The police arrested five people on suspicion that from January to the beginning of December of this year, in order to obtain financial benefits, they organized advertising for prostitution through the media, participated in mediation, and then encouraged and led several women to prostitution in the territory of Belgrade, it was announced this week. Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Arrested MT (48), NU (28), SL (49), BS (41) and MT (37) are members of an organized criminal group.
It is suspected that the women they were securing were handed over to third parties for prostitution - users of sexual services. They divided the money obtained in this way among themselves according to the tasks and covered the costs for that criminal activity.
Given that advertising prostitution is a criminal offense criminalized by the same Article 184 of the Criminal Code as mediation in prostitution, the question arises as to how it is possible for the advertisement to appear in the media.
"It is something that is not taken seriously in our society and is not punished to the extent that the law and reason require it." "Unfortunately, we witness daily that prostitution and mediation in prostitution are promoted in the media with a national frequency, by bringing repeatedly convicted pimps who wholeheartedly promote violent behavior and violence against women in general, without any sanctions for their behavior," he told the portal. Vremena" Jelena Hrnjak, program manager of NGO Athens, an organization for the protection of women victims of human trafficking.
Activist Sanja Pavlović from AŽC says the same for the "Vremena" portal. She also doesn't understand how it is possible that such an ad was published for almost a whole year, and there were no reactions from the competent institutions.
"Of course, we know that there are more such ads, just as we know that it is often the women involved in prostitution who are sanctioned, and less often those who dragged them into it. That's why we welcome the decision to arrest those who organize prostitution and we hope that the women who were victims of this group of men will not be prosecuted," says Sanja Pavlović.
Photo: APHow pimps get girls
The question is also in which ways criminal groups get to the girls, who introduce them into the circle of sales and prostitution, from which it is very difficult for them to get out.
"One of the biggest prejudices about human trafficking is that it occurs only within criminal groups that carry out illegal activities. Reality denies us in this. Human trafficking often occurs in legal and real business settings. Often, legal activities are a front for human trafficking, such as international agencies for mediation in employment, study or marriage, behind which human trafficking can actually be hidden. Elements of human trafficking can be identified whenever force, fraud or coercion is present to induce a person to engage in prostitution or forced labor," says Hrnjak.
It explains that massage parlors that are advertised can be a cover behind which hides forced prostitution and sexual exploitation, while the reasons why women are in forced prostitution and later in the situation of human trafficking are discrimination, marginalization, poverty, gender inequality and stereotypes .
From the experience of the organization Atina, which has been protecting women victims of human trafficking for 20 years, many of them said that their difficult life circumstances are being abused and that they have been in a situation of exploitation for years, which for many of them started when they were minors. It is important to understand that these women are fundamentally intimidated, blackmailed and manipulated.
"Traffickers deceive them and threaten them, most often with public shaming, which represents a kind of social death." Human traffickers are favored by the devastating practice in our society, where it often happens that a woman is not trusted, where her experience, her words, what she has been through, where she is blamed for what happened to them, and where her personality is being examined in order to prove whether or not a criminal offense was committed. In this situation, a closed circle of violence is created, from which it is difficult to get out," says Hrnjak.
Laws in Serbia still disproportionately affect women
How are cases of coercion into prostitution and prostitution itself treated in the Serbian judiciary, and have we made any progress as a society and as a state? Activist Sanja Pavlović from the Autonomous Women's Center (AŽC) says that many women's organizations and other actors in society are advocating for a change in the Serbian Law on Public Order and Peace, which criminally prosecutes both women who indulge in prostitution and men who buy women's bodies (so-called users ).
"Although we have been pointing out the necessity of changing this law for years in order to decriminalize women, this change has not yet taken place, so we do not see a step forward at the legal level. Our country, but unfortunately a good part of society, still do not understand the extent of the trauma experienced by women in prostitution, how vulnerable they are, how young they enter prostitution, what difficult life circumstances push them into, poverty, the need to feed their children".
She adds that many girls are deceived by pimps who at first pretend to care about them and then betray that trust, so it is necessary to keep up with human rights standards and decriminalize women, so that they are never punished again for raping them. have experienced, because prostitution is a form of paid rape.
"On the other hand, it is necessary to focus attention on those who are responsible, namely pimps and men who buy women in prostitution. Messages need to be sent more clearly that it is a crime. "Unfortunately, in our country, pimps get the opportunity to print books and speak on television with a national frequency," says Pavlović.
Jelena Hrnjak from Athens says that data from practice related to the actions of the police and courts in the last few years show that the application of the current legislation in Serbia still affects women disproportionately more.
