Transparency Watch (TW):How did you first get involved in counter-trafficking efforts?

Richard Danziger (RD): The first time I came across human trafficking I was based in Indonesia in 2001. We received a call from the police saying that the navy had caught a Thai fishing boat fishing illegally in Indonesian waters. It turned out that they had about 80 Cambodians working in slave-like conditions on board and the authorities asked us to help them. We helped them all get back to Cambodia and then worked with an NGO there to get them back to their villages and involved in other work. This is a typical example: here were Cambodians who were offered the opportunity of a better paid job in Thailand, but once they were there – and of course they were then trapped on a boat – they ended up basically working for nothing. There were unconfirmed reports of cases of individuals being thrown overboard if they complained or were sick. So this was my first first-hand experience with human trafficking.

TW: Where are you encountering most human trafficking problems? What do you attribute this to?

RD: I think a few years ago we might have said South Eastern Europe and South East Asia. This is certainly where a lot of the work has been done and where you will hear a lot about UN, IOM and NGO activity. In fact though, it is difficult to say where the highest numbers are. There are several areas where there is a lot of intra-regional trafficking, for example in South East Asia you see a lot of trafficking in between the countries of the Mekong, while in West Africa you see a lot of cross-border child trafficking. In East and Southern Africa you find a magnet in the form of South Africa as the stronger economy attracts people down there.

When one talks about trafficking one often talks about the source countries – you’ll hear about Ukraine, Cambodia etc., however, we’re looking increasingly from the angle of the destination countries. Therefore, I would be tempted to say that it is in the industrial countries where we feel there is a big problem. It is in the European Union, it is in the United States and so forth. It is in the countries that on one level appear to be committed and have the most sophisticated systems in place to tackle trafficking, but because they are attracting so many migrants that just by looking at percentages you will find that a number of those are exploited to the point of being legally considered trafficked.

TW: What role does corruption play in establishing and maintaining a human trafficking network?

RD: Everywhere there is trafficking there is corruption. I have had no colleague say that corruption in not a major problem. We are talking about an illegal activity, often in countries that are poor, where public servants make pretty paltry salaries and this is as good a way as any other illegal business to make a little extra money. That is in the poorer countries, but we have also seen cases in several Western embassies of visa officers being caught taking bribes – the money is so huge. So corruption is not just an issue for developing countries, it is an issue everywhere.

I think it is very important to note that in the definition of trafficking, whether in the UN Protocol or the Council of Europe Convention, one of the means is spelt out as the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability. The abuse of power can be more than just official power and it is the hardest thing to tackle. What I think is a shame is that in countries where there is a large international presence in which trafficking is on the agenda, that the system couldn’t get together to take this up with the authorities. Here we have a major constraint to the work we are all doing against trafficking. We try and get a consensus to approach the government to see how this could be best addressed, but I think that when it comes to tackling corruption the international community – the UN, donor governments – tend to shy away, because it is such a delicate issue.

I think there have to be more efforts to build a consensus on the question of tackling corruption, especially the area of corruption and the trafficking of human beings. When I say consensus I don’t just mean consensus between the donor governments and the UN and NGOs, but with the governments of the countries involved as well.

On the issue of trafficking for sexual exploitation there has been traditionally this close relationship between law enforcement and prostitution. We see it in the movies and real life; prostitution takes place in areas that cops are patrolling. It is often unfortunately considered a non-violent crime, although we of course know that this is not in fact always true and a lot of sex workers suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, get abused physically and so forth. I don’t want to defend officials who are corrupt on the issue of trafficking, but I think in many cases they don’t see what is really happening to the real victims. I think they see it as just turning a blind eye to prostitution without considering that some of the sex workers may well be trafficked. So there is a need to really ensure that officials know what trafficking is really about. I have no doubt that if some of these officials knew what is really going to happen to the victims of the crime they may act differently.

