Finland found to be transit point for traffic in women from east to west

Hundreds of young Georgian women pass through Finland in recent years

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More than 1,000 young women have travelled from Georgia via Finland to Western Europe in recent years, only to disappear while en route. The buses that they took returned from Greece to Georgia almost empty.
      The Finnish Frontier Guard believes that the women may have ended up in the illicit sex trade in Western Europe. Previously Finnish officials had denied reports that Finland was a major transit point in the international traffic in women.
     
According to the Frontier Guard, more than 1,500 Georgian citizens arriving by bus crossed into Finland in 2002 - 2004. Their travel documents were in order, and there was no reason to suspect immigration violations. Up to 90% of the passengers were young women.
      They all had genuine national passports with visas for Sweden or Italy.
      Later, Greek officials reported that many buses had passed through Greece en route to Georgia with only a few passengers. The same buses had been full when they arrived in the EU. None of the buses returned via Finland.
      "Some of them will have certainly left using some other route, but it can be assumed with good reason that most of them are still in the EU area as illegal immigrants - some in the sex trade, and some possibly as victims of trafficking in humans", says Major Ilkka Herranen of the Frontier Guard.
     
The matter came up at an annual briefing of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), where representatives of the Police, the Customs Service, and the Frontier Guard examined current trends in international crime.
      Herranen feels that recent observations give reason to re-examine official Finnish policy.
      "In previous years officials have generally denied Finland’s role as a target or transit point of human trafficking. Now we must admit that Finland is at least a transit point, and possibly to some extent, also a target country", Herranen says.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Russian commercial representation in Helsinki denies receiving prostitution money (21.1.2005)
  Police say Russian prostitution decreasing sharply in Finnish Lapland (30.7.2003)
  Hundreds of thousands of customers for sex trade in Finland (10.11.2002)
  Minister of Justice Koskinen rejects U.S. claims of trade in women (16.10.2003)

Helsingin Sanomat