwhelming increase in chat rooms for child sex solicitation. The volume of chat rooms
and child pornography websites is at an all time high. Sex tourism is a booming business.
The threat of AIDS on the RISE is very real. Some prostitution customers pay high dollars
for a twelve-year-old, not because they are pedophiles, but because they believe that
younger girls will not have AIDS. Consequently, the price and demand for younger children
has increased. As I traveled into seedy districts, I saw many African children in the windows,
in Red Light Districts, and on the boulevards of Italian cities and hills. It is my personal
belief that a pandemic of AIDS is in the wings unless this problem is fully presented.
It is not limited to Europe. Many western African girls — Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal,
and Ghana are prostitutes throughout Europe. I also encountered children from Kenya,
Nepal and India. Not all of them are prostituting by choice. Many thought that they were
getting legitimate jobs. Many have had their passports and documentation taken away by
their traffickers. All but one girl I interviewed had been gang-raped by traffickers and pimps
and their buddies. Their pimps or traffickers told them that they could not go to the local
police because the local police were involved. Many believed these statements because in
their homelands, some of the traffickers were the police or involved with the police. One girl
said she was actually sold by a Chief of Police — not once, but twice. She attempted
suicide.
No politicians or universal bodies are handling the issue practically. What is needed now is
to get the children off the streets; support, fund, train, and staff local law enforcement; and
put the traffickers behind bars with severe penalties. Currently, in most countries,
trafficking and pimping laws are less severe than drug trafficking. Hence, the penalties for
child exploitation are not overwhelming deterrents. On average, a trafficker or pimp will get
2 - 7 years. In most case, unless there is evidence, which means witnesses, the criminal is
out in 2 years. There are exceptions. In Italy, law enforcement broke up a prostitution ring,
supported the witnesses, and put the criminals away for life.
It was succinctly stated by one law enforcement official, "There are three components to
the exploitation of children; an endless supply of children, an endless supply of ruthless
traffickers, and an endless number of customers and clients." Law enforcement should be
given the fullest mandate to go after traffickers. Traffickers not only sell children. They
beat, rape, gang rape, torture, and corrupt the children. They destroy their innocence and
affect any relationship these children will have in the future.
Prostitution is not the only method that children are being exploited. Children are being
used to distribute drugs, used as sex slaves, domestic slaves, and migrant workers.
The Saints in this saga are those who are risking their lives to save these children. They
have been threatened, shot at, and some have had to abandon their homes to survive.
The heroes are the children who shared their stories in spite of threats to their lives and
families. I asked some of the girls I interviewed if they would write down their stories and
allow me to share them with the world. One little girl said, "We need you to tell the story. No
one cares about us." The report is dedicated to them.