UN Trust Fund brings Hope to Trafficked Women
Jana Kohut
Over two million people are trafficked every year around the world according to a new UN report. In Europe alone, half a million are sold into prostitution. Criminal groups in Europe make billions of dollars from this heinous crime. Most of the victims are from the Balkans or the former Soviet Union. Jana Kohut is a young woman born in Bosnia who moved to Slovenia four years ago to get a University degree.
JANA: One of my new friends, a girl, she said her name was Romana, offered me to stay in her apartment- since at that moment I did not know where I am going to live. She was very kind to me and supportive so I entirely trusted her. I was looking for a part time job to support myself during the school year. One day she came home and told me she had organized an interview for me at an accounting firm. After that, I never saw Romana again.
NARR: As in the case of Jana Kohut, women are often used to entrap victims of trafficking. In the midst of the interview, she was kidnapped by two men, blindfolded, beaten and raped several times. She was drugged with heroin during the whole ordeal and forced into prostitution.
JANA: I had six to 10 customers each day and night, and changed around 10 different locations in the period I was captured. Men who came to me were coming from all age groups, social standings, educational backgrounds, employed or unemployed, often policemen, or criminals. I was starved sometimes, raped at first, later only beaten.
NARR: This is what the UN Chief refers to as “modern day slavery” and one of the worst human rights violations of this time. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:
BAN: Every year, thousands of people, mainly women and children, are exploited by criminals who use them for forced labour or the sex trade. No country is immune. Almost all play a part, either as a source of trafficked people, transit point, or destination.
NARR: The United Nations is launching a Global Action Plan to combat human trafficking, what Mr. Ban Ki-moon describes as a clarion call to act.
BAN: One of the Plan’s most important elements is the creation of a UN Voluntary Trust Fund for those who are trafficked, especially women and children. The Fund aims to help governments, international, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations provide these vulnerable people with protection and support for their physical, psychological and social recovery.
NARR: Mr. Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General speaking at the launch of a Global Plan of Action against trafficking in persons. The UN estimates that more than 2.4 million people are currently being exploited as victims of human trafficking, Jocelyne Sambira, UN Radio.
