AALBORG UNIVERSITET
Turkey, human rights and
the trafficked Eastern
European women
A Critical Discourse Analysis: Has Turkey
managed to decrease the violation of the human
rights of the trafficked Eastern European women
for sexual exploitation?
Katharina Jürgens, Emmi Maaranen
12/19/2011
[Project work for Culture, Communication and Globalization Master’s Programme]
Table of contents
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 3
1.1.
2.
Problem formulation and the research questions ...................................................................... 4
Methodology ......................................................................................................................................... 5
2.1 Validity of the material ................................................................................................................... 5
2.1.1. Validity of the visual material
Katharina Jürgens ................................................................. 5
2.1.2. Validity of the 2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking Turkey .................................... 6
2.1.3. Validity of the Interview with the IOM Turkey Emmi Maaranen............................................. 7
2.2. Case Study
Katharina Jürgens .............................................................................................. 9
2.3. Semi-structured interview
Katharina Jürgens ...................................................................... 10
2.4. Critical discourse analysis (CDA)
3.
Katharina Jürgens .............................................................. 11
Theoretical Framework ....................................................................................................................... 14
3.1. Human trafficking
Emmi Maaranen .................................................................................... 14
3.1.1.
Human trafficking as a global problem............................................................................... 15
3.1.2.
Understanding human trafficking for sexual exploitation................................................... 15
3.1.3.
The trafficking flows to the European area ......................................................................... 16
3.1.4.
Trafficking consists of recruiting, transporting and exploitation ........................................ 16
3.1.5.
Trafficking is a criminal activity ......................................................................................... 17
3.1.6.
The role of the states in protecting human trafficking victims and preventing trafficking . 18
3.1.7.
Criminalizing the victim ..................................................................................................... 19
3.2.
The Natasha phenomenon ....................................................................................................... 20
3.2.1. A profile of a Natasha ............................................................................................................... 21
3.2.2. The sending countries ............................................................................................................... 22
3.2.3. The receiving country: Turkey .................................................................................................. 22
3.3. The Human Rights
Katharina Jürgens ................................................................................. 24
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3.3.1. Definition of Human Rights ...................................................................................................... 24
3.1.2. Historical background ............................................................................................................... 26
4. Analysis .................................................................................................................................................. 27
4.1. Analysis of the 2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking Turkey .................................... 27
4.1.1. Preface....................................................................................................................................... 27
4.1.2. Strategy of Turkey in combating trafficking in human beings ................................................. 29
4.1.3. Prevention ................................................................................................................................. 29
4.1.4. Protection .................................................................................................................................. 30
4.1.5. Investigation and prosecution ................................................................................................... 32
4.1.6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 33
4.2. Analysis of the interview with the IOM Turkey Emmi Maaranen ............................................ 34
4.2.1. The language used about the Eastern European trafficked women .......................................... 34
4.2.2. The language used about the traffickers.................................................................................... 40
4.2.3. The language used about the state of Turkey and its officials .................................................. 41
6. Results and discussion ............................................................................................................................ 47
6.1. The results from the analysis of the 2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking Turkey .... 47
When we take a look at the entire report it is very clear what the main topics are that the report is
dealing with......................................................................................................................................... 47
6.2 The results from the analysis of the IOM Turkey ......................................................................... 49
6.3 The Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 51
6.3. Thoughts about the future ............................................................................................................ 53
7.Bibliography
8. Appendix
8.1. Question of the interview with the IOM Turkey
8.2. 2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking
8.3. Transcription of the interview with IOM Turkey
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1. Introduction
This project is going to concentrate on human trafficking of Eastern European women for
sexual exploitation to the Republic of Turkey. This so called “Natasha phenomenon” started after
the collapse of the Soviet Union, when some of the countries fell into strong poverty. People
started to search new ways for surviving, and at this time human trafficking seemed as an option.
Trafficking for sexual exploitation is a highly profitable business usually managed by organized
crime networks. Turkey became one of the favorite destination countries for traffickers, probably
because of its geographical situation and its liberal border policies compared to the European
Union. When Turkey joined the International Organization on Migration in 2004 it realized that
there was a huge increase of human trafficking victims coming from the former Soviet Union
countries such as Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus.
Turkey has had a lot of problems with human trafficking, and before the year 2007 it was
listed as a Tier 3 country in the Trafficking in Persons Report managed by the United States.
This meant that Turkey was not fulfilling the minimum standards according to the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act from 2000. Today, Turkey has reached the state of Tier 2 country,
because of the efforts it has made to combat trafficking, which means that Turkey is doing
serious efforts in order to combat human trafficking.
An Emmy awarded documentary titled “Sex slaves” was published in 2005, and it tells
about Eastern European women being trafficked to Turkey for sexual exploitation. The film is
the fundamental idea for this project; its purpose it to show the current situation about “the
Natasha trade”.
This project is particularly interested in the perspective of the human rights on the
Natasha phenomenon. In the further process of investigating the phenomenon many questions
arose to our minds. Has Turkey managed to better the protection of the human rights of the
“Natashas”? What efforts has Turkey made to decrease trafficking for sexual exploitation? Why
is Turkey such a favorite destination country for traffickers?
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1.1. Problem formulation and the research questions
The theoretical human rights perspective in accordance to the human trafficking
phenomenon will be the main concern of this project and furthermore, it will concentrate on the
efforts the Turkish government has done to protect the human rights of the trafficked women.
The report on combating human trafficking in Turkey from the year 2007 and an interview with
the International Organization for Migration Turkey from 2011 is the material that is going to be
analyzed in order to answer the research question that this project is investigating. The research
question that will be the main focus of this project sounds as follows:
“How has Turkey tried to decrease the violation of the human rights of the Eastern European
women trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation in the period of 2007-2011?”
To start the investigation of the stated research question this project is going to start with
the presentation of the methodological aspects, which will be important in order to the structure
of the project and the methods that will be used to gather the primary material for the analysis.
Furthermore, the main terms that this project will be concerned with will be presented in the
theoretical framework: presentation and explanation of human trafficking, lightening up the
Natasha phenomenon and looking at the development of the human rights. When every
important thing is clarified the analysis is the last chapter in this project.
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2. Methodology
As mentioned before, this chapter will be focusing on the highlighting of the research
design and the relevant methods that were used in order to gather the primary information for the
analysis. The first section is concerned with the evaluation of the validity of the visual material
which was used in the chapter about the theoretical framework. Additionally, the validity of the
primary data that was found is going to be evaluated.
2.1 Validity of the material
2.1.1. Validity of the visual material
Katharina Jürgens
For the section about human rights in the chapter of the theoretical framework of this
project, there were used two different videos as sources. The first one is from the website Epolitik.de and is called “Menschenrechte” (human rights) directed by Jan Künzl in 2011. He
produced the video for the purpose to view it under a project called “Wissens Werte” (Worth of
Knowledge) to inform the viewer about the main aspects of the human rights. It is made for the
purpose to entertain the audience and not to present an academic piece of work.
The second video is from the webpage Gemeinsam-fuer-Menschenrechte.de from 2009.
The author of this video is unknown but belongs to the initiative “Gemeinsam für
Menschenrechte” (Together for the Human Rights) which is in association with the United
Human Rights Internationals. Also in this case, the video was produced for the purpose of
entertainment and not for academic usage. We have to be aware of that this can affect the project
if we would not be critical and careful when handling this piece of material.
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2.1.2. Validity of the 2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking Turkey
This section is presenting the annual report written by the International Organization for
Migration Turkey in cooperation with the Turkish government and different other departments in
Turkey. The annual report was published in the year 2007 (Appendix 9.2.) and is available online
on different web pages, as e.g. Lastradainternational.org or Mfa.gov.tr.
There is another report from the year of 2006. But it is worth mentioning that chosen report from
2007 contains the current information on the field of combating human trafficking in Turkey and
that therefore the report from 2006 is irrelevant in accordance to this project.
The report is divided into eight different parts which are:
1.
Preface; one article is written by Kemal Gür, the Ambassador and the General Director
of the Consul Affairs Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In short: human trafficking is a crime
to the human rights and it is still growing in the 21st century. Furthermore, he points out
why Turkey is a favorite destination country and that human trafficking has major
impacts to the economy. Therefore different law enforcement agencies and relevant
institutions are fighting this phenomenon.
The other article is written by Oguz Kagan Köksal the Governor of General Directorate
of Security Ministry of Interior. He summarizes the report of 2006 briefly and points out
that the current report is a continuation. He also points out why Turkey is a favorite
destination country for especially women who are trafficked for sexual exploitation
purposes. Furthermore, he gives a short summary of which institutions and organizations
have been supporting this.
2.
Abbreviations; List of abbreviations.
3.
Strategy of Turkey in combating trafficking in human beings; the chapter summarizes
what Turkey’s strategies are to combat human trafficking.
4.
Prevention; it gives a summary on who are the victims and what the main reason is for
the victims to come to Turkey.
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5.
Protection; it informs about that protection of the victims is very important to Turkey
and that several victims were already successfully identified and from which countries
the victims mostly came from.
6.
Investigation and prosecution; this chapter summarizes the legislations which were
forced during 2006 and 2007.
7.
Conclusion;
8.
Annex;
All in all, the report is a paper of 41 pages and provides the reader with all the relevant
information about combating human trafficking by the Turkish government.
The degree of the validity of the report is evaluated as high, because it is the official
paper of summarizing the actions in combating human trafficking by Turkey, published by the
International Organization of Migration (IOM) in Turkey. Second, the paper was produced in
cooperation with different other countries and their relevant institutions as for example:
Norwegian Government, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and
the Turkish Government, etc. Third, this report can be found as a PDF- file on the website of e.g.
the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And finally, the report refers to the IOM Turkey on the
very last page of the report in order to contact that department for additional information. All
these factors let the report seem trustworthy and reliable.
On the other hand, it has to be mentioned here that this report is written from the Turkish
government’s point of view. That might indicate that the report may be unilateral as it only might
point out one perspective of the phenomenon. And it is possible that Turkey tries to increase its
rank and show the other countries, like the European Union and the U.S. that she is capable and
takes responsibility in this case.
2.1.3. Validity of the Interview with the IOM Turkey
Emmi Maaranen
During this interview the International Organization for Migration Turkey tells about the
current situation of the human trafficking in Turkey, concentrating mainly on Eastern European
women who have been trafficked to Turkey for sexual exploitation. The IOM Turkey explains
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what the current situation with these women is today, and how the phenomenon has been
changing during the last couple of years. At the same time they give examples about the new
human trafficking phenomena in Turkey. They also tell about the efforts Turkey has made to cut
down on the trafficking and how traffickers are now punished in Turkey. They gave very broad
answers to our questions, and large parts of the interview were not relevant when it comes to our
analysis, for instance trafficking for forced labor. The transcription is included in the appendix
9.3., and the parts we are using in this analysis have been underlined.
