Victims unprotected as traffickers walk free

by Lisa Bjurwald and Maik Baumgartner

 

BRUSSELS - The top suits in Brussels couldn't be more in agreement: human trafficking is modern-day slavery and needs to be stamped out with force.

Red light district: It's often impossible to get the fear-stricken victims to testify

Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt even made it the surprise topic of his annual Christmas speech. Yet the number of convictions for human trafficking turns out to be shockingly low. And while trafficking is on the rise, the conviction rate is actually declining.

Are slave-traders operating in a state of European impunity?

A sorry example from the German capital: In 2012, Berlin police carried out 680 controls of prostitution milieus in order to identify victims of trafficking. While this led to 64 investigations, a mere two cases resulted in convictions.

In Sweden, it has been illegal to purchase sex since 1999, but internal police reviews admit little is done to enforce the law.

Lack of resources' is the standard police answer across Europe when confronted with meagre results but Swedish police explain in an anti-trafficking paper (2011) that effective counter-trafficking work is not necessarily a matter of resources

A case in point is the Internet. Cyber trafficking (grooming, recruitment, selling of victims) is booming. In a 2013 report, Swedish police even state that Internet is the new red-light district. Yet they have almost no surveillance of online sexual exploitation. And Internet-based research would be an extremely cost-effective means of investigation. 

Many instances of human trafficking end in convictions for procurement  a less serious crime, with a slighter punishment. The fault lies with the courts. They urgently need to be educated on the finer workings of human trafficking, says one frustrated officer in Stockholm. 

"Judges can rule that a case isn't trafficking because the exploited girl had a key to the apartment where she was being kept. In their minds, that means she was free to leave. Trafficking may not be a physical prison, but it is a psychological one, equally impossible to escape," continues the officer.  

It's often impossible to get the fear-stricken victims to testify. Lawyers say witnesses regularly escape during trials. Some are offered money (up to 10,000 euro) in exchange for silence, others are under threat. That's if the case makes it to trial. 

"Investigations are often closed at an early stage. If you lack trust in other humans, you're unlikely to suddenly open up and start revealing sensitive details," says a trauma psychologist specialised in migrant youth

One would think that the witness protection system is particularly well-crafted for trafficking cases. The opposite turns out to be true. In many EU countries, social workers have no right to remain silent in court. Even when they do, pressure is applied.


Stronger witness support


At an international trafficking conference in Berlin last fall, participants revealed that social workers are summoned to court to testify about their clients, a practice that endangers both their own and the victims safety.

 Cecilia MalmstrÃm, EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, agrees that a stronger witness support system is needed.

 "Sometimes they're forced to sit in the same court room as the perpetrators, who can lock eyes with them and silently repeat their threats. Girls should be able to testify remotely, and with adequate training the courts will be more competent."

All victims have the right to an unconditional reflection period of at least 30 days before they decide whether to participate in a trial or not, according to the European Council's anti-trafficking convention.

Psychologists suggest at least 3-6 months recuperation from the traumatic experience, which often results in severe health problems such as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). The convention has been ratified by 40 member states, including Sweden and Germany, yet NGOs all over Europe reveal systematic breaches.

Leading asylum lawyer Karin Gyllenring has investigated the situation in Sweden.

 "I've discovered that the problem isn't that we don't offer long enough periods, but that we don't even offer the minimum 30 days victims are entitled to."

Gyllenring and her law firm are so concerned that they have created a Swedish civil society platform to assist victims, lobby for greater support and strengthen victims' legal rights.

Across the EU, victims are coerced into taking the stand with the threat of not getting their residence permits. It's a cruel practice by the authorities, as a forced return can mean risking their lives. Many victims dare only go half the distance.

"I told the court that I didn't know [her female trafficker], that she had bought me from someone else," admits one West African ex-victim. 

"The truth is that she's a relative, and the one who brought me to Europe in the first place. But had I exposed her, her men could have hurt my family." 

