Why Sex Trafficking in Serbia?

I chose Serbia and Serbia chose me for a few reasons.

First, I knew from my time living in Prague, CZ (I know, Prague is not Serbia, hold on...) that I wanted to look at post cold war eastern European countries. During my time there I found a reality that I never knew existed through American pedagogy. "You mean the fall of Communism was not all the way around awesome?!?!" I discovered that with the advent of capitalism and Western democracy in previously long-lived Marxist and Stalinist states, we had effectively set into effect the feminization of poverty. This is an omnipresent theme, not a discrete Czech phenomenon.

I learned that, in Prague, men were viewed in 1950's American cinema values as breadwinners and women were consumers and mothers because that was the message they had been getting for a long time through our media. Also, given the fact that in public men and women were seen as workers (picture someone with a shapeless smock on) and not as men and women (picture someone expressing their personal style that seems feminine or masculine), they would rebel within their private homes and construct very defined gender constructs for division of labor, relationships, etc.

Eastern feminists had not been calling for liberation into employment all these years like Western feminists. Men and women were legally obligated to have jobs before the fall of the wall. Afterwards, there was a drive (previously either repressed, devalued or simply unknown to some citizens) to become more competitive and more capitalistic so that they could distance themselves from the previous regime, rejoin the world market, and generally gain some wealth. Companies had to increase profits and start to "trim the fat" in staff. Within this ideology, women could be a liability because they might need to take leave for pregnancy, sickness, child sickness, family obligations, etc. Women were laid off, moved out, and less employable in the new system. Women with education and job experience were collecting coins at public toilets.

Second, to expand on what I wrote in my earlier blogs, traffickers have made Serbia a source and a destination for sex trafficking. What does that mean? Simply, where the women are from is the source and where they end up is the destination. This can happen in the same country and the country then becomes both an source and a destination. That is what is happening in Serbia and other countries in the world that are in economic transition.

Citizens of countries that are considered "First World" are not as likely to be trafficked. I am sure it happens but most often "First World" countries are the destination, not the source. I use the quotes here because this term is condescending, racist, and antiquated, however, the term can capture the stratification and the power that are contained within this construct.

Traffickers capitalize on women who are in dire straits. Serbia has had some political and social difficulties to be clear. The secession of the Yugoslavian states and the Serb-Bosnian war in the 1990's are a couple of examples. Some women are flat out kidnapped but most of the time women are tricked into leaving their homes for better job opportunities, a better life for their families back home, loans are given to pay medical bills and opportunities are presented to work in someone's home to pay off the debt, etc. In all of the scenarios, the women do not know they are being trafficked for sex.

Let me be clear, Serbia is a beautiful and amazing country with warm and friendly people which is further proof that this is happening against the will of the people.

Serbian trafficked women may not receive as much attention or assistance due to their country's political history. Don't believe me? How many German people died in horrendous, violent, inhumane ways in the Russian Gulags after WWII without so much as an editorial because of what the Fatherland had done?

Lastly, the welcome from NGO Atina has been soooo warm! They are wonderful and supportive people who are very attentive, communicative, helpful, and generally downright excited to have me come and work with them. They are helping me find a host family to stay with, get a translator, confirm my language courses, etc. They also talk about taking me all around the country to see how beautiful it is. They are also getting me in contact with a woman who is currently volunteering there so she can tell me about her experience. I cannot say enough about how great they have been. Thank you, NGO Atina!!!

Next time:

Where do my support dollars go??






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