We’re also coming across an increasing number of cases of trafficking for labour exploitation. Just last week Mongolians to Ukraine, Uzbeks to Russia, Slovaks to the UK. These are all men trafficked into different economic sectors. Again, when it comes to corruption, the official may even think they are doing a service to the person, that they are helping them get to another country to make a better living. There is a lot that needs to be done in terms of getting the message across as to what trafficking is, how it is an extremely violent crime against individuals and a violation of their human rights.

TW:IOM identifies lack of opportunity, resources and social power as contributing factors of human trafficking. How do you think corruption relates to these?

RD: Economic situation is obviously one push factor. Traditionally you will hear people say that the root problems of trafficking are poverty, lack of opportunities, gender discrimination, social discrimination and so forth. These are all definitely major contributing factors and they contribute to people’s vulnerability, but I think it is important to also see what the root causes in the countries of destination are. I like to increasingly talk of the root cause as being on the side of the demand.

One has to be very careful when one talks of demand, especially when one talks of trafficking, which people often see as sex trafficking, as demand is often equated with clients of sex workers. It is much more complicated than that. One thing is demand for profits from criminal businessmen. There is the demand for cheap, flexible and usually exploited labour and then there is the demand for exotic women, which I guess you could link somehow to globalisation. I lived near a red light district in Europe 10 years ago and the women that you would see would all look fairly local. Now if you go down there you see women from all over the world. Because people are travelling more, because everything has become more available, you do see people in Western industrialised countries increasing their demands for other services, products and so forth that are cheaper and different.

In terms of the root cause, I think we need to spend more time looking at destination countries seeing what can be done. Whether that means beefing up labour inspection capacity, ensuring that irregular migrants also have protection of labour laws, or looking at the whole international migration framework and seeing how that maybe contributing to trafficking, how tightening immigration controls may in fact be leading to an increase in trafficking.

The same lack of opportunities, resources and social power could be said to affect not just the victims, but some of the corrupt officials involved as well. If you look at the low level, let’s say the policeman on the beat, he obviously has certain power over individuals, but he is still at the bottom of a pyramid which will lead up to somebody with much more power. I think the same factor that contributes to the vulnerabilities of a person being trafficked, contributes to a person in uniform or behind a desk being corrupt.

TW: Where in the chain does corruption begin and how high up does it go?

RD: There are the examples of a deputy state prosecutor in Montenegro who was removed because of corruption allegations some years ago, or the chief of a anti-trafficking unit in Cambodia who was suspended and detained on extortion changes. And the cases of sales of visas in European embassies that I referred to. That is not to say that it might not go any higher. But it’s perhaps important to note that where cases of corruption are identified this may signal that the country in question is making real efforts to fight corruption. It shouldn’t just be seen as a blot on their reputation.

In terms of how low it goes, it goes down to the very lowest official who can sign a piece of paper, who can look the other way, whether it’s at a border with forged travel documents and so forth. A lot of victims of trafficking go through recruitment agencies. The recruitment agencies may be more or less officially licenced, and if that recruitment agency pays something to an official for a service, that offical could see it as helping somebody else while making a little bit for themselves as well. Equally, the recruitment agency might not know that they are actually sending their person into a slave like situation.

TW:How does IOM work to build the capacities of institutions?

RD: We are well known for having mass information campaigns in many parts of the world. How effective they’ve been we do not always know. How much they really change people’s behaviour we do not know. We could divide it into two broad areas. Firstly, there is information targeting potential victims to try and make them aware of the trafficking trap. If I simplify things somewhat, essentially the trick is not to give an anti-migration message, but a positive message saying migration can be a good thing, you just need to be very careful how you go about it and to be aware that there are many people along the way that are going to try and take advantage of you.

The other important awareness building is with officials. This could be training police, holding sessions with parliamentarians, border officials, health workers, basically any institution that might come into contact with a person who might be on the way to being trafficked or has been trafficked. When I say health worker, it is important that they recognise certain indicators that can tell them that somebody who has been brought to the hospital might have been trafficked. In terms of specifically targeting corruption, I can’t say we have any particular system, because it is something difficult to talk about, but generally I think what can often help is if the official you are training recognises the nature of the crime. If you can instil in them a real wish to put an end to it and get a certain pride from it, I think these are elements that can contribute to a healthier system.