As so many other traffickers, not least female ones, the woman walked free. Somewhere in Central Europe.


From trafficking victim to perpetrator


It has taken months to make contact with a former Nigerian madame and arrange a meeting.

When Joan finally sits down before us, she strikes us as a beautiful woman, with deep, dark eyes and a soft voice. She can't quite keep her fingers still. Her feet keep wiggling, too. But mostly Joan looks directly into our eyes as she tells a rarely heard story: how she went from trafficking victim to perpetrator.

Joan grew up in Nigeria, with patriarchal structures, oppression and violence, and the belief that there are strong supernatural forces at work: Voodoo, exerted by influential, self-appointed priests. Longing for a better life, she was deceived by a local woman and trafficked to Europe while still very young.

One crucial detail set Joan apart from the other slaves: after a while, she realised that her madame had taken a liking to her. Joan seized the opportunity, deciding to be obedient at all times, no matter how gruelling work was.  Soon, she was teaching new girls how the game worked, reporting their progress and private chatter to the madame. She was rewarded with little freedoms, was treated better than the others and got to keep more money, too.  "A game of stick and carrot," she says today, not without bitterness.

Joan's madame was a master manipulator. She was the chief oppressor, threatening her slaves if they dared talk back, but it was the men on her payroll who were ordered to carry out physical punishments. After the beatings, she would comfort the victims, acting as a surrogate mother to the vulnerable girls, desperate for affection.

"I could see what she was doing. But I had already risen, I was benefitting and I wanted to bring back a sense of control over my own destiny," Joan explains.

She continued climbing, using other victims as stepping stones, until finally she was a madame herself. Using contacts of her old madame, she placed an order for new women to be brought in from Nigeria. She would dress them up, she says, and with the help of a man who became her husband kept a tight leash on them. In a final closing of the circle, she recruited a new Joan, a right-hand woman fiercely loyal because of the possibility of climbing the criminal ladder

Today, Joan doesn't want to talk about how much money she earned as a madame. She has spent time in prison for sexual exploitation, but the police were unable to prove all the things she had done. The sentence was slight. She is a free woman now, not yet 40.

Her belief in the powers of voodoo remains strong. She saw it as her duty to fulfill the contract with her madame, as promised to the spirits, and is remarkably proud of having done so. She admits that she is undergoing therapy, to work through my past, and makes a point of distancing herself from the trafficking scene. She doesn't have anything to do with that business anymore, she assures us.  

But whether she is ashamed of the pain she inflicted on innocent women, many of whom are now suffering daily just as she once did, Joan for some reason will not say. 

Driving back to a large European city, young, fresh-looking girls sprout up like flowers on the side of the garbage-strewn road. Who, like Lilian Solomon, hides a deadly disease? Who, like Victoria, carries an unborn child that will prove her salvation? 

The wheel of the modern-day slave trade keeps spinning, constantly fed with new flesh.






This article was first published in Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden) and Spiegel Online (Germany) in Jan/Feb 2014 and is part of series of investigations into human trafficking.The series was made possible by a working grant from journalismfund.eu



Keshe Foundation Technology Transfer for World Government

by M.T. Keshe,  Keshe Foundation

On the 21st of April 2012 in the first international presentation at the Keshe Foundation centre in Belgium,  the foundation began the full transfer of technologies to world governments.  The Keshe Foundation through its ethos of world equality did organise and execute the first of its series of presentations of all its technologies for world government.  In this invitation all the nations in the United Nation charter have been contacted and invited.

The European space agency and NASA were invited for this presentation.  We invited the ambassadors of the United State of America, ambassadors of the smallest island nations to ambassadors of the poorest nations in Africa. Thus we have started the full transfer of technology to all nations irrespective of their size, colour, belief, financial strength and political orientation.  All Know-how of the Keshe Foundation is offered and made available freely for transfer to world governments.

