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Changemakers Forum:
Entry:Help for victims of forced prostitution, children's and women's trafficking in the Czech-German border regions.
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Hi Cathrin,
I have been working in a Berlin homeless shelter over the last couple years and have had some experiences with Eastern European refugees, who had been running away from work as forced prostitutes. My experience with the German authorities at the lower levels at least was that they weren´t too helpful and mainly tried to avoid dealing with the problem at all by pushing these women off to us (where often they found themselves in conditions almost as dangerous as those they had fled, considering our clientele) or women´s houses in Berlin, which have limited capacities. What´s your experience here? Do you see any help or interest at least with the German government or local authorities in the border region to help with the problem?
Secondly, I´d be interested in hearing about your long-term ideas/measures for the women you help. After they leave forced prostitution, do you help them to find a place, a job etc? Do you work with partners in this area?
I´m looking forwar to your answers and wish you all the best for your work-
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Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
Dear Mr Nicolaisen,
Sorry to say, but I have to confirm your experiences. In Germany we hardly get any help for the women. The officials are always of the opinion, that those are foreign women, and so there is no German reference. In the Czech Republic there are hardly any offers at all and in the border region, where we work, none. So it is again and again a disaster. KARO e.V. does not receive any public furtherances, and from governmental side our work has also been discredited. Sad to say, we have received only very little help. Nobody is responsible, everyone looks away!
Yet, we do not give up but plan a women’s and children’s sheltering house for the victims of sexual exploitation in Plauen. There women and children shall find protection and help on the long run for a new way of life. Even if this way is difficult, the officials will most certainly not or grant only very little support, I still hope, that we will be able to make it. And most of all that we get enough donors to support us, because we cannot count on any governmental funds.
I would be pleased to exchange more information with you – maybe via telephone.
With my best regards,
Cathrin Schauer
Dear Mr Nicolaisen,
Sorry to say, but I have to confirm your experiences. In Germany we hardly get any help for the women. The officials are always of the opinion, that those are foreign women, and so there is no German reference. In the Czech Republic there are hardly any offers at all and in the border region, where we work, none. So it is again and again a disaster. KARO e.V. does not receive any public furtherances, and from governmental side our work has also been discredited. Sad to say, we have received only very little help. Nobody is responsible, everyone looks away!
Yet, we do not give up but plan a women’s and children’s sheltering house for the victims of sexual exploitation in Plauen. There women and children shall find protection and help on the long run for a new way of life. Even if this way is difficult, the officials will most certainly not or grant only very little support, I still hope, that we will be able to make it. And most of all that we get enough donors to support us, because we cannot count on any governmental funds.
I would be pleased to exchange more information with you – maybe via telephone.
With my best regards,
Cathrin Schauer
Hello Cathrin,
I would love to hear your responses to Jessica's comments and questions that were posted on June 4th.
Thank you for taking the time to engage in the online discussion. It is great to have you involved.
Best,
Dana Frasz
Ashoka's Changemakers
• KARO is am member of KOK - Federal Coordination Circle Human Trafficking and ECPAT - Consortium against commercial, sexual exploitation of children.
• In this frame there are workshops, conferences, exchange of know-how, etc.
• Furthermore, there is a cooperation with different NGOs, who work in this line. There are also workshops, conferences, telephone-conversations, eMail-exchange, etc. Quite often this means exchange of knowledge and information about special cases. The conferences also serve to improve defined help for the victims, i.e. when women need to be brought back into their home countries or have to be brought into sheltering accommodations.
• Also, there are cooperations with the investigation officials. Women are for example accompanied to the questioning. Information concerning crimes are transferred. In this line we held the Project AGIS (as per AGIS final report in English).
• We give out flyers and work on public relations for women, children and minors in several languages as per our homepage.
• In the frame of the AGIS-Project's there was a development of a cross-border cooperations-model with the investigating officials, but it was not written down due to a lack of interest in the ministries.
• Otherwise cooperation with the investigation officials in single cases.
• There is a very difficult legal situation in the Czech Republic and in Germany - the victims are discriminated, they have no lobby.
• KARO is under-acknowledge by the state and does not receive any furtherances.
• Therfore, we are always trying again and again to get in contact with the officials, to make lobby- and public relations work for the victims; which is at present very difficult, because we have hardly any capital and much has to be covered by voluntary helpers.
• During the AGIS Project we had sensitizing provisions for investigating officials, which is at present not possible due to monetary problems; but we are still aiming for that.
• We have a partnership with the project Child Fokus, France, and are trying to further deepen this.
• We carry out publicity and media work as per possible cases in order to sensitize the public.
• Furthermore, we build up a new offer for help; our women's and children's protection house.
• Numbers for 2007 - 34 times help for exit from prostitution
• Total exit assistance since 1996: for 304 women
• 2389 sighted contacts of women - 2235 intervisibility to women in street prostitution - 154 intervisibility of women in brothel-like institutions
• 306 invervisibilities of children between 15 and 18 years old in street prostitution
• 157 intervisibilities of children under 15 years in street prostitution.
• The prevention contacts as per the following:
• 934 prevention contacts with women
• 866 prevention contacts with women in street prostitution
• 68 prevention contacts with women in brothel-like institutions
• 156 prevention contacts with children between 15 and 18 years old
• 59 prevention contacts with children under 15 years.
We have tried to make some of our web-site in English and like to ask you to please
Hello,
You have identified several ways to mitigate human trafficking through your program. The following components appear throughout your proposal:
1) Partnerships with local NGOs combating human trafficking
2) Creating a network of international NGOs to share information and ideas
3) Partnering with the legal system and bolstering the law to deter trafficking
4) Spreading awareness among potential victims and victims of trafficking
These are all extremely important components to preventing and mitigating human trafficking. It would be really great to see you expound about partnership arrangements, as they are integral to building local and international strength. For example, how are partnerships initiated? Who are your current partners? Do the partners work in the same areas of awareness and legal systems, or are they complimentary in also addressing survivor support and demand-side interventions? How do the partnership arrangements work in terms of information flow and work (ie: conferences, on-line networks, survivor support system, etc.)?
Also, in what way does this program use the existing legal system to combat human trafficking? What are the current legal and government allies? What are the three main goals in strenghtening the legal system? Do you work with any specific legal cases to draw media attention? What are your plans to address the fear that victims and survivors have of dealing with law enforcement? Does your program include sensitivity training for law enforcement?
I would be really interested in hearing more about how your program addresses these components of your activities. I would also be interested in knowing more specifically the number of beneficiaries you are targeting, if you already have worked with victims/ survivors (and if so if there are plans to scale-up in terms of beneficiary numbers), and what the average profile is of the population you work with.
Do you have a mission statement for your work? This would also be really useful! I look forward to learning more about this.
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Gender Equality and Human Trafficking Specialist