At first we asked for an e-mail interview from the IOM Turkey and that is why the
questions were sent to the IOM Turkey before the Skype interview. The IOM Turkey offered a
possibility to have a more interactive session with them, and we ended up having a video
conference with them. Even though we are talking about an interview, it is important to point out
that the IOM Turkey saw most of the questions before the session. As we used a semi-structured
interview method, there developed also new questions during the interview.
We would consider the validity of the data quite high as the IOM is the main
intergovernmental organization working with migration issues in association with the Turkish
government. However, this same thing might affect the material: as the IOM Turkey is strongly
tied to Turkey’s government, their statements about Turkey’s government might not be
completely objective. However, according to the IOM’s webpage “the IOM is committed to the
principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society”.
The data was taped during the Skype interview. The quality of the tape is not perfect, as
in background noises were distracting the recordings and during the transcription we were not
able to understand every word properly. However, the quality was mainly good enough and the
transcription contains the essentials of the interview.
It is also worth stating that three of the interviewees were Turkish and one Russian. No
one was using their mother tongue, so using a different language might have a small effect on the
chosen terms, words and the structure of the sentence. In few cases the personnel being
interviewed used the kind of expression we were not familiar with and in these cases we assume
these terms could have been direct translation from their mother tongue. Also when analyzing
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this kind of rather free speech it should be remembered that it is not as planned as for instance a
written interview.
2.2. Case Study
Katharina Jürgens
According to Bryman (2008) the case study „entails the detailed and intensive analysis of
a single case”. But to provide a further definition we want to quote Feagin et al. from their book
“A Case for the Case Study” (1991) as follows: “A case study is an in-depth, multifaceted
investigation, using qualitative research methods, of a single social phenomenon.”
The case study if concerned with a single individual, a processes, programs,
neighborhoods, institutions or even an event (Neale, Thapa & Boyce, 2006). Researchers tend to
connect the case study to the qualitative research, but the case study design is also suitable for
researchers in the quantitative research area (Bryman, 2008).
According to Yin (1994) it is appropriate to use a case study design when the research
question(s) is a “why” or “how”- question and when the investigator is in little or no control over
the investigated event. Furthermore, he says that it should be a “contemporary phenomenon in a
real- life context”. Looking at the research question that this project is investigating it perfectly
fits to the statement of Yin, as it can be categorized as a “how”- question.
As will be seen in the following our primary data contains of an annual report of the
International Organization on Migration (IOM) Turkey in cooperation with the Turkish
Government on combating human trafficking from the year 2007 and a semi- structured
interview with the staff of the IOM Turkey.
Furthermore, there are five types of cases according to Bryman (2008); the critical case,
the extreme/ unique case, the representative/ typical case, the revelatory case, and the
longitudinal case. For our project we chose the critical case design as it contains a “welldeveloped theory” (Bryman, 2008). The design in this research can be influenced by various
variables. The design can be structured as a single- or multi- case (Yin, 1194). In this project we
will use the single case structure to search the phenomenon of the Natashas in human trafficking
9
in Turkey and the methods we used are of the qualitative research area, as for instance we are
using the semi- structured interview (see below).
The reason why we chose the case study design is that it appears to be helpful by
interesting the phenomenon of the protection of the human rights of the Natashas in Turkey.
2.3. Semi-structured interview
Katharina Jürgens
To be able to gather one part of the primary data that is used for our analysis later during
this project the following technique was chosen: a semi- structured interview.
A semi- structured interview is used to gather qualitative data. This type of interview
ploughs a path between the other two types of interview: structured and unstructured. The
interviewer sets up a situation (an interview) in which the interviewee (participant, respondent) is
allowed to talk
about their opinions on a certain topic on which the interviewer is doing research and that is
especially interested in (Bryman, 2008).
The goal with this technique is rather understanding what the participants point of view is
than to make generalizations about behavior or similar. According to Bryman (2008) the semistructured interview is characterized by being more flexible than standardized types of interviews
(structured interview or survey) and by open- ended questions that intend that the interviewer has
to stick to a certain frame but still it is possible for the interviewee to answer more freely.
In this case, we decided to mail the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in
Turkey if they would be willing to answer some questions during an e- mail interview. Yelda
Devlet, one of the staff of the IOM Turkey, was so kind to offer a telephone conference via
Skype, where she and three of her staff members would be available for to answer the questions
(Appendix 9.1.).
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All in all, the interview became 01:01:19 minutes long and as mentioned above a total of
four female interviewees to answer all of our questions. The questions of the interview can be
found in the appendix 8.1.
2.4. Critical discourse analysis (CDA)
Katharina Jürgens
First of all, a brief definition of discourse is given for an easier understanding of the term:
“the use of language in speech and writing in order to produce meaning” (OAL’s Dictionary,
2005).
Critical Discourse Anaysis is influenced, as the name says it, by the critical theory which
according to the OAL’s Dictionary (2005) can be explained as “a way of thinking about and
examining culture and literature by considering the social, historical, and ideological forces that
affect it and make it the way it is.”
The critical discourse analysis is concerned with analyzing discourse in focus on “the
way that social power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted”
(Van Dijk, 2001) in both spoken and written discourse. The purpose with the analysis is to show
how discourse, understood in its first sense (language in use) also works as discourse in its
second sense (a form of social practice that ‘constructs the object of which it purports to speak’)
(Cameron, 2001).
As CDA is linked to the critical theory the concept can be defined by saying that the
language in use (discourse) constructs the objects of which it is “talking” in a systematical way.
With the opportunity of the critical discourse analysis researchers in this particular field
(called critical theory analysts) are working on understanding, or exposing the discourse that is
analyzed, as the researcher takes explicit position and wants to show off the social inequality
(Van Dijk, 2001). Furthermore, the critical discourse analysis is concerned with how social
reality is constructed and reproduced through and in discourse and the consequences of the
constructions for social actors (Cameron, 2001).
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The concept of reality is important in context to CDA as it is the reality that is
constructed through discourse and is shaped by several social forces. These realities become
frequently naturalized e.g. by everyday use, which means that the reality is not presented as a
discursive construction but as “the way things are”. Hence, it can be said that the way realities
are talked and written about are not random but ideologically patterned (Cameron, 2001).
The naturalization of reality (how things are in the world) is to construct normality and
naturalness. Naturalizing a phenomenon or people is done through labeling. Like immigrants
(which itself is a label) are labeled e.g. as “foreigners” and “illegals”. And through repetition in
everyday spoken and written discourse the label becomes ubiquitous; hence, naturalized
(Cameron, 2001). How to analyze discourse by this approach? First of all, the goal of the critical
discourse analysis is to demonstrate the existence of consistent patterns of naturalization in a text
of sets of related texts.
The procedure with this is to find a regular pattern in a particular text or sets of texts
(vocabulary (lexis), grammar, modes of address, inter textual relations with other texts and
genres). Proposing an interpretation of the pattern in terms of its meaning and ideological
significance. But, this procedure can be very controversial, as the following questions can come
up during the analysis: ‘What is the “correct” interpretation?’ and ‘How to validate analyses –
How can one be sure that addresses understand the message in the ideologically charged way the
analyst sees in the data?’ (Cameron, 2001).
The answer is that the analyst has to explain why a discourse supports a number of
readings (and which), for example why addresses can make a number of different meanings from
the same text. The text itself remains the same but different recipients bring different
assumptions and beliefs to the process of making meaning from it, which results in differing
interpretations (Cameron, 2001).
We chose the critical discourse analysis because it will help us to see behind the curtains
during the analysis. As mentioned already, we are going to analyze the 2007 Report on
Combating Human Trafficking Turkey and the semi- structured interview with the International
Organization for Migration in Turkey and the CDA is going to support us while analyzing these
particular pieces of material in context of what they are implicitly implying to the reader
12
respectively to the listener. It will show how the different pieces of material are going to present
Turkey in context of preventing human trafficking and the protection of the human rights of the
victims of the crime.
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3. Theoretical Framework
The following chapter will provide a deeper understanding of the following terms:
Human trafficking, the Natasha phenomenon and the human rights. By defining the terms and
giving the necessary background information this chapter wants to provide a better
understanding of the different phenomena this project is focusing on and offer the theoretical
basis in which our research is tied to.
3.1. Human trafficking
Emmi Maaranen
In this project we are mainly going to focus on human trafficking and how it violates
the human rights of Slavic women who are trafficked to Turkey to work in forced prostitution.
According to the United Nations human trafficking is a crime against humanity that consists of
”an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through a use of
force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them” (United-Nations-Office-onDrugs-and-Crime.org).
It is also important to state out what is meant by the term victim we are using in this
project. According to the International Organization for Migration “victim is used to refer to
someone experiencing injustice for which the perpetrators responsible” when we are talking
about human rights violations (The IOM Handbook on Direct assistance for victims of
Trafficking, p.13).
As the research is done from the human rights perspective, it is important to state out a
theoretical human rights perspective to human trafficking. According to Tomoya Obokata a
human rights perspective to human trafficking includes two dimensions. As a form of an
analysis the human trafficking framework wants to point out the ways human trafficking violates
the rights of the trafficked persons. The second way is seeing human rights framework as a
framework of action. In this case it is putting pressure on the states to protect the victims and
prevent human trafficking (Obokata, 2006, p.35).
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To understand what these both dimensions consist of, we would like to give a short
overview of human trafficking as a phenomenon and what is the state of the trafficking today.
3.1.1. Human trafficking as a global problem
In 1949 United Nations published a human rights contract called Convention for the
suppression of the traffic in persons and the exploitation of the prostitution of others. It came
into force in 1951 (Pietilä and Vickers, 1994, p. 122). Even though this human rights convention
came into force 60 years ago, human trafficking is still a huge problem around the world. In
2008 United Nations estimated that approximately 2.5 million people from 127 different
countries have been trafficked around the world for different kind of exploitation (UnitedNations.org).
According to the United Nations Global Report on Human Trafficking, sexual
exploitation is the most common reason for human trafficking (79 % of the cases). The second
largest reason for human trafficking is for forced labor (18 % of the cases). However, there are
assumptions that trafficking for forced labor and for other purposes such as organ-removal is
under-reported (United Nations Global report on Human trafficking, 2009, p. 6).
In this paper we are concentrating on trafficking for sexual exploitation, so the examples
in the analysis deal with this side of human trafficking.
3.1.2. Understanding human trafficking for sexual exploitation
What causes human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation? One approach to
human trafficking is immigration ”push and pull -phenomenon”. In a nutshell, young women are
first willing to leave their home country, because of for example poverty, and the receiving
countries are willing to pull the young women in, because of for instance the demand of the sex
market (Gustafsson, 2011, p. 41). There are also market economical approaches to human
trafficking; when human trafficking is seen as a part of economic activity, the organizations
15
included in the activity are seen to be seeking profit (Salt, 2000 p. 35). It has also been stated that
the expansion of liberal economies have affected human trafficking: the growth of strong, liberal
economies has made the inequality between countries bigger, which makes people from poorer
countries vulnerable for trafficking (Cameron & Newman, 2008, p. 15).
