Slavery was officially abolished in the 19th century. Yet, slavery-like practices are still with us: thousands of women, including from Bulgaria, are trafficked and sold around the world to be abused and forced to sell their bodies as prostitutes. ALEXANDRA ALEXANDROVA examines the phenomenon.

ABOUT 11.2 per cent of the women forced into prostitution in Germany are Bulgarians, the Federal Criminal Service announced in August 2003. More than half these women were lured to Germany by promises of legal work. Forty per cent were attracted through recruitment agencies and through job advertisements.
More than 10 000 Bulgarian women cross the borders of Europe annually and are forced to become prostitutes, according to the International Migration Organisation.
According to the latest report by the Interior Ministry's National Service for Combatting Organised Crime (NSCOC), released just a couple of weeks ago, 4700 Bulgarian women are currently forcibly involved in prostitution in Bulgaria and abroad. It has been established that there are 30 organised criminal rings dealing with illegal trafficking in people across the boarder. NSCOC claims 27 of these have been neutralised. NSCOC press officer Katia Ilieva told The Echo that this is also approximately the number of lawsuits against traffickers.
Ilieva said that according to the US state department report on human rights, Bulgaria is in the category of countries making an effort to fight the trafficking in humans. It has long outperformed those countries doing nothing to solve the problem and there is yet a lot to be done to get into the category of countries that have done away with trafficking in humans.
Ilieva said that Bulgaria is considered a country from where traffic starts, a transit country, and an end destination for traffickers. To fight the multi-layered problem of trafficking in humans, a working group on combating trafficking and trade in humans has been formed from representatives of the NSCOC, National Service Police, Border Police, the Gendarmerie and Interpol.
The legal framework has been set by the newly-hatched law against illegal trafficking in people. It was worked out in the second half of last year and is expected to become fully effective as of 2004. The regulations for the application of the law were adopted three weeks ago.
The amendments to the Penalty Code treating trafficking as crime in a special chapter also came into effect in October 2002.