Georgia sex victims suffer in silence

Thousands of Georgian women become sex workers

By Richard Allen Greene in Tbilisi

The heavyset bleached-blonde woman speaks almost too quietly to hear.

"I returned to Georgia from Greece several months ago, and I can't say that my life has improved - on the contrary."

If my husband learns the whole story it's quite possible that our family would be destroyed

Trafficked woman

"I have been threatened and blackmailed and that's why several times I tried to kill myself," she says.

"My husband doesn't know anything. I tried to keep it secret from him. The only fact he knows is that I was in very difficult conditions in Greece and that I still am, but nothing more".

"If my husband learns the whole story it's quite possible that our family would be destroyed."

The woman - a 43-year-old from Tbilisi who did not want her name used - is a victim of people traffickers who deceived her about the kind of work she would be doing in Salonika, Greece.

She thought she would be working as a domestic. Instead, she was forced to work in the sex industry.

Misleading advertisements

She is only one of at least thousands of women from this small former Soviet republic who answered an innocent-looking advertisement promising work or travel abroad, with good money and no visa problems.

This girl's parents fear she has been taken to the US

"Most people are deceived about the type of work they will be doing - cases of people actually being taken against their will are rare," says Marc Hulst of the International Organisation for Migration.

Hundreds of people have managed to make it back home after such an experience.

But the victims who return to Georgia - either by escaping or being returned by their traffickers when they develop health problems that make them useless - find that their problems have not ended.

"The living conditions of those who return are quite hard - there are suicides and suicide attempts," says Nugzar Sulashvili, chairman of the Centre for Foreign Citizens' and Migrants' Rights and Security (FCRS), a non - governmental organisation that works with trafficking victims.

Of course it would be better if people would speak out about this problem - but people do not expect results, so they do not speak out

Nugzar Sulashvili, Anti-trafficking campaigner

Victims who return to Georgia almost never speak about their experiences - to friends, to family, to the police, Mr Sulashvili says.

"The Georgian character and traditions make it difficult to get information, he says.

"People are not willing to speak about their problems. Many married people, especially women, divorce because they can't talk about what happened to them.

"What happened is considered shameful," he says.

Even those who might be inclined to talk are told in no uncertain terms not to do so.

Mr Sulashvili tells of one young woman who escaped traffickers in the United States and made it back home.

They found her and told her that they had videotapes showing her working in the sex industry.

They threatened to show the tapes to her family if she did not work for them. The FCRS asked the police to help her, but law enforcement officials were "indifferent," he says.

"Three months later we learned that this girl had killed herself," the campaigner says.

Police inaction

He says the lack of help from the police is not unusual.

One problem is that, in a country where corruption is endemic, few people expect law enforcement officers to help.

Another is that trafficking in people is not a crime in Georgia.

Georgi Glonti, head of the non-governmental Georgian Institute for Legal Reform, says there are considerable obstacles to surmount before the country meets its international obligations under the United Nations convention against trafficking in people.

In a country where corruption is endemic, few people expect law enforcement officers to help

More than a year after Tbilisi signed it, the convention still has not been translated into Georgian.

"It's 80 pages, and there's no money to do it," he says. Some 200 international legal terms have to be adopted into the Georgian legal code, he says.

Although there is no money to help make trafficking a crime, he says, there is money to prevent it from becoming one.

"Such legislation would cause people to lose their incomes.

"People who run the trafficking organisations lobby parliament to halt or delay work on anti-trafficking legislation," he says.

Witness protection

Another gap in the law makes it unlikely that traffickers' victims will come forward to testify against them.

"There are no measures to protect witnesses," says Dr Glonti.

To take the stand against a member of an organised crime network is a "chance to be a victim of revenge".

"Of course it would be better if people would speak out about this problem", says Mr Sulashvili.

"But people do not expect results, so they do not speak out."