Usually countries with large sex industries are the ones that create the demand for the
trafficked women. This makes for example Germany, The Netherlands and Turkey tempting
destinations for traffickers (Donna M. Hughes, 2001). It has been argued that women who have
been trafficked for sexual exploitation allow lower prices and greater freedom for the clients who
are buying sex. This freedom might include actions such as having sex without a condom
(Monzini, 2001, p. 1).
The human trafficking victims are often recruited in a place where people are in a
vulnerable state, because of conflicts, humanitarian disasters or other large problems (United
Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human trafficking, p. 6).
3.1.3. The trafficking flows to the European area
In Europe the trafficking flows usually come from South to North and from East to West.
As mentioned before in this project, many European human trafficking victims come from the
former Soviet Union countries. However, an interesting development is the growing recruiting of
women from the former Soviet republics of central Asia. These countries include such as
Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan (Monzini, 2001, p. 5). This means that the flow of trafficking
is constantly moving and developing through time.
3.1.4. Trafficking consists of recruiting, transporting and exploitation
The trafficking chain includes a recruiter, transporter and a pimp. Paola Monzini points
out that from the first state of the chain, women and girls are treated as items that can be sold.
Usually the chain organizes everything for a girl who is willing to leave: false ID when needed
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and covering the travel costs, but in the receiving country the woman ends up being in a debt she
cannot pay back. Monzini states out that the traffickers are able to transform the women who
were willing to immigrate into victims of sexual exploitation. When the women are illegally in
the country they might find it hard to search for help (Monzini, 2001, p. 1-3). Usually the
nationality of the traffickers is the same as the victims. Controlling the victims is normally easier
when the trafficker comes from the same country. (United Nations Global report on Human
trafficking. p.7, 10)
3.1.5. Trafficking is a criminal activity
Trafficking is a very complex phenomenon including many aspects. The push and pull phenomenon is not enough to explain trafficking: international criminals are in a large role.
According to the United Nations Global Initiative human trafficking is a high profit action with
rather low risks for the criminal (United Nations Global Initiative to human trafficking, preface).
The amounts that pimps can earn with the women are significant: they can earn even 20 times
more than they paid for the woman. Usually the women themselves earn nothing or a very little
money (Hughes, 2001, p.13).
The women who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation are violated in many ways.
As stated before, women might be in a disproportionate debt because of the travel costs, why
they are not receiving money at all (Monzini, 2001, p. 7). The women might be kept in locked
apartments and their passports might have been taken away. The criminals included in trafficking
might blackmail the women in different ways to keep them humble (Townsend/Guardian.co.uk,
2011).
As stated before, sometimes former victims of trafficking get a better position in the
criminal chain and become traffickers or recruiters (United Nations Global report on Human
trafficking, 2009, p. 6).
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3.1.6. The role of the states in protecting human trafficking victims and
preventing trafficking
A large problem behind human trafficking is the corruption and criminality of the
sending countries. The state corruption might protect criminal networks by ignoring criminal
activity (Hughes, 2001, p.13).
Also the laws and adjustments of the receiving country have an effect on the
phenomenon. Donna Hughes argues that legal prostitution is partly causing the problem of
human trafficking for sexual exploitation (Hughes, 2001, p. 14). However, there are also critical
thoughts when it comes to the effect of legal prostitution on human trafficking. David A.
Feingold finds it confusing how Germany, The Netherlands and Australia got top scores in the
Trafficking in Persons report even though prostitution is legal in all of these countries (Feingold,
2005). Also for instance the border actions of the receiving country, as well as the sending
country, might have an effect on human trafficking. For instance a weak passport control can
make it easier for traffickers to leave and enter a country (Monzini, 2001, p. 2).
Countries have different ways for preventing human trafficking for sexual exploitation.
One of the simplest forms is criminalizing human trafficking by law. Other actions might include
things such as making the public aware of the phenomenon. The Czech Republic has a special
police to deal with human trafficking (Monzini, 2001, p. 7).
As mentioned before, the Trafficking in persons report gives different scores to the
countries depending how well their governments are fulfilling the requirements the report states.
There are four different tiers in Trafficking in persons report. Tier 1 includes the countries whose
governments are fully engaged to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act's minimum standards.
These countries include for instance Denmark, Sweden, Canada and United Kingdom. Tier 2
includes countries whose governments do not fulfill the requirements, but are making serious
efforts to reach the standards. Some examples of these countries are Turkey, Romania, Morocco,
Vietnam, Iceland and Hungary. Tier 2 Watch List includes countries that do not fill the
requirements and are making efforts to reach them but at the same time they for instance have
very serious problems with the amount of trafficked persons. These countries include for
instance Russia, Latvia, Egypt, Ukraine and Turkmenistan. Tier 3 consists of countries that do
18
not fulfill the minimum requirements of Trafficking Victim’s Protection Act's and are not
making remarkable efforts to reach them. These countries include for instance Saudi Arabia, Iran
and Malaysia (Trafficking in Persons report 2009). Also fulfilling this kind of international
requirements can be seen as a pressure to combat human trafficking as we stated earlier, when
states have pressure to protect the human rights of the trafficking victims (Obokata, 2006, p.35).
This map was found on the Guardian.uk.co and contains the current tier placing of Europe, North
Africa and West Asia. The tier 1 is colored with green, the tier 2 is colored light yellow, the tier
2 watch list with dark yellow and the tier 3 is colored red. As can be seen the Republic of Turkey
is currently listed as a tier 2 country and colored with light yellow here.
3.1.7. Criminalizing the victim
One of the human rights problems with human trafficking is seeing the victim of
trafficking as an illegal immigrant. In many cases the trafficked person, the victim, is the one
who is being criminalized in the receiving country instead of the trafficker, recruiter or the pimp
(United Nations Global Initiative to human trafficking, preface). When police makes a raid in a
brothel, it is common in many countries that the police arrest the women working there. Then the
19
women might be deported because of working illegally in the country or illegally as a prostitute
whereas the brothel owner or a pimp might not be punished at all (Monzini, 2001, p. 2) .
Tomoya Obokata points out that taking a human right perspective to criminalization of
the victim might help the situation of the trafficked person. When the trafficked person is seen as
a victim of human rights violation instead of a criminal who is violating immigration laws, her
situation is better understood (Obokata, p.35, 2006).
3.2. The Natasha phenomenon
In certain areas, such as Turkey and Israel, Eastern European women involved in
prostitution are so commonly known that they are called “Natasha” (Hughes, 2000). This project
is mainly focusing on trafficked Eastern European women for sexual exploitation, and the term
“Natasha” is used for them as well. According to Leyla Gülcur and Pinar Ilkkaracan the Natasha
phenomenon has been so broad in the start of the 21th century that almost all Eastern European
women in Turkey were characterized as “Natashas” (Gülcur, Ilkkaracan, 2002, p. 414).
The Natasha trade has its roots in the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the middle of the
1980’s international travel restrictions were eased, and after the total collapse of the Soviet
Union the borders opened for travel and migration (Hughes, 2001, p.10). In 1998 the
International Organization for Migration estimated that as much as 400.000 women have been
trafficked from Ukraine for sexual exploitation (IOM, Information Campaign against Trafficking
in Women from Ukraine: Research Report 1998, p. 16). According to the BBC tens of thousands
women from Moldova have been sold for foreign sex markets as well (Rogsburgh, News-bbc-couk, 2003).
The white Eastern European women are characterized to be the most valuable women in
the international sex market (Specter, The-New-York-Times.com, 1998; Hughes 2001, p. 9).
After trafficking to the destination country the women are sold to pimps, who can make even 20
times more money of the women than the original selling price (Hughes, 2001, p.13).
20
The problem with the Eastern European women trafficked abroad has been also their
treatment in the receiving countries. According to Donna Hughes they are often treated as
criminals, prostitutes or illegal immigrants in the receiving countries (Hughes, 2000).
3.2.1. A profile of a Natasha
According to Tatyana Denisova and Donna Hughes, most of the victims recruited from
Ukraine are between the ages 17-26. In Ukraine’s case, 80 percent of the trafficked women were
unemployed when they left the country. Earlier it was common to recruit women from the cities,
but later on it became rather usual to recruit women from the even poorer agricultural parts of the
country (Denisova, Hughes, 2003, p. 7-8).
There are several ways for recruiters to convince these young women to leave the
country. Hughes (2001) points out some of the most common methods. These include for
instance advertisements in the newspapers, where the recruiters are searching for workers for
low-skilled jobs such as waitresses or dancers. Additionally the so called “marriage agencies” are
promising women to receive a rich husband abroad. This is also a common form to recruit
women. However, the most common way to recruit a Ukrainian woman is through a person she
actually knows. It is rather usual that a former trafficking victim has climbed up in a trafficking
chain and returns to the home country to recruit new women (Hughes, 2001, p.11). The recruiters
might promise women incredible things such as an apartment, 10.000 dollars a month and a
bodyguard, if they would be willing to leave abroad (Denisova, Hughes, 2003, p. 10). It is
important to underline that usually the women are not expecting the sexual exploitation what
they are facing in the destination country (Hughes, 2001, p.11).
According to the International Organization for Migration Turkey most of the trafficking
victims are low educated (Interview with the IOM Turkey, 2011) and they are also characterized
as naive and desperately seeking for a better life, which makes recruiting easy for the criminals
(Specter, The-New-York-Times.com,1998).
21
3.2.2. The sending countries
The sending countries in Turkey’s case include besides Ukraine other former Soviet
Union countries such as Moldova, Belarus and Georgia (Interview with IOM Turkey). These
countries are poor and in a lack of work places. For instance Moldova is the poorest country in
the European area (Euro-who.int).
According to Hughes the transnational crime networks that are organizing “Natasha
trade” have their roots in the state economy of the former Soviet Union. Because the state
economy of the Soviet Union did not offer the goods and services the people needed, the shadow
economy started to offer these goods. In Ukraine’s example the collapse of the Soviet Union led
to a phenomenon, where these formerly illegal shadow economy markets became legal, but they
kept their business methods which were based on for instance corruption. The collapse of the
Soviet Union led to a lack of workplaces, and many people ended up working with the
businesses that were organized by the crime networks (Hughes, 2001, p. 10).
3.2.3. The receiving country: Turkey
The Slavic women are trafficked to many destinations, including for instance the
Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates (Hughes, 2001, p. 10). This project is concentrating
on one of the destination countries: Turkey. Turkeys growing economy and the lack of visa
requirements have been seen as some of the major reasons why Eastern European women are
trafficked there for the purpose of sexual exploitation (Smith, Nytimes.com, 2005).
