Accomplices

Because of disagreements about how to deal with Libya, Frontex's "Operation Nautilus III" began recently, several weeks behind schedule. As in the two previous years, European ships are pursuing refugees and migrants in the waters of the Mediterranean between Libya, Malta and Italy, to prevent them from entering the EU. Four EU states, including Germany, are participating in this operation, scheduled to last up to six months.[1] According to Frontex, refugees and migrants, captured in Libyan territorial waters, will be handed over to Libyan repressive forces.[2] Libya's violations of refugees and migrants' human rights are well known.[3] By turning the refugees and migrants over to Libya, Frontex, as well as the individuals and states taking part in "Nautilus III" are violating several international accords pertaining to the protection of human rights, including fundamental agreements such as the European Convention on Human Rights or the UN Convention on the status of Refugees.

New Casualties

Contrary to all of the defensive lies heard in Berlin, Frontex's new "Operation Nautilus III" will further compound the widespread deaths on the outer borders of the European Union. At the beginning of the year, Spain's interior minister announced that the number of refugees and migrants killed off the coast of Spain, attempting to reach Europe, had again augmented in 2007.[4] More stringent controls had led to a growing number of refugees and migrants trying to slip through by using even more desperate routes - with fatal consequences. One can expect that this will again happen. Observers of the Mediterranean and Atlantic counted 101 victims of the Germano-European fortified borders, solely for the month of April.[5] Given the situation - no one knows how many boats clandestinely took to sea from the African coast, never to reach shore again - means additional unknown cases.

Border Policy

The tighter sealing of the EU's outer borders has particularly made the predicament of African women seeking entry more precarious. In a recently published study, the publicist Corinna Milborn and Mary Kreutzer, describe the development, using the example of Nigerian women, seeking to escape the dire poverty in their homeland by fleeing to Europe. Insurmountable EU visa regulations, for which Germany is also responsible, already place women seeking entry into a serious dilemma. Anyone seeing their sole future perspective lying in Europe, and confronted with the lack of a legal means of entry, has to "rely on illegal means," Corrina Milborn said in a discussion with german-foreign-policy.com. "If one has to turn to someone for help in obtaining a forged visa or an illegal entry into Europe, one is often already in the hands of sexual slave traders." Therefore, "the European border policy plays an extremely important role in delivering women into the grip of sexual slave traders,"[6] according to Ms. Milborn.

Through the Desert

Since Berlin and Brussels have pushed North African nations to hunt down refugees and migrants, the migration routes, because of the borders becoming more difficult to cross, are now mainly leading through the Sahara - an ordeal, particularly for women. As reported by Corinna Milborn and Mary Kreutzer, women on their way to the North African coast are not only crammed into clandestine desert hide-outs, where they must vegetate in dire poverty and are already forced into prostitution.[7] The harrowing journey usually takes several months or sometimes years and ends, if they have survived the Sahara, with a perilous boat ride across the Mediterranean. If the women survive the boat ride without being captured by the Germano-European border troops - and perhaps been turned over to the Libyan authorities and their torture - they will be again forced into prostitution on the European mainland.

Deportation

Even the German domestic policy toward refugees and migrants, favors the workings of the sexual slave traders, for whose prosecution, the willingness of the women to testify is decisive. If they decide to become state's witness against their masters, they are provided a residence permit only for the length of the duration of the trial, "in other words, only as long as they are of use" says Corinna Milborn in her discussion with german-foreign-policy.com. Afterwards they will be deported back home - a disastrous blow, that not only returns the women to the poverty they attempted to escape, but also to the network of sexual slave traders in her home country. "A woman, who has testified, is in serious mortal danger once deported," says Ms. Milborn. "Because of the way these women are treated, there is little chance of success in the struggle against the sexual slave trade, because, of course, the women concerned (...) are afraid and refuse to testify."[8] Berlin refuses long-term residence permits and protection programs for the women concerned, that could facilitate indictments against sexual slave traders.

Situation Report

Germany has for years not only been the principal destination for East European sexual slave traders,[9] it is also increasingly the market for sex slaves from Africa, particularly Nigeria. As far back as 2000, the Foreign Minister at the time, Josef Fischer, declared on the occasion of his visit to Nigeria that "the problem of the sexual slave trade between Nigeria and Europe, in general, and Germany, in particular, will be fought."[10] Since then, the number of Nigerians, whose abduction as sexual slaves to Germany has been the subject of investigations compiled by the Federal Office of Criminal Investigations' (BKA), known as the "Situation Report of Trafficking in Human Beings." The cases have ranged from 5 to 16 per-year. But the number of Nigerians working as prostitutes in Europe - the majority under coercion - is estimated as up to 100,000. Networks in the homeland are usually participating in these abductions. According to the BKA's most recent situation report (2006) only three suspects have been investigated by the state's attorney as possible members of these local networks.

Initial Trigger

The Nigerian example demonstrates how Germany and Europe have created the reason for sexual slavery. In the 1970s Nigeria experienced a very hopeful economic upswing thanks to the oil boom - and an economic collapse in the 1980s, when the oil prices sank. The social cleavage was accentuated by structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund - two institutions greatly influenced by European nations. Today European and US American companies are exploiting the mineral riches of the country, while the overall native population succumbs deeper in poverty. In the years from 1980 to 2000 alone, the Nigerian per-capita income fell 50%, the proportion of the population surviving on less than $1/day rose from 28 to 70%.[11] It was in the 80s, as the dramatic decline began, that the first Nigerian women were abducted to Europe and forced to make money through prostitution. The social disaster caused by wealthy Europe and its companies, is what initially triggered the trafficking in women.

Please read also our Interview mit Corinna Milborn, our review Ware Frau and German Soldiers, The Profiteers and Godfathers, Kein Bedarf, Frauenhandel in Sachsen, Economic System, Unter deutscher Aufsicht and Enorme Gewalt.

[1] Ripartono i pattugliamenti nel Mediterraneo: Al via nel Canale di Sicilia la missione Europea di pattugilamento anti-immigrazione "Nautilus III"; Agenzia Aise 20.05.2008
[2] Go ahead for Nautilus 2008; www.frontex.europa.eu 07.05.2008
[3] see also Zur Ausnahme werden and Moderner Standard
[4] see also Land Without Refugees
[5] Miraggio Europa: in aprile, 101 migranti morti; Agenzia dire 08.05.2008
[6] see also Die Schuld Europas
[7] see also Mary Kreutzer, Corinna Milborn: Ware Frau
[8] see also Die Schuld Europas
[9] see also Kein Bedarf and Frauenhandel in Sachsen
[10] Deutscher Bundestag, Drucksache 14/3257, 26.04.2000
[11] Mary Kreutzer, Corinna Milborn: Ware Frau. Auf den Spuren moderner Sklaverei von Afrika nach Europa, Salzburg 2008 (Ecowin Verlag)