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cial towns and villages where women are inexperienced in evaluating the legitimacy of advertisements for em ployment abroad. Victims of trafficking often reach international borders with faulty documents. Some times they travel with valid tourist visas; however, these visas are generally obtained by misrepresenting the purpose of their travel. On arrival in the country of destination, many of them find themselves deeply in debt to traffickers. The absence of well-defined rules of labor re lations concerning women and teenagers and the ineffi cient assistance rendered by the state in helping teenag ers and women to find employment result in the illegal exploitation, including sexual exploitation. This mod em form of slavery frequently involves force, deception and coercion. It deprives women of their basic human rights. Here and in other parts of the world, prostitution leaves women vulnerable to the constant threat of being violated or even murdered. Ukraine is a signatory of the Convention of Elimination of all forms of Discrimina tion Against Women and the Convention on the Rights of Children, but the principles in these documents are difficult to implement. When I was asked by Ksenia Jowyk (the presi dent of the UNWLA's Washington branch) to be a pan elist on the Trafficking in Women, my first thought was that the UNWLA does not have a specific program that deals with this issue. But since the United Nations non governmental representatives from the World Move ment of Mothers, the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organizations and International Council of Women are members of the UNWLA, I believe that we can take credit for some of the important work that has been done on this issue in the UN. On January 11, 1998, an article appeared in The New York Times about trafficking in women from Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe. In mid January of 1998, NGO representatives to the UN were having their meeting in preparation for the UN Com mission on the Status of Women which was to be held in March of that year. Olha Stawnychy and I met before the meeting to discuss some of the strategies for the up coming event, and at that time, we decided that we had to prepare a statement to the commission on this topic. Without a text of our statement, we went into the session and announced that such a statement would be prepared for the UN's Economic and Social Council. For the statement to be recognized and presented, an official registration number and preliminary approval by the Economic and Social Council is needed. The more organizations that sign on to a statement, the stronger it is. To our surprise, nine organizations signed onto the statement without even seeing the text. What this meant, was that we had become well known in NGO circles and people trusted us. Once prepared, our statement was officially designated E/CN 6/1998/NGO/l. It was submitted by the World Federation of Ukrainian Women's Organiza tions and the World Movement of Mothers to UN Sec retary General Kofi Annan and then circulated in accor dance with paragraphs 30 and 31 of the Economic and Social Council's resolution 1006/31 of July 1996. It was signed by numerous NGO's who appealed to all gov ernments to take definitive actions to resolve this human tragedy. A draft resolution on trafficking in women and girls was proposed to the 53rd session of the UN Gen eral Assembly. Many countries, among them Ukraine, signed the proposed resolution. The UNWLA also received letters from nu merous people asking for help. Letters from Italy, Israel and other countries were passed on to the Ukrainian Consulate in New York. Consul Bohdan Jaremenko was particularly helpful in some of these cases. The UNWLA decided to go further to help the victims of trafficking. Since the cause of the matter is rooted in the economic situation in Ukraine, we are launching a program to change US labor laws to permit women from Ukraine to come and work legally in this country for a two year term and then return home with legally earned money which may prevent them from being trapped into slaveiy. This big undertaking on our part will need tremendous support. Dr, Adrian Karatnycky has already offered his help and we hope that his initiative will inspire other individuals in our community to participate in this important task. We encourage you to call UNWLA headquarters in New York City or call me personally at (212) 477-0039. Errata In the February 1999 issue of Our Life, page 15, Zirka Haliv's name was inadvertently omitted from a caption below a photograph. The caption should have read: Standing from left: Jaroslawa Rubel, Nadia Sawczuk, Lidia Krushelnycka, Zirka Haliv, Chrystia Nawrockyj, Olena Prociuk and Iryna Kurowyckyj. We apologize to Ms. Haliv for the omission. НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ВЕРЕСЕНЬ 1999 21
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