Human trafficking and exploitation have been in existence since the beginning of time. This paper focuses on the underground economy of human trafficking and its relation to the transitioning economies of Russia and Ukraine. To understand the scope of the issue of human trafficking on transitioning economies, the history and origination of the issue must be clearly understood. The emergence of human trafficking, also commonly referred to as modern day slavery, can be dated back to the beginning of the 20th century; the start of slavery when humans were trafficked for mainly for labor. Records of human slavery within Europe date back to ancient Greece and Rome, but the practice did not end in ancient history. There are long-standing historical precedents for the exploitation of Slavs within Western Europe. It is commonly perceived that slavery disappeared from Europe many centuries ago. There was little knowledge of the active slave market in Palermo Sicily, with slaves being brought from Africa until the middle of the nineteenth century. Much of the slave trade was ran by legitimate actors and companies sanctioned by the state. An active slave trade with Africa flourished in the large colonial powers of Europe such as England and some of the smaller colonial powers such as Portugal. In addition to Africans, indigenous American populations were also enslaved in the colonies of Central and South America and the Caribbean. When the importation of slaves was outlawed in the colonies, bonded labor or indentured servitude, often with individuals from Asia, helped to meet the labor shortage in agriculture. At the end of the nineteenth century, a new form of slavery, the “white slavery” began. The white slave trade bought women, often by means of deception, from Western and Eastern Europe into the brothels of North and South America. During World War II, new forms of human slavery emerged. Women began to be trafficked into prostitution to serve the German troops. But what differentiates slavery from the current human trafficking? Unlike the past, human trafficking it is not controlled or sanctioned by the state, as was the African slave trade, the enslavement of native populations in the New World or the slave labor of the Third Reich. Apart from those who individuals who managed the white slave trade, enslavers were not organized criminals or crime networks. Instead, today criminal groups and networks control trafficking and increasingly assume the important role as facilitators of human trafficking.
Human Trafficking as defined in Article 3, paragraph (a) of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficker in Persons defines Trafficking in persons as the
“recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation.” From the early 20th century studies were conducted to explore the inclination behind human trafficking. These studies considered factors such factors such as the number of women engaged in prostitution, the demand and the surrounding environment of the women who were trafficked, including information about potential traffickers. Such measures were progressive steps in addressing the problem of human trafficking. In the year 1904, The International Agreement for the Suppression of White Slave Traffic was put into action and its main purpose was to protect women, young and old from being involved in “white slave traffic” previously defined. Years after, other developments against human trafficking emerged. As concern over the trafficking of women and children reemerged in the aftermath of World War I and the “reopening of commerce and frontiers”, the League of Nations(LON) held international conferences and conventions on the issue. Steps such as the 1921 Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Women and Children and the 1933 International Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Women of Full Age rejected narrow focus on white slavery and included calls for wider criminalization and greater punishment of trafficking offenses. In 1956, India enacted the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act designed to persecute the third parties in human trafficking in activities such as brothels, those earning a living from sex work or those who captured and entrapped or imprisoned people into prostitution. The Act was deemed unsuccessful as it failed to protect many of the women who were forced into prostitution. Such Acts are often merely symbolic or ceremonial, a gesture of societal appeasement On December 1949, The United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in persons and the exploitation of the Prostitution of Other was approved. The convention prescribes procedures for combating international traffic for the purpose of prostitution, including extradition of offenders. The United Nations in 1995 held the fourth World Conference to address the issue of trafficking of women. A major outcome of this meeting was the recognition of trafficking as an act of violence against women. Further actions developed from the meeting were the enforcing of international conventions on trafficking and human slavery. The end result was to set up effective law enforcement and institutions that would work to eliminate trafficking both nationally and internationally, and implementing programs including educational and rehabilitation institutions to provide for the social, medical, and psychological needs to victims of trafficking. In the year 2000, the United Nations introduced the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons. Designed to inhibit and fight trafficking in persons and ease International Corporation, this protocol provides for the criminalization of traffickers, control and cooperation measures against them, and some measures to protect and help victims of trafficking. Despite efforts by International Organizations, non-governmental organizations and the increase in laws against human trafficking, this act continues to plague nations and harness thousands of individuals annually.
Myriad methods exist in which human trafficking may occur. It may occur through forced labor, bonded labor, debt bondage among migrant laborers, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child labor, child soldiers and sex trafficking. Human trafficking stretches from the borders of the United States to African countries and former Soviet republics. Human trafficking is one of the greatest, yet ironically, little known problems facing Russia and the former Soviet republics particularly, Ukraine. Despite the differences among former Soviet countries, they all have one issue in common: human trafficking. They serve as source, transit, and host states for human trafficking. Russia now hosts the second largest number of migrants in the world after the United States. The people most affected by this human vice are women and children. But what caused the arousal of this practice in Russia and Ukraine? A hint to this question can be found in the historical realities of the Soviet Union. As economic reform movements gained ground throughout Eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991, countries such as Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, started to break apart from the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought an end to seventy years of centralized political, social and economic controls that not only guaranteed employment but social security. The surge in human trafficking is the result of various factors including the dramatic fall of the economic system and deterioration of the social safety net. This activity first started in the Soviet Union during perestroika (openness) when limitations on international travel were eased. Diminished border controls followed unintentionally from the collapse of the USSR, leaving a huge landmass stretching from the Pacific Ocean to Europe with only limited controls over population movement.
The failure of the Soviet Union exemplified the point that democracy and communism cannot exist together, which continues to have an effect on the former Soviet Republics that are still struggling with the economic and political damage caused by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Undoubtedly, the current economic situation in Russia makes it difficult for women to find employment and provide for their families, putting themselves and their children at high risk for trafficking. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the sexually charged atmosphere along with the economic instability, combined with a new independence, lack of international travel experience and a desire for adventure, made many women (especially from the countries of Ukraine and Russia) targets for traffickers. Trafficking has increased dramatically with globalization, the rise of illicit trade, and the end of the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War came the demise of Soviet Socialism and the collapse of the USSR. This led to greater international political instability and after the break- up of the USSR , many new states sought sovereignty and independence. The countries of the former USSR, with their limited border controls, are now important transit and destination countries for human smuggling and trafficking. Millions now reside illegally in Russia and Ukraine and many victims transit through the region. The end of the Cold War had its greatest impact on the former Soviet Union and the former socialist bloc of Eastern Europe. Human trafficking proliferated in the final years of the Soviet period, in the 1980’s. At first, trafficking victim were primarily women, but after the dissolution of the USSR, diverse forms of trafficking developed, facilitated by the rise of organized crime, the decline of borders, high levels of corruption and the incapacity of the transitional states to protect their citizens. Also contributing to human susceptibility to traffickers were the social and economic collapse, discrimination against women and minorities and the conflict that accompanies the demise of the socialist system.