According to Hughes, countries with large sex markets create the demand for trafficked
women (Hughes 2001, p. 9). Prostitution is legal in Turkey, but only for Turkish women who are
registered as a prostitute (2011 Trafficking in Persons Report – Turkey). According to a
investigative journalist Anna Louie Sussman, approximately 3000 women have this registration,
and 30.000 women are waiting to get it. Illegal Eastern European prostitutes working in the
unlicensed brothels
are anyway a well-known phenomenon in
Turkey (Sussman,
Pulitzercenter.org, 2011).
22
According to Denisova and Hughes, trafficked Ukrainian women have been most badly
treated in Turkey and the former Yugoslavia. The trafficked women were more easily beaten and
enslaved in Turkey and the former Yugoslavia than in the other destination countries (Denisova,
Hughes, 2003, p. 10).
Article 80 in Turkey’s law prohibits trafficking for sexual exploitation and forced labor,
and a person found guilty for these crimes can be sent to prison up to 12 years. This law came
into force on the year 2007 (2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking in Turkey).
Turkey is rated as a Tier 2 in Trafficking in Persons report, which means that Turkey is
doing serious efforts to combat human trafficking, but trafficking still exists as a large
phenomenon in the country. Turkey has faced criticism for the treatment of foreign women
involved in prostitution. According to 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report Turkey has continued
to deport these women without making serious efforts to identify trafficking victims among
them. The trafficking victims can apply for a humanitarian visa to stay in Turkey for a longer
period of time, but in the year 2010 there were only two of these visas granted (2011 Trafficking
in Persons Report – Turkey).
However, Turkey has also made some valuable efforts to combat trafficking and protect
the victims. In 2010 it gave 150.000 dollars funding to the 157 helpline for trafficking victims,
which is managed by International Organization for Migration Turkey. According to the
government of Turkey they have made efforts to seek for victims of human trafficking both in
brothels and in street prostitution. During the period from January 2010 to September 2010
Turkey reported of prosecuting 430 trafficking suspects, but only 58 trafficking victims were
identified (2011 Trafficking in Persons Report – Turkey).
23
3.3. The Human Rights
Katharina Jürgens
We chose the human rights as a frame for this project and also as a point of view to look
at in the analysis, because we are researching in the field of trafficking in human beings;
especially in eastern European women trafficked to Turkey for sexual exploitation. According to
the “2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking Turkey” the phenomenon of human
trafficking has grown during the years and is even increasing today. The report states further that
the problem of human trafficking is “the gravest violation of humanity” and with this a violation
to the human rights.
3.3.1. Definition of Human Rights
First, a definition of the human rights will be given and further a historical overview of
the human rights will show the development of them over time.
When politicians, the mass media, or the average people talk of the Human Rights it
seems that everybody is familiar with the term. In fact, less than 5 percent of the world’s
population knows the human rights or worse: around 95 percent do not even know that human
rights exist (The Human Rights Action Center, 2009). Of course, everybody in the Western
World is kind of familiar with the term of free speech, right of freedom or free choice of religion.
But if people were asked on the street about this topic they barely could answer any more than
what is mentioned above.
As an example for this, I found a small video on the internet where a film crew asked
people on the street “What are the Human Rights?” The answers they gave are underlining the
claims on people barely knowing anything about the Human Rights (Gemeinsam-fuerMenschenrecht.de, 2009):
Pedestrian 1: Human rights are ehm... Jesus! That is a good question.
Pedestrian 6: I would probably have to do a little bit of homework or something…
Pedestrian 12: You can ask twenty people and you will get twenty different opinions.
Pedestrian 15: We are just taken them for granted that they are there but we don’t even
consider
what
they
are.
24
Pedestrian
aware of?
21:
Is
there
supposed
to
be
a
list
of
which
I
should
be
The film crew asked more than twenty people and only three of them could come up with any
idea about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This lack of knowledge or sciolism is
very dangerous if you think about how important the human rights are to every human. A little
note here, an organization called the Human Rights Action Center has made it their duty to
convince the governments all over the world to print the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
into every human beings passport. This way it can be visible to everybody who possesses a pass
port. But still, that would not ensure that the people would actually know their rights
(Humanrightsactioncenter.org, 2009). According to the same video mentioned earlier human
rights is defined by the following: “Human: a member of the homo sapiens species; a man,
woman or child; a person. Rights: Things to which you are entitles or allowed; freedoms that are
guaranteed. Human Rights: The rights you have simply because you`re human.” (Gemeinsamfuer-Menschenrechte.de, 2009)
To say it that way is the simplest way of expressing clearly to the point what the essential
of the human rights. But to give a further explanation on the human rights the following
definition is provided by the NGO Amnesty International on their official website and will
clarify:
“Human rights are basic rights and freedoms that all people are entitled to regardless of
nationality, sex, national or ethnic origin, race, religion, language, or other status. Human
rights include civil and political rights, such as the right to life, liberty and freedom of
expression; and social, cultural and economic rights including the right to participate in
culture, the right to food, and the right to work and receive an education. Human rights
are protected and upheld by international and national laws and treaties.”
The definition given above is more precisely about, that absolutely every human being, with no
excuses, is addressed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. From the day on a human
being is born it has these special rights and is entitled to invoke on them in whatever situation
where one or more of its rights are violated or threatened.
Another very important aspect has to be reminded when talking about the human rights is
that according to Miller (2006) the state has the responsibility to protect its citizen’s human
25
rights otherwise it is violating this. Moreover, if a country fails in protecting the human rights of
its citizens it is the “world community’s” responsibility to ensure the protection. The
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty formulated this idea in 2001 a
report called “The Responsibility to Protect”.
3.1.2. Historical background
For the further understanding of what the Human Rights exactly are and what they
consist of I have to give an overview of the historical development. According to Ishay (2008)
the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights are developed through the last couple of
centuries until they finally were adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in the
year of 1948 under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt. They had to develop during different
historical events, as for example during the declaration of Independence in the US in 1776, and
in the French Revolution in 1789, and the World Wars in 1914-18 (I) and 1938-1945(II). All
these historical events helped shaping the Human Rights. Further, Ishay (2008) states that
political traditions elaborated and brought new facets into play and on that basis it could become
possible to state which of the human rights were the most important.
The creation of the human rights was influenced by the banding of most of the world’s
countries to from the United Nations (UN) in 1945. Their basic purpose was: “To reaffirm faith
in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and the worth of the human person.” (UN.org) And
in 1948 under the supervision of Eleanor Roosevelt the UN finally agreed on a set of rights: the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And with this step the French concept of natural rights
had finally become human rights (Ishay, 2008). And as known 30 articles can be read in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights today.
26
4. Analysis
4.1. Analysis of the 2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking Turkey
Katharina Jürgens
For the record: we are only going to analyze the following parts:
1.
Preface
2.
Strategy of Turkey in combating trafficking in human beings
3.
Prevention
4.
Protection
5.
Investigation and prosecution
6.
Conclusion
These parts contain the relevant information for our analysis on which we want to focus on
and more importantly they contain coherent text. The report contains different statistics and
graphs which are provided by the Turkish government but these are not going to be analyzed.
To start the analysis the first step we are taking a look at the 2007 Report on Combating
on Human Trafficking Turkey and have a close look on the vocabulary which is used in order to
describe and summarize the actions that the government of Turkey has done in order to combat
human trafficking during the year 2007.
4.1.1. Preface
In the first chapter of the report the two authors do state that human trafficking is a crime
against the human rights and that it is therefore so important to fight this fight to reach a higher
level of humanity, but they are very general in the way they write about this phenomenon. Only
once one of the authors (Gür) is pointing out who are the victims in the human trafficking but
does not label them as this. Up till now it is not clear yet who the victims of trafficking are or if
they really are victims or if they come to Turkey voluntarily. And why, even though examples
explaining human trafficking to Turkey but no evidence are given yet. Already in the first
chapter of the report, in the preface written by Oguz Kagan Köksal we found something
27
interesting even though it seems to be very banal; Köksal wrote “[…] wish success to entire
institutions […]”. On the surface, he is trying to be polite and wants to show sympathy with the
institutions which are fighting a common problem but when reading between the lines he
implicitly implies with the verb ‘wish’ that he hopes that somebody will (will- future) be lucky
(OAL’s Dictionary, 2005), which means, since the last report in 2006 the institutions were not as
lucky or successful as Turkey wished to be.
Further through the report of 2007 we found the next critical term used by Gür in the
second article of the preface. The author uses a very strong adjective ‘determined’ (in
combination with the noun ‘fight’) which implies the most important thing for Turkey is to
prevent, to protect and to prosecute; no one could prevent Turkey from doing so. Gür underlines
his statement with another term further down in the article where he says that Turkey has
‘seriously dealt’ with the problem of human trafficking. Again, the adverb has a really strong
meaning; looking into a dictionary for instance the word is similar to ‘very’ and ‘extreme’.
Moreover, scanning through the article different terms were noticeable, as for instance:
‘Turkey’s efforts (noun)’, ‘our concrete (adjective) approaches proving (verb) the determination
(noun)’, and ‘sustainability (noun)’. All the words written in italics have a very intense and
strong meaning in context on fighting human trafficking.
Furthermore, it is pointed out the first time that the phenomenon of human trafficking is
a violation of human rights: “Human trafficking is ranked high among the crimes committed
against humanity and it is a serious violation of human rights” (p. 2). Another sentence is
making it clear that human rights are violated by the crime of human trafficking: “a crime
committed by exploiting the vulnerability of human beings.”
As the report is available to every human being that has access to internet, it can be
confusing to the potential reader if s/he does not know anything or little about both phenomena
as no definition is given through the entire report.
The chapter is written in a very masculine way; by using strong and confidence vocabulary.
28
4.1.2. Strategy of Turkey in combating trafficking in human beings
The vocabulary is again very strong and intense; lexical items are used as for example
‘strengthening’ (verb), ‘ensuring’ (verb), ‘improving’ (verb), ‘pioneered’ (adjective), and ‘rapid,
efficient and concrete’(3x adjective) . All these words written in italics give the reader the feeling
that Turkey is in control of the situation as they exude confidence and self- assurance and as a
result of that the writing facilitates the feeling of Turkey knowing what it does and that it is more
or less impossible that these plans it is working on could ever fail. Also here we can point out
that it is a very masculine way of writing as it is straight to the point, explicit and is clearly
structured without any distracting or irrelevant information.
What is noticeable about this part is that the author for the first time is labeling the enemy in the
fight: organized criminal networks, and that those are said to be the trigger for human trafficking.
On the other hand, Turkey tries via this report to show who is the one in control over the problem
and in the end has taken the role as the “hero”. The following sentences will explain: “Turkey
has taken ask measures against human trafficking within the scope of international agreements
and played an active role to enhance […]” (p. 10). Reading between the lines Turkey is
clarifying that she is the one in control and that she will not let something as the organized
criminal networks undermine her authority. The chosen vocabulary shows the reader who is the
one in power.
