They are 16-25 years old, with no education and coming from the Turkish or Roma minorities in this country. They travel to Germany, following a promise for a marriage of convenience or a well-paid job, but are actually forced into prostitution. This is the image of 25 victims of trafficking in women with the purpose of sexual exploitation in the former German capital city of Bohn. The case was presented in Sofia at a conference, dedicated to the issue and organized by the German embassy and the country’s Federal Criminal Police Office /FCPO/.
Bulgaria has turned into a major country – source of human trafficking in Europe. This conclusion of FCPO was also confirmed by 2010 statistics, showing that each 5th woman, victim of sexual exploitation and each 5th pimp in Germany have Bulgarian citizenship. The investigating officers talk about a new phenomenon – the one of hookers from EU member-states, legally residing in Germany and forced to sale their bodies. The Bohn police have observed a constant growing of the number of pimps and prostitutes, coming from Bulgaria ever since its 2007 EU accession. Thanks to information, received from their Bulgarian colleagues the officers started an investigation and they soon found out the scheme of the traffickers and pimps – those decoy girls from remote Bulgarian villages, promising them marriages of convenience or a well-paid job. However, the hopes of the girls never become reality. They are forced to sell their bodies 12-15 hours per day. Some of the women have been beaten and humiliated after their refusal to obey. “The scheme worked perfectly,” Chief Commissioner Rainer Bell, who is in charge of the investigation said, explaining why these girls are easy victims.
“These young women do not realize that they are victims. In most of the cases their family background was strictly patriarchal and the woman played the role of a maidservant, nothing more. Many of these girls have been objects of physical abuse since an early age. Besides that, not a single girl from those 25 in Bohn has graduated high school. This all makes them easy victims to traffickers and pimps that all come from the Turkish and Roma minorities in Bulgaria.”
Both the victims and traffickers caught are from the region of Dobrich, Northeast Bulgaria. The German police investigators have managed to take the testimonies of the girls thanks to their Bulgarian colleagues from the Fighting Organized Crime Chief Directorate and the district prosecution in Dobrich. This support was essential to Rainer Bell, since the victims and their families were constantly threatened during the investigation.
“In such cases we receive immediately information from the village, where the victim’s family lives. It was really important to those people to know that they could address to someone for help and that we and our Bulgarian colleagues could guarantee their security. That was how we achieved this success: ten sentences of 6 months – 5 years in prison, as some of those are suspended. Sentences for organized human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation are a really rare phenomenon.”
The so-called Bohn Case is a precedent and will surely make the society pay more attention to this dirty business – human trafficking. Besides that, this case might help prevention, according to Commissioner Bohn.
“The higher the educational level and social status of these girls is, the fewer the chances are for them to fall into the trap of traffickers and pimps. Being a police officer, it is important to me that a clear message was sent to both the criminals and the victims. The latter are aware now that they are not alone. The convicted criminals should know that the police will chase them to the end, will arrest and send them to the court and if their guilt is proved they will be imprisoned.”
According to some evaluations human trafficking comes third as a source of profits for organized crime, after arms and drug trafficking. According to Commissioner Bell the smashing of this gang happened thanks to the good cooperation between security forces of Bulgaria and Germany. However, in his words, the partnership with NGOs, Europol and Eurojust should be strengthened in the future and new strategies should be implemented in the fight with human trafficking.
English version: Zhivko Stanchev
