According to official data, around ten Czech women fall victim to sex trafficking each year, but the real number could actually be much higher. I think this is a major problem, because sex trafficking exists and women are being exploited. When I came across the issue for the first time, it was really hard for me to imagine that the problem was real, that those women were really kidnapped, exploited and so on.
So those are official numbers, which record victims not only of sex trafficking, but of human trafficking in general. So the research is based on that. Do the official numbers differ from figures provided by NGOs, which are in direct contact with the victims? We have a lot of different numbers, but none of them are complete. So based on your data, how serious is the problem of sex trafficking in the Czech Republic? How many women fall victims to the trade annually?
There could be many more Czech women abroad and many more foreign women here in the Czech Republic. He says that nowadays, a major problem in the Czech Republic is the Vietnamese community. So there is a suspicions that sex trafficking is organised by the Vietnamese community. It used to be more of an export country, but nowadays it is almost fifty-fifty. However, it is not Germany, as it used to be in the s, when the prostitution boom began. Nowadays it is mostly Great Britain and Ireland.
But of course most of them still come from the former Eastern Bloc. By the time they realize what is happening, the organised group have taken away their passport and they are not able to contact anyone.
So once these women find themselves in such a situation, how hard is it for them to escape and seek help? It is up to the women how much they trust the doctor and how much they tell them. In case of Caritas Czech Republic, its main advantage is that it is not only on the Czech Republic, but has a network around the globe. You mentioned Great Britain and Ireland being among the popular target countries of sex traffickers at the moment.
