Public Health Aspects of Trafficking in Human Beings – Health Promotion and Prevention Tasks and Possibilities

Abstract

In the last decades trafficking in human being has become one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises all over the world, with strong links to other illegal activities, such as money laundering, drug trafficking, document forgery, and smuggling. The US Justice Department estimated that annually some 700,000 women and children are bought, sold, transported and held in slavery-like conditions for sexual and labour exploitation. IOM estimates that around 120,000 women and children are being trafficked into the European Union each year, primarily through the Balkans, and 10,000 women, mostly from Moldova, Romania and Ukraine, are working only in the sex trade industry in Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, trafficking is not only a criminal act against human rights and dignity, but an ever increasing public health issue as it is stated in the Budapest Declaration adopted by the participants of the ministerial level Regional Conference on Public Health & Trafficking in Human Beings in Central, Eastern and Southeast Europe, held on 19-21 March 2003, in Budapest. Providing appropriate health promotion and care services for trafficked persons is not only a humanitarian obligation, but also a public health concern for countries of origin, transit and destination alike. (Eg.: Medical records from Moldavia show that some 88 per cent of the ex-victims return to their homeland with sexually transmitted infections (STI), and about the same number (84 per cent) exhibit chronic anxiety disorders with the mix of depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD). The module provides a framework not only for the assessment and treatment of specific health and mental health needs of the ex-victims of trafficking, but takes a large-scale public health perspective of a community approach to prevention and health promotion of most vulnerable social groups to this kind of abuse and violence.