Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Up to 10,000 Polish women every year fall victim to human traffickers and criminals who force them into prostitution in richer European Union countries, an international, non-governmental group (NGO) said Wednesday.
La Strada, an organisation that specialises in providing help for victims of trafficking, said the problem has grown since the EU expanded in 2004 to take in 10 new members that, like Poland, are mostly former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe.
"The opening up of borders has made it easier to travel, but it has not been accompanied by the opening of the market for legal workers," said Stana Buchowska, coordinator for La Strada in Poland.
"This has encouraged exploitation. Because the more legal jobs there are, the smaller the room for exploitation," Buchowska told AFP.
Poland has also become a destination for women from the former Soviet republics who are victims of human trafficking, and remains a transit country for such women heading to Western Europe, according to Buchowska.
"We estimate that around 15,000 women from these (former Soviet) states pass through Poland every year," she added.
La Strada is supporting a prevention and awareness campaign launched Wednesday by the European Parliament on International Women's Day.
sw/pk/afm
Women-Poland-trafficking-prostitution-EU
AFP 081545 GMT 03 06
COPYRIGHT 2004 Agence France-Presse. All rights reserved.