One of the problems we face in training the police or public officials is that you spend a lot of time and resources training somebody and then they are transferred somewhere else; you can’t get guarantees that somebody will stay in one position. I find it quite interesting as regards corruption, because often one talks of corruption as a facilitator when you have somebody in the same position for a long time who gets to know the ropes, but, at the same time, if you can get somebody to focus on a particular activity or crime and get really involved that could actually be something quite positive.

Civil society has a hugely important role in many areas, certainly in the areas of what we would term direct assistance to victims – running shelters, outreach and a lot of the frontline work. Civil society also has a hugely important advocacy role. IOM for example is not an advocacy organisation, we do not go around accusing governments publicly and so forth, it is not our role. Rather, we talk about training or building capacity of public services for a country, and doing the same for local civil society actors and NGOs. Ideally you would have full national ownership of the widest numbers of anti-trafficking activities, and by national ownership I don’t mean government agency ownership, but ownership by all different parts of society.

TW:According to a report in the New Yorker in May, which focuses on the operations of an IOM office in Moldova, victims of trafficking can be unwilling to seek justice. Why is this?

RD: There are a number of reasons and this holds true the world over – one is fear of retribution by the traffickers, fear for physical safety, and the second is stigma. A lot of victims understandably do not want it known that they have been trafficked. In the case of women who are trafficked into prostitution many do not want this known. Interestingly, in the case of men that are trafficked for labour they do not want to admit that they have been taken advantage of. It can be a great source of shame to go back to one’s local community and to have failed.

Lack of trust in the justice system is often cited as a reason for not seeking justice. How does one get around this? The most important thing for anybody working with victims of trafficking is concern for those victims. He or she should be assisted regardless of whether they want to cooperate with authorities. Unfortunately this is rarely accepted in law, as usually the system is based on some sort of conditionality. Certainly we think it is a good thing when victims do seek justice, we need to try and get the message out to traffickers that they will be pursued, and we need to see heavy sentences and instances of compensation being paid to victims. Now I don’t know whether more systematic payments of compensation would really provide an incentive for victims to seek justice, but this is something we will have to see further down the line. We are seeing increasingly, but slowly, some countries begin to give compensation, and it will be interesting to see if that does provide incentives. Sometimes though, the stigma and trauma and the fear of the trafficker would far outweigh any kind of incentive.

TW:Are victims of trafficking afforded sufficient protection if they decide to testify?

RD: Yes and no. Many countries do have witness protection procedures and provisions in their legislations and criminal justice procedures. Sometimes though they are not effective. It has happened to us in a European country where a victim came back and testified against the trafficker and although there was a witness protection system provided for in the law, the authorities declared that they did not have the resources to do so. Essentially we had to hide and take care of this woman for over a year for her own security, while we tried to find a third country that would take her. This is something that we think could be developed further, which we are far from reaching, but I think in terms of witness protection, very real thought needs to given. In the European Union for example, if somebody testifies in the UK, could there be an agreement that they can then be moved and get support in another EU country? The political sensitivity of migration in general though, means that we are far away from governments looking at this sort of innovative response. We are increasingly working with the UN High Commission for Refugees to see how they can assist in these sorts of situations to help protect victims of trafficking.

TW:What does the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings that came into force this year mean for the fight against human trafficking?

RD: The Council of Europe Convention does go further than the UN Protocol, notably in its provisions on what is called the reflection period and temporary residence. I don’t think it goes far enough, but it is certainly stronger on those points. It is explicit that trafficking can occur within borders as well. One of the interesting things about the Council of Europe Convention is that there will be a monitoring mechanism and that is important because this is not something that the UN protocol has. In our experience, any effective measures in the field of migration are carried out at a regional level, not a global level. It is an issue that has to be addressed by countries coming together, but not at a global level because the contexts can be so different from one place to another. So we think that the Council of Europe Convention, which brings together potentially 47 signatories, is an excellent step in the right direction. I think it was ratified and entered into force quicker than many of us expected, which was quite gratifying. But as with all of these conventions we will have to see how it is implemented.