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job offers in hand. The State Department also notes that throughout Russia, there are “reports of children being kidnapped or purchased from .. . orphanages for sexual abuse and child pornography” and that child prostitution is “widespread” in orphanages in Ukraine. In Romania, “many orphanages are complicit in letting girls fall victim to trafficking networks.” Vast armies of Russian children who have run away from brutal orphanages wander the streets of Moscow and St. Pe tersburg. The author points out that most people have no idea that these women and children even exist. Ex cept for the street trade, they are largely invisible, held behind locked doors in apartments, brothels, massage parlors, and bars. To their clients, they are nothing more than interchangeable bodies. It does not matter that they are enslaved; sex for money is a business transaction. To their owners and pimps, they are per ishable goods to be used to the fullest before they spoil. And to the gangs who traffic in these women and children, they are one of the most profitable forms of business in existence today. Malarek also provides a historical perspective. The international bazaar for women is nothing new— Asian women have been a basic commodity for years, and armies of men still flock to Bangkok and Manila on sex junkets. He explains, however, that over the past three decades, the world has witnessed four dis tinct waves of trafficking for sexual exploitation: first in Southeast Asia, then Africa, Latin America and now eastern Europe. The first wave of trafficked women came from Southeast Asia in the 1970s and was com posed mostly of Thai and Filipino women. The second wave arrived in the early 1980s and was made up of women from Africa, mainly Ghana and Nigeria. The third wave, from Latin America, followed right behind and comprised women mostly from Colombia, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. The latest traffic, from Eastern and Central Europe, has been dubbed “the Fourth Wave” and the speed and proportion are truly staggering. Just a decade ago, these women did not even register on the radar screen. Today, they repre sent more than 25 percent of the trade. As Malarek contends, wherever destitution is rife, the social plague of the sex trade flourishes. As long as the marketplace is the decisive factor in society and as long as the bottom line in human affairs is measured in dollars and cents, there will always be an irresistible pressure to turn sex into a commodity. Sex- slave trafficking is a booming industry, run with ruth less efficiency by powerful, multinational criminal networks. These are not casual criminals. They run well-funded, well-organized, influential organizations. They know their business inside out and respond to changes in the market with a speed unmatched by even the most competitive corporations. Their expertise and their ability to exploit the market are surpassed only by their disregard for human life. Women are bought, sold and hired out like any other product. The bottom line is profit. The outlook is sobering and The Natashas includes a bleak description of changes in the traffick ing business. Organized crime groups are increasingly moving toward large hierarchical structures. They no longer want to deal with middlemen. They want to run the schemes for themselves—from recruitment to final exploitation. According to Europol's 2002 Crime As sessment report, Trafficking in Human Beings into the European Union, will “increase the profitability, effi ciency and security of operations.” The report reflects that within these crime groups there is a desire to be more in control of all elements of the trade, perhaps indicating the elevation of trafficking in human beings within the wider portfolio of organized criminal activ ity. Urgent cables, reports and alerts from criminal intelligence-gathering agencies and police forces around the world are also cited in the book, painting a frightening picture of these heightened activities. The most formidable threat to vulnerable Slavic women today is Russian organized crime whose syndicates, now numbering more than 200, are active in 58 coun tries around the world, including Austria, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Israel, Canada and the United States. Most have their grip on prostitution rackets although they are also be hind huge extortion and fraud schemes. The United Nations sanctimoniously condems this new slavery while their own personnel have been directly implicated in the sex trade in Bosnia. Condemnations from governments change nothing. As Malarek points out, it is time we did more than bemoan the latest victims. It is time we figured out how to stop a "fifth wave" from happening. Often described as a crusading reporter, Vic tor M alarek has been a journalist for over 30 years and was one of the first journalists to report on the 1970 FLQ-October Crisis. In 1976, Malarek joined The Globe and Mail, where he garnered three prestig ious Governor General's Awards for meritorious public service in journalism. From 1990 to 2000, he was host of CBC's award-winning investigative documentary current affairs show, The Fifth Estate. He is the author of four books and is currently the investigations editor for The Globe and Mail. НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 2004 19
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