4.1.3. Prevention
In this smaller chapter an interesting change happened; for the first time the author,
wanted or unwanted, put Turkey into the position of the victim. In the text the author states that
“Turkey continues to be a destination country […]” (p.11). With the lexical item
‘continues’(verb) it is implicitly announced that Turkey still is the “victim” which is receiving
the irregular migrants, because it functions as the ground for human trafficking. And all the
sudden Turkey is the one not in power anymore as it seems that it could not change her position
29
in this game. Additionally, that word has another meaning, namely that Turkey had little or no
success in fighting the crime of human trafficking in the years 2006 and 2007.
4.1.4. Protection
The fact which is noticeable in this particular chapter of the report is that the victim plays
the major role for the first time. That does not mean that the victims of human trafficking were
not mentioned in the previous chapters, but only that the lexical item ‘victim’(noun) is mentioned
more often by comparison to the previous text. Of course, it can be argued that it has to do with
the structuring of the report. But it is worth mentioning that the development of the action of
labeling the individuals, who’s rights were violated human trafficking for sexual exploitation, as
‘victim’, more preferable as ‘victim of human trafficking’, and every so often as ‘trafficked
person(s)’.
What caught even more our eye was the degree of development of the written language
used in the report. As now, reaching the part where the International Organization for Migration
(IOM) Turkey has to state the country’s success of protecting the ‘victims of human trafficking’,
the language tone changes from a very masculine way of expressing to a more feminine way of
expressing. What is meant with this is that the structure in which the author(s) is writing remains
the same; no irrelevant information, very explicit and straight to the point. But the vocabulary
changed to a softer way of using the different lexical items. The next sentence is a good example
for our statement: “the victims are treated sensitively in the interviews taking into account their
serious suffering from the event and even being traumatized.” (p. 16). When reading between the
lines in this part of the report the words which are used to express the actions that are taken in
protecting the victims of the crime of human trafficking are more caring and even more cautious.
As if the author(s) needed to do this in case this piece of work could ever be read by one of the
victims the author(s) referred to.
Another interesting development throughout this chapter of the report is the shift in using
certain labels. What we want to say with this is that on the first three pages the individuals who
suffered from the crime were labeled as ‘victims’ or ‘victims of human trafficking’. But, on the
30
last page, where the author(s) get his hands down on which rights a ‘victim’ has while being in a
court trial, he labels them rarely as ‘victims’ but rather as ‘trafficked persons’. As if the
expression ‘victim’ does not fit anymore when it comes to a trial against the traffickers; that it
has to be pointed out that we are now dealing with an independent human being. It seems that the
label ‘victim’ is too weak to could fight the ones who did all the damage to them; they now need
a new label to be strong enough and capable to stand against the psychological pain and
memories this court trial will bring with it.
Here it can be said that the state of Turkey takes over a new role. In this case she is not
only the one who is fighting the crime and standing in the role of the “hero” but here she is
positioned as the “caring one”, more or less the role of a “clucky hen” or a “saint”. A clucky hen,
because Turkey spreads it wings over all the identified victims and a saint, because she supports
the victims with free medical and juristically treatments and treats them carefully, and does
everything that she can to let the victims not suffer any more than they already did: “Victims
staying in Ankara and Istanbul shelters have benefited from health assistance and treatment
services provided free of charge […]” (p. 16).
This means, by formulating the sentences as they are Turkey and all the relevant
institutions which are fighting against human trafficking are still in power over the crime. As
Turkey and organizations as for example the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and
Woman Solidarity Foundation (WSF), the Ministry of Health, etc. figured out how to deal with
the damage victims and with this having the power back in their hands to fight human
trafficking.
The country has a certain account for the victims of human trafficking. In the theoretical
framework chapter about the human rights we already mentioned that the countries in the world
which are not protecting the human rights of their citizens are violating them. That is the
problem here: the victims of human trafficking who are identified in Turkey are usually no
citizens of the Republic of Turkey but still the country has the responsibility to decrease the
degree of the violation of their human rights. That is why this chapter on protection conveys the
feeling of Turkey caring about the victims so much whilst reading. Turkey is being in the role of
the good example and shows other countries that even though these victims are officially not
31
belonging to Turkey but still it uses it financial and humanitarian resources on caring for the
victims.
4.1.5. Investigation and prosecution
In the small summary in the beginning of this chapter it says that “Turkey has accepted
(verb) contributing to international crime prevention strategies as a state police” (p. 25). Since
1999 Turkey wants to become a part of the European Union (EU). But with this came rules she
had to follow as every EU- country has to fulfill certain standards. So, Turkey had no other
chance than to accept strategies that might not be the way Turkey wanted it to be. We think this
as the lexical item ‘accepted’ is defines as follows: ‘accepted: to receive something as suitable
or good enough’ (O.A.L’s. Dictionary, 2005). Furthermore, the author(s) states that Turkey is
developing (verb) and revising (verb) the relevant (adjective) national legislations in order to
fight (verb) human trafficking. Turkey tries actively to further everything in her power in the
fight against the crime that “leads to violation of human rights” (p. 25). She is willing to
transform and to cooperate with other states and countries to face the common enemy: human
trafficking.
We found another two categories of individuals that are in this chapter of importance: the
witness (also mentioned in the chapter protection) and the accused. We think the author(s) has
used the lexical item ‘accused’ (noun) and not ‘trafficker’ to underline who is in the role of the
enemy. Additionally, the expression does not answer if it is the trafficker who is being accused.
It can be one of the women (victims), as we cannot say with a certainty which person is meant by
the label ‘accused’.
In the second half of the chapter the topic changes towards the training that the executive
forces received and the interesting aspect here the small change in vocabulary. It becomes again
a little more aggressive as the names of the events where the people were trained in have to be
awe- inspiring in purpose to scare traffickers away. For instance are people working in the ‘antitrafficking’ (adjective) field in alliances with groups which names are as followed:
‘Strengthening the Institutional Capacity in the Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings’,
32
‘Fight Against Smuggling and Organized Crime’, and ‘Course on Fight Against Human
Trafficking’.
In general in the first half of the chapter the vocabulary is again straight forward, no
irrelevant. This time the language which is used is whether neither very masculine nor very
feminine. But in between the lines it sounds like that Turkey is just following step by step a
manual that shall help her to rise in the tier placement (see human trafficking) like a marionette.
No strong, convincing vocabulary or formulations that would make the reader feel convinced.
Turkey is following certain rules and requirements and that is obvious by reading this chapter.
The noticeable fact here is that Turkey seemed to have given the control of the current
actions to someone else. She is following without any complains and develops in the wake of the
European Union. This is necessary for Turkey as she once to become a member of the Union,
and can only reach this goal by taking every step EU says it has to take.
4.1.6. Conclusion
Something that is noticeable in this last chapter of the report is the fact that the author(s)
only uses the label ‘trafficked persons’ and not as used from the previous chapters the labels of
‘victim’ or ‘victim of human trafficking’.
In this chapter the author(s) decided to use again the more aggressive and masculine language as
he did in the beginning of the report. Lexical items and formulations as for example ‘(ongoing)
efforts’, ‘necessary’, ‘make progress’, ‘ improve its efforts’ and the constant use of will- future in
the end is showing that Turkey is still the one in power and still in control over all her actions.
She is convinced that she is able to continue the fight and prevent the crime of human trafficking
and protect the individuals that have suffered under this crime and to prosecute the perpetrators.
33
4.2. Analysis of the interview with the IOM Turkey
Emmi Maaranen
The material which is going to be analyzed in this part is from a Skype interview with the
International Organization for Migration Turkey held on the 25th November 2011. Four different
personnel from the IOM Turkey answered to the given questions and at the same time they also
presented information about the IOM Turkey.
As our analysis consists of critical discourse analysis with a human rights approach we
try to find different power relations in context to the interview from this point of view. The main
focus is on the trafficked women, but Turkey’s government and the traffickers will be involved
as well because they are also important operators in the phenomenon of human trafficking. As
the producers of the speech are the IOM Turkey’s workers, we could say that this part of our
research concentrates on the linguistic ways the IOM Turkey is creating power relations between
the individuals of this phenomenon. At the same time we try to see how the IOM Turkey
constructs the social world of this phenomenon by using language.
Firstly, we try to see which kind of words and sentence structures the IOM Turkey uses
when they talk about the trafficked Eastern European women. Afterwards the linguistic use of
the traffickers and Turkey’s government will be analyzed.
4.2.1. The language used about the Eastern European trafficked women
Reading through the transcription of the interview, attention starts to be paid to the word
that the IOM Turkey uses for trafficked women: victim. The word victim was used several times
through the interview: “And when you look at the numbers you see the main countries of origin
for victims who are identified in Turkey; it is changing, but as of 2004 we see important increase
in the victims who are coming from Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and as far as I can remember,
Georgia.” The chosen word for trafficked women is interesting, because it clearly shows that the
IOM Turkey defines trafficked women as someone whose rights have not been respected.
Victims have not done anything wrong: someone has done a crime against them. In our
34
theoretical framework we actually defined the term “victim” with the IOM definition: “victim is
referred to a person who suffers an injustice for which the perpetrator is responsible” (The IOM
Handbook on Direct assistance for Victims of Trafficking, p.13). So to say, the victim is the one
who does not have power, but against whom power is used. As IOM Turkey uses the word
victim so often we might assume that the IOM Turkey has especially chosen to use the word
victim when they are talking about the people who have been trafficked for exploitation.
As IOM works together with Turkey’s government in order to decrease human trafficking
in Turkey, the use of word the “victim” has other interesting connotations. We pointed out in the
theoretical framework that one theoretical perspective to human trafficking is seeing human
trafficking framework as a framework of action. This means putting pressure on the states and
what they should do to protect the victims and prevent human trafficking (Obokata, 2006, p. 35).
It could be possible that the IOM Turkey has chosen to use the word victim to make it clear to
the state of Turkey and also to the public that trafficked people should be seen as victims, not for
instance as illegal immigrants as they might be seen sometimes. According to Paola Monzini
trafficked women might be sometimes deported because they have been working in the country
illegally: in these cases the women are seen as illegal immigrants instead of victims (Monzini,
2001, p. 2).
Actually when reading the interview further the IOM Turkey points out something about
using the word victim. They had a case of a Kirgizstan homeless, poor woman who was
trafficked to Turkey, but she knew that she had to work in prostitution. The pimp paid her 1500
dollars a month, but earned 15 000 dollars of her a month. Then the IOM Turkey states out: “So
it was on discussion whether this woman is a trafficking victim or voluntary involved in this. It
actually became to a conclusion that she is a victim of trafficking because the trafficker used her
position of vulnerability.” After reading this sentence we might assume that the IOM Turkey
puts a link between the words vulnerability and victim. As stated in the theoretical approach, the
victims of human trafficking are often recruited in a place where people are in a vulnerable state,
because of conflicts, humanitarian disasters or other large problems (United Nations Global
Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, p. 6.).