The number of misdemeanor charges filed and verdicts passed against women is far greater than against men. In the period 2019-2022. as many as 68 percent of misdemeanor charges were filed against women, and only 32 percent against men. On the other hand, as far as judgments are concerned, in the period 2019-2020. for this misdemeanor, 83 percent of all verdicts passed were related to prostitution (and in 89 percent of the cases it was women), and only 16 percent were for using prostitution services (all were men). However, we must note that in the first half of this year, according to official statistics, there was a change, given that for the first time there was a higher number of misdemeanor reports against men (66 percent) than against women (34 percent).
Amending the Law on Public Order and Peace in order to decriminalize women in prostitution is one of the priority recommendations of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), which is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Convention). , addressed to the Republic of Serbia in its reports from 2019 and 2021.
The committee asked the Republic of Serbia to "immediately repeal Article 16 of the Law on Public Order and Peace in order to decriminalize women in prostitution and ensure that women in prostitution are not criminalized by laws, including the Law on Public Order and Peace, and provide exit programs and alternative income generation opportunities for women who want to leave prostitution".
Since Serbia has not acted on this recommendation for four years, nor decriminalized women in prostitution, at the end of 2022, the University of Athens, together with the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, drafted a proposal to amend the Law on Public Order and Peace with the aim of decriminalizing women in prostitution, after of which the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality officially sent the initiative for amendments to the Law on Public Order and Peace to the Ministry of Internal Affairs on December 23, 2022. To date, we have not received a response to this initiative.
This year, the AJC did not have the opportunity to analyze court verdicts for the misdemeanor offense of prostitution, but they hope that opportunities will be created for this next year. This analysis is important to them because it shows the unfair treatment that women in prostitution go through both before the police and before the courts.
Although both they and the users are equally responsible before the law, previous analyzes show us that women are punished up to 3,5 times more than men.
"It is not only unfair, but also illogical, if she was punished for engaging in prostitution, who did she engage in when we don't see that the users were punished?" asked Pavlović.
AŽC is part of the European network an organization made up of women who have left prostitution, as well as organizations that deal with this topic and advocate that prostitution be recognized as a form of violence against women. Within that network, called the Brussels Call (Brussels' Call), participated in advocacy actions before the European institutions, which in September of this year resulted in the adoption of the European Parliament's Resolution on Prostitution, which clearly states that it is violence and that it is necessary to provide women in prostitution with exit strategies and programs of support and rehabilitation, but also and adequately and continuously punish users and pimps.
"This resolution is very important to us and we hope that it will pave the way for changes in national legislation, in order to stop the way of cheating women in prostitution, which we all contribute to if we don't talk about this," says Pavlović.
Photo: REUTERS/Bobby Yip
Forced to engage in prostitution
"First of all, we should know that women who are in an unfavorable economic situation, who live on the edge of poverty, who have a history of suffering violence, more easily become victims of criminal groups and human trafficking." That is why we must work on prevention, which must also include the fight against poverty and the economic empowerment of the most vulnerable groups," says Hrnjak.
According to her, there are cases in which women and girls are deceived by their so-called partners, that is, they start dating a person whom they think is sincere, really interested in them, and it turns out to be a human trafficker who after a while starts blackmailing them, threatening them and forcing them into prostitution.
"It should also be mentioned that in recent years there has been an increasing number of cases of girls being recruited on the Internet, through various social networks, from fake profiles, and this is a phenomenon that we will have to seriously tackle, as it involves numerous new and various abuses," Hrnjak points out.
Research by Athens shows that 1/3 of women and girls who are victims of human trafficking today are recruited in the online space, and more and more often exploitation is done not only in real but also in virtual space.
"In this sense, we must not forget that the virtual is also real and that virtual exploitation can have just as severe consequences for the victim as it does in real space," she adds.
How can girls and women recognize a potentially dangerous situation?
Unfortunately, the experience of the Athens organization points to the fact that the first contact with exploitation a girl experiences through an acquaintance or a close person in whom she has gained some trust.
"Those people are actually middlemen in this business with criminal groups." Whether the contact was made through social networks or directly, a relationship of trust is created and this makes you feel safe, accept offers, share some of your intimacy. The next step is abuse of trust and you, nullification of your being and exploitation for the financial benefit of criminals or criminal groups," says Hrnjak.
It is very important to check in detail the job ad we have come across, whether an employment contract is obtained, whether there is an employment agency behind it that has a license to do so. We should know that only certain employment agencies have a license and the register of these agencies can be found on the website of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs. Therefore, if it is not about jobs offered by an agency that is registered for that, such ads should be avoided.
"The main message is that every doubt must be acted upon; if we don't want or are afraid to alarm an institution and present those suspicions, then at least we should tell someone we trust, so we must not remain silent, keep the suspicion to ourselves and wait for it to turn into an experience of exploitation," says Hrnjak.
There are associations that can help. Athens is one such association, to whom the girls can turn and present some suspicion, because it has experience and can recognize potentially risky situations and prevent someone from becoming a victim.
Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com
