FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM 6 Europe The former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe have replaced Asia as the main source of trafficked women to Western Europe. Victims come from Russia, Ukraine, and other East European countries. With the economic and political turmoil after the collapse of the Soviet Union, trafficking from the region has escalated from a minor problem before 1991 into a major crisis. As criminal organizations have grown, especially in Russia, they have gravitated to this lucrative business. Russian organized crime groups and other including Albanian, Estonian, Chechen, Serb and Italian groups are involved in human trafficking in Europe. Russian criminal groups reportedly are also gaining control of prostitution in Israel, and other parts of United States13. The largest number of victims ranging around 1,75,000 who are trafficked annually from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe come from Russia and Ukraine. In addition, several Central and East European countries are reported to be the source, receiving, and transit countries. The conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo provided new opportunities for traffickers in the former Yugoslavia and the Balkans. Traffickers have targeted refugee women who fled Kosovo. According to the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, Albanian traffickers have smuggled thousands of Kosovo women into Italy by boat for the sex trade14. An estimated 70 per cent of Russian and East European victims are believed to be sent to West European countries especially Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Greece, Austria and England. Another 15 per cent are sent to the Middle East (especially Israel and Saudi Arabia) and the Far East (especially Japan and Thailand). About 5,000 or 3 per cent are sent to United States or Canada. The remainders are sent to Central European countries, especially Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic15. The Western European countries are also destination points for victims from other parts of the world including Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Morocco, Latin America (Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic) South East Asia (Philippines and Thailand)16. 13 Global Survival Network, An Expose of the Trafficking Women for Prostitution from the Newly Independent States, Washington, D.C., 1998, pp.5-10. 14 Supra note 3, p. 7. 15 Ibid. 16 Europe National Dates, Trafficking of Women to the European Union: Characteristics, Trends and Policy Issues, European Conference on Trafficking in Women, June, 1996, IOM, 7 May, 1996.