There is also another category that is given to these women during the interview, which
can be seen as linked to the victimness and vulnerability. “According to the statistics, we don’t
35
have victims of trafficking who are engineers, doctors, who are very well educated. All of them
have secondary school education, maximum.”
The IOM Turkey is clearly stating out that the trafficked women are usually from the
lower education classes. You might pay attention to the chosen sentence: We don’t have victims
of trafficking who are engineers, doctors, who are very well educated. This information is based
on the statistics, but at the same time it puts the trafficked women into a category: they come
from the lower classes of the society. This underlines their vulnerability again as people with
very low education might be more vulnerable and naive for exploitation, because of the lack of
knowledge.
The common word used for the Eastern European women who are working as prostitutes
in Turkey is “Natasha” (Hughes, p. 10). The IOM Turkey seems to be careful for using this
word. We as interviewers use the word “Natasha” or “Natasha phenomenon” a few times, but the
IOM Turkey says that mainly Turkish media have been using the word Natasha:
At that time we were very successful because we were actually cutting and getting some
articles that appeared on Turkish media while they were previously mentioning about
those Turkish, sorry, Russian prostitutes that are Natashas. Natasha is the kind of word
used for women coming from that region of world and being involved in the prostitution.
But they changed this “Natasha” word, even didn’t use ... in Turkish media and they
changed the words like victim, you know, who doesn’t want to involve but those women
are forced to be involved, you know, that’s forced prostitution, being a victim.
Unfortunately, in this part of the tape there was an unclear moment, but we understood
that the Turkish media has had a habit of calling all the Eastern European women involved in
prostitution as “Natashas”. The word “Natasha” has been used also of women who were forced
to prostitution, and in these cases the IOM Turkey would have preferred a word such as “victim”
instead of using a word “Natasha”. The “Natasha” word for Eastern European women involved
in prostitution could be seen as very generalizing: the woman is not even worth a name; one
name is enough for all of those women. In a way you could almost say that using a word like this
can be seen inhumane, stereotyping a person into, because she is an Eastern European woman
involved in prostitution. The interesting thing here is seeing a connection with sex and race: only
a white Eastern European woman can be defined as a “Natasha”. It also seems like the IOM
36
Turkey would be willing to control the words that are used of trafficked women; they seem to be
aware of the power of chosen words. The same part of the interview continues:
“We also trained the media people, not exactly direct training but through briefings and
while we get together, that those people have also lives. If whenever you came up with
that kind of story, even if it’s true, we should never give any confidential information
regarding a person. Sometimes when the information is coming from the police side, the
media they give her name and the place, you know, very obvious. And we also underline
this confidential like these people have a life and they will be back in their home so it is
very important to, I mean, protect their confidentiality counts as well. So still we are in
this line, although trafficking is kind of a known area now by the Turkish people.”
Words such as “protecting their confidentiality” go again in the line with being “a
victim”: the trafficked women need to be protected, and the IOM Turkey feels like being one of
those operators who should protect them.
It is also interesting to see that usually something is done to these women when they are
in Turkey: the women themselves are not independent operators anymore. “So in the past of
trafficking they were tortured, beaten and now they only have psychological abuse. --Now you
can only psychologically abuse them and they would never go outside the home.” These words,
tortured, beaten and psychological abuse clearly show that something bad has happened to these
women, which again builds a link between the chosen word victim and the things that have been
done to them. When the women were still in their home countries they were seen as independent
operators with responsibility. In the language structure they are subjects, not objects: “Majority
of the victims are women who are responsible for their families and men also who are responsible
for their families.” The first sentence underlines the responsibility the trafficked women have in
their home countries: taking care of the family. So it is interesting to see the linguistic
metamorphosis that happens to these responsible women, who are kind of independent operators
when they decide to leave to a foreign country. These responsible women turn into victims; from
a powerful individual who has to take care of the family into an abused victim. They become
objects instead of subjects. “--majority of the victims of trafficking are not only victims of
trafficking, even voluntary prostitutes, they are somehow traumatized.”
The word victim is again used, but in the same sentence the IOM Turkey states out that
these trafficked women and even voluntary prostitute women are somehow traumatized. So this
37
word “traumatized” can be seen as tied to being “a victim” again, and it makes women again
even more vulnerable.
The interesting thing here is the linguistic way used of Turkey and these women, because
now there becomes a small conflict between the victims based approach and the actual treatment
of the women:
“So because sexual exploitation is much more easy to find, because during the day
police can find these women and interview them. Now in Turkey we have this system that
Turkey has to do this interview during 24 hours, but none of the women would say the
truth without having guarantee tour security, without being stabilized, because majority
of the victims of trafficking are not only victims of trafficking, even voluntary prostitutes
are somehow traumatized. So before getting information from these people, first of all
they have to stabilize them. So solution in this respect, IOM is working with a new form
of legislation. So the solution, all these women, after being arrested, they will be
estimated between different shelters, they will be given one month, a reflexion period,
where women can go through psychology, psychological support, and after this they will
give some intelligence to the law force man. This is not something new for IOM Turkey
but at least we didn't apply this procedure until today.”
So clearly, even though the IOM Turkey points out that these women are victims, to
Turkey’s government they are not clearly victims. When the IOM Turkey talks about the relation
with Turkey and these trafficked women, it uses expressions such as: police can find these
women and interview them, the women have to be stabilized, they are arrested, they will be
estimated between different shelters, they will be given one month. All of these words are rather
negative: again someone is using power against these women. There is something wrong with
them: they had to be interviewed, arrested, stabilized, and estimated between different shelters.
The one who is using power is not clearly stated out, the subjects are in the passive form, but it is
clear that it is the state of Turkey who is using the power this time. In one case the power user is
clearly stated out: police can find these women and interview them. In this sentence the state of
Turkey is using power through its representatives: policemen. Presumably, this is supposed to be
a good thing when police finds these women, but later on it becomes clear that they are arrested
as well. As we stated in our theoretical framework, when police makes a raid in a brothel, it is
common in many countries that the police arrests the women working there. Then the women
might be deported because of working illegally in the country or illegally as a prostitute whereas
the brothel owner or a pimp might not be punished at all (Monzini, 2001, p. 2). Behavior like this
38
can be seen as violating the human rights of the women. According to Miller (2006) the state has
responsibility to protect its citizen’s human rights otherwise it is violating this. The women are
not Turkey’s citizens, but according to Miller it is the “world community’s” responsibility to
ensure the protection, if the state fails to protect the human rights of its citizens.
However, even though the linguistic words the IOM Turkey uses about the actions
Turkey’s government does for these trafficked women, the IOM Turkey wants to make it clear
that there is no criminalization of the victims.
“There is no criminalization of victims in Turkey. She is sent directly home if she does
not want to accept this IOM assistance. If she wants to accept the IOM assistance in three
shelters. There are three shelters in Turkey, in Istanbul, ? And Ankara. ---So there is no
criminalization at all, but if victim of trafficking, as I told you, that she has to give
intelligence within 24 hours. So if she doesn't give intelligence or if she doesn't say that
she is a victim of trafficking, she is saying that she is voluntary involved in prostitution,
then she will be deported from the country, without any assistance.”
Then again, the words used here are strict: she is sent directly home if she does not want
to accept this IOM assistance, she will be deported. So the woman has to be able to see herself as
a victim that she will not be deported from the country. The interesting thing here is that for the
first time the women are actually in a state that they are defined as individual operators after
being trafficked to country: they have to say whether they want to accept the assistance the IOM
Turkey and the “victim position”. Tomoya Obokata points out that when the trafficked person is
seen as a victim of human rights violation instead of a criminal who is violating immigration
laws, her situation is better understood (Obokata, p.35, 2006). However, when regarding the
language the IOM Turkey uses about this state, it is quite clear that the trafficked women are
again in a powerless and weak situation compared to the other operator: the state of Turkey.
Even though victimizing is probably the best option for the trafficked women, victimization also
puts the women in a certain, social category.
39
4.2.2. The language used about the traffickers
The language the IOM Turkey uses about traffickers shows that they are clear operators
in the “Natasha phenomenon”. For instance, they are taking their passports/the trafficker used
her position of vulnerability. Most of the verbs used with traffickers seem to be strong and
aggressive: they force, traffic, threaten torture, use psychological abuse, use a position of
vulnerability. An interesting thing to point out is that the IOM Turkey uses mainly these strong,
powerful and aggressive nouns about the traffickers when they are talking about the past. As
trafficking in Turkey has changed, because of the new legislations traffickers are now giving
some money, paying some money, giving some promises. At the same time the IOM Turkey
states out that the traffickers are aware that they could be prisoned for ten years and more,
because of the new laws. This sentence brings something new to this phenomenon. So far the
trafficked woman has been the one against whom violence was used, who is the powerless one.
When the trafficker can be prisoned for ten years, there has to be someone or something that is
even more powerful than the trafficker: the state of Turkey. Criminalization of trafficking
actually changes the behavior of the traffickers and at the same time the IOM Turkey changes the
words used about them. It looks like their power would be lessened. At the same time, the verbs
which are used are almost positive ones: giving some money, pay some money, giving some
promises. ‘Giving’ is a verb with a very positive, unselfish implication. However, it is clear that
the traffickers have not changed to be better persons: they are just aware of the consequences,
which leads to a foxier behavior than before.
“Traffickers are also changing from time to time, you know sometimes they are taking
their passports and giving not even the money to them and putting a lot of violence to
them, but now they are actually giving little money and are also more promising them
that “you will be getting your money, you will be ok”. That kind of promises that they
are giving, on the other hand they are threatening them, “if you speak to the police or to
anyone about us, we will do something very bad to you or to your family”. That kind of
threats .. you know, classical threats are still continuing to take place, so sometimes in
that kind of circumstances those people who are victim actually not aware, even if they
are aware sometimes they do not share.”
The used language about the changing behavior of the traffickers might create the image
that these “foxy” traffickers are hiding from the state of Turkey. So, it seems that Turkey sees
40
that it is not Turkey’s fault if they have problems to combat trafficking, because the traffickers
are changing their behavior in order to escape the possible punishments Turkey has set up for
trafficking.
On the other hand, having a look to the interview, it looks like the IOM Turkey would be
more interested in the trafficked people than the traffickers. They did not give examples what
kind of people the traffickers are or what are the reasons for them to do trafficking. This is after
all quite normal as the IOM Turkey is an international organization for migration and not in a
position to punish the criminals but helping the victims. However, this makes us wonder if
Turkey’s approach to human trafficking is more victim-based than criminal-based. Sometimes,
the IOM Turkey also used passive verbs about the traffickers, and we could not help to think
how familiar Turkey actually is with the traffickers.