In this first meeting the Keshe Foundation explained and demonstrated systems given to government representatives or the ambassadors and the representative of the attending nations.  In this meeting full operation of systems for all technologies developed by the Foundation were fully explained and most systems were demonstrated for their operation.

Our technology from this point on is in the hand of your nation and from the Holy day of the 21.04.2012 our knowledge has become your nations knowledge and assets. From this point on 21.4.2012, it is the responsibility of the nations to bring the space, health, food and the energy discoveries and technologies developed by the Keshe Foundation to their citizens.  The copy of the invitation letter to world ambassadors in Belgium is attached below and information in the invitation clearly states that our technologies are, will and have been transferred free of charge and without ties to any nation.

The second round of the presentation for the nations whom could not attend for whatever reasons will be organised and held at the Keshe Foundation centre in September of 2012. We hope that the world nations will use this new knowledge for its peaceful development for the advancement of human race.

Below is the Copy of the invitation to the representatives of the governments 


Subject: Invitation for His/Her Excellency the Ambassador


You are cordially invited

Keshe Foundation kindly invites His/Her Excellency the Ambassador and your scientific representatives or specialists in the fields of space, energy and health to attend the first international space gravitational plasma technology presentation by  Stichting of the Keshe Foundation for governments and their officials in Belgium.

It will be kind of you if you could provide us with the name of the officials and in the capacity that they will be representing your nation in this presentation that we can deliver their personal invitation to your embassy for their attendance. Please confirm the acceptance that representative(s) from your nation will be attending this presentation by e-mail to ———————————————————– no later than 20.04.2012

In this presentation the new space gravitational plasma technology know-how developed by the Keshe Foundation will be offered and the full technology will be available for transfer to your government.

The new space gravitational plasma technology will allow your nation to have access immediately, directly and without much expense to the space program, energy production system and medical system technologies, which have been developed for space exploration by the Foundation over the past forty years, where these new discoveries can create new jobs and give access to new energy resources for your nation.  This presentation will include:

The explanation of the first non-propulsion and the use of new gravitational positioning space plasma system, which has been developed by the Keshe Foundation.  This allows space to be opened to every nation without delay rather than waiting for decades for the technology to disseminate.


Where, from this point on the human- race will work and develop technology as a collective unit and not as separate programs by different nations: http://www.keshefoundation.com/en/applications/space

The medical application of the new space gravitational plasma technology, which has been tested and being developed by the Keshe Foundation can be read and seen in more detail at: http://www.keshefoundation.com/en/applications/medical

The energy production capabilities of the new space technology can be seen at:
http://www.keshefoundation.com/en/applications/energy

According to the ethos of the Keshe Foundation our knowledge belongs to your nation and we transfer it as a whole and as a gift and free of any charges and without any ties attached and we hope that your government will use this new knowledge for further improving the life of your nationals and bringing them in-line with the rest of the progrssive nations of today and in one collaborated move into space programs of the 21st century. 

The new space gravitational plasma technology works through a principle of burning no fuel as the space propulsion and energy industries are accustomed to at the present.  The new technology uses the universal laws of physics and are in-line with the creation of motion and energy as attained in the universe by all celestial objects without burning any fuel in the process.  As we say in the Keshe Foundation “We do not observe any wings or jet engines or power stations attached to the earth, but earth has been in motion and creating its own energy and keeping its distance from other celestial objects in the solar system through universal principle of creation and positioning of its magnetic fields for millions of years using the interaction and positioning of it magnetic fields as is done by all dynamic celestial objects in the universe. "

Hence mans knowledge from this point on with the new technology has reached the point where we have finished our collective habit of burning matter to achieve motion and creation of electric power for we use the universal principle of positioning of magnetic fields in our developed systems for creation of motion, energy and health-care.

What your government will do and how it will implement this new technology, which we transfer to your nation for advancement of your nationals, is your government’s decision.

You can read more about this new scientific development on the Website of the Keshe Foundation.
http://www.keshefoundation.com