The Women's Freedom Network Newsletter Sept/Oct and Nov/Dec, 1999, Vol. 6, Nos. 5 & 6. NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SEXUAL TRAFFICKING Guest Speaker: Nora Demleitner Visiting Professor of Law, Univerity of Michigan by Nora Demleitner

W hat forms of help, what forms of assistance, do the woman want, and what are countries willing to provide? Indeed what should they provide? What I would like to see is, first a change in terminology to "support services." That's what we should be providing. Those may range from medical to psychological help. But as we just heard, some woman may not want it. I think what's important in this process, in order to give them back the power that they have lost by being forced into prostitution, is to let them make choices. We may not agree with their choices, but let the women make informed choices.

The next question is what to do with the women, in terms of keeping them in the country versus repatriating them? Ten years ago there was absolutely no witness protection in the Western European countries. The women realized this, and a lot of them asked to be deported, the reason being, if they were deported, the traffickers came to their house once they were back home, and they could say, well, look, I was deported. I didn't rat on you. They don't know anything from me about your operation. So in a way, it was a safety guard. Of course, what this did is, it made prosecution in Western Europe pretty much impossible, and in the United States, for that matter, and Australia as well.

As trafficking has come to be perceived more as an organized crime, a serious, national, state security problem, witness protection and temporary visas have been put in place. The S-Visa for "entertainers" is an example of that. It was not designed only for trafficking victims, but it was designed for undocumented aliens who participated in criminal prosecutions. Unless you put at the end of this some more long term protection or visa status, the state here is again using the victims, obviously for very different purposes than the traffickers, but basically what you're granted is a visa in exchange for your testimony.

In Western European countries, there seems to be a problem of lack of cooperation between immigration and the criminal enforcement people. All the law enforcement officials I have talked, want the women to stay in the country. But they're split about long term versus short term protection. All of them want the women to stay in the country for the trial, to help prosecution. Unfortunately, often immigration, for one reason or another, manages to get these women first and to take them across the border, with law enforcement not knowing about these things going on.

Obviously, women should not be imprisoned and they should not be prosecuted. They all committed criminal offenses, but clearly they should not be prosecuted. Probably, there should be some explicit statement to this effect, but I don't think that will happen. The problem now is that the testimony can be attacked at the trial, because all of the women are promised no prosecution and possibly visas in exchange for their testimony, which makes them biased witnesses. This is not a unique situation. This happens in many types of cases. It happened in all the large Mafia prosecutions.

Obviously now, while this trial is going on, and these trials may be going on for a long time, the next question is work permits. They are not given as a matter of course, but they should clearly be given.

The next problem is the obviously potential language problems, so possibly other types of programs, such as skills training programs might be useful.

Here, I would say, let's not develop a one size fits all model, but rather really look at the individual needs and the individual wishes and desires and needs of the women. For instance, in the case of Eastern European women trafficked into Western Europe, many are very well educated. The problem is not lack of education at home; it's the lack of employment opportunities, which individual law enforcement officers or aid workers cannot create. Those are some of the things that are very important to keep in mind.