4.2.3. The language used about the state of Turkey and its officials
As stated earlier, the relationship between Turkey and the IOM Turkey is close. The IOM
Turkey has to have a good relationship with the government in order to work sufficiently with
migration issues. The IOM is the main intergovernmental organization which has been helping
Turkey’s government with counter trafficking issues. During the start of the interview the IOM
Turkey states out that the migration management system in Turkey is quite multi-dimensional,
because there are many operators taking part in the management: the Ministry of Health, the
Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior, and these ministries are
taking care of different parts of the system. The migration management system is tied to human
trafficking as well. Using a word multi-dimensional makes it quite clear that the migration
management in Turkey might have been actually rather difficult to handle. However, reading
further through the interview, the IOM Turkey seems to choose the words and expressions
showing that Turkey would be able to handle the problem, and Turkey would have the “power”
of being kind of the “all knowing” operator: “So, believe, in Turkey, in this respective, Turkey’s
government is very, very aware of all the problems. They really have a good will to support
victims of trafficking and their countries and illegal immigrants as well.”
41
There is a strong emphasis how Turkey’s government knows the problems with the
trafficking: Turkey’s government is very, very aware of all the problems. The kind of chosen
words may be seen as underlining the power of the state of Turkey: they know everything; no
one can cheat them. At the same time the IOM Turkey is saying that Turkey wants to use this
power in a positive way: They really have a good will to support victims of trafficking. Having a
good will and supporting are the kind of words that are used for something or someone who
wants to take care, who is operating without hidden agendas.
“Us: What do you personally think: When Turkey is going to reach the state of human
rights that is needed for the EU-membership? IOM: There are different aspects of human
rights, I can tell only about immigrants and with victims of trafficking. I would say that
Turkey has a very strong will to support these people and Turkey really supports these
people very well. For example all victims of trafficking get free medical support, medical
treatment even if it is a chief which is not related to trafficking experience. New laws,
like protection of foreigners, framework for counter trafficking. These laws are very, very
comprehensive, and in some aspects, even better than European laws. With this regard I
would say that Turkey really shows very, very good commitment.”
When asked, when Turkey could become an EU- member in accordance to the human
rights, the used language was again very positive. Turkey is supporting these people very well
and gives free medical support to the victims. Some of the laws are even better than European
laws and Turkey shows very, very good commitment. These chosen words underline that the
IOM Turkey sees Turkey as an active, optimistic operator when it comes down to combating
human trafficking or at least the IOM Turkey wants to create this image.
As we stated in our theoretical framework, one theoretical approach to human trafficking
is seeing it as framework of action. This means putting pressure on the states and what they
should do to protect the victims and prevent human trafficking (Obokata, 2006, p.35). The
language that the IOM Turkey uses about Turkey gives impressions that Turkey is in a good
position when it comes to protecting victims and preventing human trafficking. However, there
is a conflict created by this impression when the IOM Turkey for instance states out:
“And now Turkey has come with a new law on combating human trafficking and
trafficked persons, so I think it is very important, but it’s not only one law, Turkey also
sees that they did many things but more ethos basis, but now it is very important to do a
huge immigration policy and also human trafficking is very much linked with that. But
42
also, in order to protect the victims, also is very important, a new law is definitely
needed, in line with the international instruments as well as EU acquis.”
So this leads to a conclusion that even though the IOM turkey uses positive language
about the efforts Turkey’s government has done for combating human trafficking, the IOM
Turkey still agrees that the efforts Turkey has done are not completely sufficient and Turkey has
not been completely perfect. The last sentence of the paragraph shows that Turkey has to do
more in order to combat trafficking: “But also, in order to protect the victims, also is very
important, a new law is definitely needed, in line with the international instruments as well as
EU acquits.”
Protection of the victims is again mentioned, but a new law is definitely needed in order
to do that. This law should be in line with the international instruments as well as EU acquits, so
even though it was earlier mentioned that some of the Turkish laws are even better than EU laws,
the IOM Turkey seems to clearly agree that adapting an international law would help Turkey to
help combat human trafficking.
The strongly positive language used of Turkey before is worth paying attention to,
because actually in the Trafficking in Persons –report (2011) Turkey is still in the tier 2. As
stated out in the theory part, countries in tier 2 are countries whose governments do not fulfill the
minimum standards of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act's, but the countries are making
serious efforts to reach the standards. It is worth mentioning here that Turkey was listed as a Tier
3 country before the year 2007, which means that at that time Turkey was not fulfilling the
minimum standards and was not making serious efforts to reach them (The-New-YorkTimes.com).
Clearly, Turkey has done serious efforts to combat trafficking. According to Paola
Monzini countries have different ways for preventing human trafficking for sexual exploitation.
One of the simplest one is criminalizing human trafficking by law. Other actions might include
things such as making the phenomenon known in public (Monzini, 2001, p. 7). Turkey has been
working with both of these. According to the IOM Turkey, they set up three campaigns in order
to make human trafficking for sexual exploitation aware to the public in Turkey and also in the
source countries. They also criminalized human trafficking in year 2007. According to the IOM
43
Turkey interview Turkey is preparing two laws right now that are going to have a serious effect
on human trafficking: foreign and international protection law as well trafficking law, which is
still a draft. The first one is going to improve the possibility to seek for an asylum from Turkey.
In our theoretical framework we presented the thought of Donna Hughes; she argues that
legal prostitution is partly causing the problem of human trafficking for sexual exploitation
(Hughes, 2001, p. 14). In Turkey prostitution is actually legal for a rather small amount of
women who are registered to work as prostitutes (Sussman, pulitzercenter.org, 2011). There
seems to be some kind of a clash here, because at the same time the illegal Eastern-European
women are so well known in Turkey that they even have their own name “Natasha” (Hughes, p.
10). According to the interview of the IOM Turkey there is no criminalization of the victims, but
with this logic women trafficked for sexual exploitation can be arrested anyway, because they
have illegally taken part in prostitution. Besides, they are illegal immigrants in many cases,
which might lead to imprisonment as well. One interesting thing the IOM Turkey states out is
that one of their new ways of working is giving some training to the Turkish police:
“We are also working with the inspectors. So, it is also very important, you know,
strengthen the system with monitoring. Also, the inspectors never heard about asylum
issues, migration issues, who is a trafficked person, who is irregular immigrant, you
know, right, what should be the considerations.”
“Never heard about...who is a trafficked person” is rather a strong expression telling that
inspectors are not too familiar with the trafficking crime. Clearly, the IOM Turkey and the state
of Turkey try to make the situation better when they have started working with the inspectors.
However, it is worth stating out that it would be interesting to know which kind of police force
the IOM Turkey means by the word inspector. How well the police have been able to identify
the victims, if the area has been quite unfamiliar to them.
Also the state of the Turkish border policy is rather interesting. According to Paola
Monzini the border actions of the receiving country, as well as the sending country, might have
an effect on human trafficking. For instance, a weak passport control can make it easier for
traffickers to leave and enter a country (Monzini, 2001, p. 2). Also Craig S. Smith points out that
one of the probable reasons for the Natasha phenomenon is Turkey’s liberal border policy
44
compared to the European Union’s (S. Smith, New-York-Times.com, 2005). We asked about the
border policies of Turkey, and surprisingly the IOM Turkey gave an answer that is defending the
weak border policies of Turkey.
“Turkey is a tourist country, you know, and receiving country in touristic section, that is
why Turkey have very liberal border policy. -- But this is country’s policy, so I don’t
think this is bad or good, maybe it is even better than to have very restrictive and very
limited border policy. People will enter the country if they want to.”
Firstly, the IOM Turkey used an expression “very liberal border policy” which has a
much more positive association than calling border policy for instance weak. The last sentence is
however rather odd: People will enter the country if they want to. Are human flows something
that the states are unable to control so there is no need to have a stricter border policy?
The IOM Turkey also points out how the geographical location of Turkey has affected
the phenomenon.
“But Turkey is a country, as you know, having very important neighbors in region, in
Black sea, Caucasus, Central Asia and border is open to Europe and the current EU
accession process has a direct impact on the migratory movements affecting Turkey.”
The IOM Turkey continues by explaining how the closeness to the European Union and
being a candidate country for the EU makes Turkey’s situation difficult when it comes to the
migration management. Turkey cannot be included in the European neighborhood policy,
because it is a member candidate for the EU. Even though Turkey is not part of the EU,
according to Turkey’s IOM, the European Union is putting pressure on Turkey to sign for
instance the EU’s readmission agreement. So, basically, the EU is putting pressure on Turkey
that it should get a better border policy before the country could be ready to join the EU, because
the EU sees Turkey’s open border policies as security risks.
The language used about the border restrictions when it comes to the EU is rather
interesting. When someone or something puts pressure on someone, the one who puts the
pressure could be characterized as the more powerful one. So, it is quite clear that even though
the language that is used about Turkey is powerful on a governmental level, on
45
intergovernmental level Turkey loses something of its power. When reading the interview with
the IOM Turkey, it can be understood that for instance the EU would be squeezing Turkey
somehow. It can be understood that Turkey would not be willing to control for instance its
borders better if there was not international pressure to do that. Then again, as stated out in the
theoretical framework, international pressure such as Trafficking in persons report could help to
combat human trafficking, and that way international pressure might also help to improve the
protection of human rights of trafficking victims. Also according to Miller (2006) if a country
fails in protecting the human rights of its citizens it is the “world community’s” responsibility to
ensure the protection.
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6. Results and discussion
In the following chapter we are going to present the results that we were able to crystalize
out of the primary data. First, the result of the 2007 Report on Combating Human Trafficking
Turkey is going to be presented followed by the presentation of the result of the interview with
the International Organization for Migration from 2011.
6.1. The results from the analysis of the 2007 Report on Combating Human
Trafficking Turkey
When we take a look at the entire report it is very clear what the main topics are that the
report is dealing with
1.
Human trafficking; in the report also referred to as for instance: the crime of human
trafficking, the problem of human trafficking, the phenomenon of human trafficking,
trafficking in human beings, trafficking in persons, different forms of human trafficking,
the crime, but the two most common combinations are ‘victims of human trafficking’
and ‘fight against human trafficking’. All in all, this label was counted by us more than
123 times in the report.
2.
Victim; also labeled as follows: victims, victims of human trafficking, trafficked persons,
women, children, individuals, they, witness. This label was counted more than 90 times
in the report.
3.
Human rights; used as followed: crime committed against humanity and it is a serious
violation of human rights, a crime committed by exploiting the vulnerability of human
beings, the gravest abuse of human rights, violation of human rights (3x), violence
against woman within the scope of human trafficking. The author(s) used this label only
seven times in the whole report.
4.
The perpetrators; who are labeled as it follows: traffickers (4x), individuals, affiliated
individuals. And this label was only used six times in the whole report.
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With this list of the main labels used in the report it is very clear on which topic the state of
Turkey is focusing the most. All four topics are very important in the context of human
trafficking but as it is shown above there are two aspects more important that the two others.
That means also that the main approaches of Turkey on the topic of human trafficking are
unilateral. As we can read in the report the republic of Turkey has adapted a victim- orientated
approach when fighting the crime of human trafficking. This can clearly be proved by the list of
labels above in which the victim of the crime stands on the second place.
