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Season Five Research Files
Episode Seven
1:00pm - 2:00pm
According to researchers, nearly 60% of the women forced into the sex industry in Western Europe are controlled by Russian and Albanian criminal networks. Gangs recruit girls with want ads in Russian newspapers promising good wages abroad in the tourism industry or they hold “mail order bride” meetings to lure them in. Once the women arrive, their documents are taken away and they are forced into prostitution.
Centered in Moscow and Kiev, the networks trafficking women run east to Japan and Thailand and west to the Adriatic Coast and beyond. While the gangs may sometimes physically move the women overseas, they also provide security, logistical support and fake documents.
There are only estimates that hundreds of thousands of women are illegally trafficked because Russia does not consider it a crime nor is it being monitored. There have been movements aided by the United Nations to introduce such laws.
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