Furthermore, was the report written in a positive tone; the author(s) has chosen a
vocabulary that is on the one hand very explicit, leaving out irrelevant information, and which
has a strong way of summarizing what happened during 2007. On the other hand, the vocabulary
was very caring and careful but always very straight forward. The reader never gets the feeling
of not being in the picture. But that underlines the unilateral view on the whole policy Turkey is
following in combating human trafficking as it only shows one side of the story. The reader is
only informed about the success that Turkey has had during the years 2006 and 2007 and what
big efforts she has done to support the victims and in prosecuting the perpetrators. But as we
know from our theoretical part of human trafficking (see above) Turkey is still placed as a tier 2
country which means that is has not done all the necessary efforts it should and could have done
according to the Trafficked Victims Protection Act of 2000.
During the entire report that was written by an anonymous author(s) the vocabulary and
the formulation that were used always built the tension that Turkey is the one that has everything
under control. Except of one small chapter, where Turkey was implicitly described as the one
who is following the European Union in its wake as it has to fulfill the requirements that are
given from the EU to manage becoming a member of the Union and not only a member
candidate. It is always implied that Turkey seems to manage everything on its own, just
accepting little help from cooperating countries in financing, and training its executive staff.
On the other hand, not a single time was something mentioned as for example that
Turkey was struggling with one of the tasks. Everything seems to work just fine and that every
task is as simple as they can be. Not a single word is mentioned about having any trouble with
the realization of a given task for instance financing the shelters in Istanbul, Ankara and Trabzon
48
or prosecuting the trafficker. It seems that the Turkish government is very proud of what she has
reached until now and that there were no complications along the way.
This feeling of an overall optimistic attitude whilst reading the report is created through,
as said before, a very positive way of writing. No explicit expressions about failures or being
unlucky. And when reading in between the lines it is not possible to find any negative loaded
message. Everything seems to work just like Turkey wants it to do.
The author(s) are putting the phenomenon or problem of human trafficking and with this
the trafficker into the role of the enemy. That helps the reader to identify himself with the “good”
in the report and takes automatically sympathy in Turkey’s actions and the victims of human
trafficking. That means, that the reader is manipulated by the words that are used and even
though the reader may not know what human trafficking is and the consequences of this
phenomenon he would know that it is something bad and something that is worth to fight
against, for the victims and the countries.
The reader has to believe in the facts that are in the report and if one is critical he has to
do further research on that field to find out if every task Turkey is working without any
complications. But that is the purpose of the report. Why should Turkey decide to waste pages
with information on how hard and difficult the realization of an action was if it in the end did
work out?
6.2 The results from the analysis of the IOM Turkey
Human trafficking of the Eastern European women to Turkey seems to be a very multidimensional and difficult phenomenon. Firstly, we came to a conclusion that the IOM Turkey
wants clearly to talk about the trafficked women as victims, almost all the language that is used
about the women showed that. They used the word victim through the entire interview, and many
different linguistic expressions connected with the word victim such as vulnerable and low
educated. Something bad has been done to these women: they have been tortured, beaten and
abused. However, there is a conflict with this, because the women might be arrested, interviewed
49
and deported by the state of Turkey. This shows that there is some kind of a clash between being
a victim who can be arrested. On the other hand, the IOM Turkey declines this: they say there is
no criminalization of victims, but the words and expressions they used for the victims before
showed that there actually is some kind of criminalization of the victims in Turkey. The IOM
Turkey also used expressions showing that the victims are not only Turkey’s problem: they said
that the source countries should have better social security systems.
The language that is used about the traffickers is very anonymous: the IOM Turkey does
not give clear examples about who these people are. However, they used language that clarify
that traffickers are the negative operators as they force, traffic and beaten. At the same time the
IOM Turkey creates the image that the traffickers are foxy and sneaky and that is one of the
reasons why the state of Turkey has problems to control the actions of them. The IOM Turkey
points out how the traffickers have changed their behavior because of the new legislations and
now they are giving some money and promises to the trafficking victims.
The linguistic expressions used about Turkey show how the IOM Turkey wants to give a
feeling that Turkey is powerful and it has success in the preventing human trafficking for sexual
exploitation. Turkey is very aware, it supports the victims very well and shows very good
commitment. The Turkish laws are even better than the European laws. However there is a clash
again between the used language and the facts that we found out about the interview later on.
The IOM Turkey says new laws are definitely needed when it comes to human trafficking and
the inspectors never heard about asylum issues, migration issues, who is a trafficked person. The
last sentences show a clear clash: Turkey is not perfect when it comes to human trafficking. The
linguistic use of the state of Turkey also shows that Turkey is facing international pressure: EU is
putting pressure on Turkey when it comes to the border policies of Turkey. It is important to
state that out as the border policies have an effect on human trafficking.
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6.3 The Conclusion
Saying shortly, we found five main aspects in the results. First, we found out that Turkey
tends to have a very unilateral victim- orientated approach, which is shown in the massive use of
the label ‘victim [of human trafficking]’ in the report and the interview. The word victim and
words connected to it were systematically used by the IOM Turkey personnel in the interview.
Looking at the report it is explicitly said that Turkey has adopted this approach to fight human
trafficking. The interview and the report stated out many ways how Turkey has tried to improve
the situation of the trafficking victims. This shows that Turkey actively wants to decrease the
violation of the human rights of the trafficked women. Proofing this, Turkey invented the 157
help line, the humanitarian visas and the shelters (giving the victims the chance of one month of
recovery) in Istanbul, Ankara and Trabzon, which houses the victims for a period of time to let
them recover as much as possible with help of e.g. free medical treatments. On the other side, the
police might treat the victims in an aggressive way: the police policy says that a victim of human
trafficking needs to be interviewed in the next 24 hours and the victim has to state out that she is
a victim of human trafficking, otherwise she will be deported. This aggressive investigation
might put the victim under additional pressure and often the victim is not giving an interview as
they are afraid of the consequences or are too traumatized. Especially for these situations Turkey
is training its state police so they can handle the victims in the best way; so, the police are
actually able to gather the desperately needed information. Furthermore, the IOM Turkey is
working on a new legislation, which will give the victims the possibility to move the interview
with the police up to one month in time.
Secondly, the material analyzed made us wonder if the strongly victim- based approach is
taking the interest away of the criminals included in the trafficking crime. The prosecutors are
only mentioned six times in the entire report which means that they are ranked on the fourth
place what makes them to the less important aspect of fighting and combating human trafficking
when it comes to the material being analyzed. Also, the traffickers seemed quite anonymous in
the interview: the language used about them made them seem to be anonymous operators, whose
behavior was sometimes too sneaky for Turkish government to follow. Punishing the trafficking
criminals is also a way of protecting the human rights of the trafficking victims.
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Third, the interview gives evidence on that Turkey tends to partly refuse the
responsibility that is has in order to the victims. As Turkey in this case is the receiving country of
the victims of the crime and it follows a victim- orientated approach in dealing with human
trafficking, it needed to build shelters where the victims can receive free medical care. Otherwise
this would stand in contrast to the approach that Turkey is following. However, some of our
research material drew a picture into our minds that Turkey would like to move the responsibility
of the victims to the sending countries by saying that the source countries should provide better
social security systems to their inhabitants so there would probably be a decreased problem with
the human trafficking. This is interesting, because you might assume that Turkey might think
that the protection of the human rights of the trafficked women is not that important to Turkey,
because they are not citizens of Turkey.
The fourth fact is that Turkey is not doing everything it could do in order to protect the
human rights of the victims. Even though the language that is used about Turkey was often very
panegyric, the interview with the IOM Turkey also showed that there is still a need to do much
more when it comes to the legislations and the ways the officials work in Turkey. They admitted
that there is a need for new laws, and inspectors are being trained in order to identify the victims.
Some parts of the interview clearly showed that there are also things that Turkey is not too
focused on: the IOM Turkey did not see Turkey’s liberal border policy as one of the main
reasons for the country’s human trafficking problem. In order to prevent human trafficking
Turkey should be able to identify potential human trafficking victims and criminals already in
the border and arrest them. However, here the strong connection between the IOM Turkey and
Turkey’s state should be remembered. Maybe the IOM Turkey is not willing to be too critical
when it comes to the laws of Turkey, because they have to be able to co-operate.
The fifth aspect is the international pressure that Turkey is facing. Even though this was
not a big part of the IOM Turkey interview, it became rather clear that Turkey is facing
international pressure in order to manage immigration better and control its borders. Both of
these affect combating human trafficking as well.
By analyzing the material, we came to the conclusion that Turkey has made efforts to
decrease the human rights violations of the trafficked women with the victim- based approach.
However, Turkey should also guarantee that the women are treated in the way the victim- based
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approach would intended it and that it is not only be pretty words on paper. For instance there are
some serious conflicts with the information stated in the United States’ 2011 Trafficking in
persons report Turkey and our interview with the IOM Turkey and 2007 Report Combating
Human Trafficking Turkey: according to the Trafficking in persons report, some of the possible
trafficking victims have been deported without identification during the year 2010, even though
the IOM Turkey claimed that there is no criminalization of the victims in Turkey.
6.3. Thoughts about the future
When we chose this area for research, we did not have an idea about how big this
phenomenon of the international human trafficking actually is, and how many different levels it
includes. In a project sized of 50 pages it seems impossible to include all the important
information about this specific phenomenon that includes so many layers that are connected to
each other, even though we clearly chose a human rights approach. However, our research led us
to think about some possible future aspects about the “Natasha phenomenon”.
Furthermore, we got a feeling while researching in this field that Turkey possibly would
not have made so big changes when it comes to preventing human trafficking if there had not
been international pressure from the outside. For instance, since 1999 Turkey wanted to become
a member of the European Union and following this wish certain restrictions came it has to
follow since then to fulfill the requirements. Further, the U.S. has put pressure on Turkey when it
threated to pull the plug on the financial support if Turkey is not changing its behavior in context
to preventing human trafficking and violation of the human rights. This means that international
pressure might work in Turkey’s case, and it seems like it should be continued to reach the goal
of a tier 1 country and with it the membership of the EU.
We also end up in a conclusion that something should probably be done about the
Turkish prostitution laws as it seems very out of the ordinary that prostitution is legal for only
registered Turkish women but at the same time illegal Eastern-European women are so common
that they are stereotyped as “Natashas”.
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As stated in the theoretical framework, human trafficking for sexual exploitation can be
seen as a push and pull phenomenon, so there has to be a market for the trafficked women in the
receiving country. In order to protect the human rights of the trafficking victims the state should
be able to provide that there is no market for them. In Turkey’s case it seems extraordinary that
prostitution is partly legal: it has legal brothels, but only 3000 women who are legally allowed to
work there as they are registered when we are talking about a country with a population around
72.700.000. This seems to create a high demand for illegal prostitution; so, the prostitution laws
should be clarified.
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