Finding the ‘human’ in human trafficking / Cafe Babel, 3 July 2008
http://www.cafebabel.com/eng/article/25358/finding-the-human-in-human-trafficking.html
Anna Patton
"If someone done for drugs trafficking can get a more severe punishment than someone who traffics humans, there must be something wrong with this society." Sadly, this is often the reality, explains Barbara Eritt, since cases against human trafficking often end up in probation or acquittal due to insufficient evidence. The Polish-born social worker runs the ‘Invia Koordinations- und Beratungsstelle für Frauen’, an advice and support centre in Berlin for victims of trafficking from central and eastern Europe. It is harrowing work. ‘But if you look at it not in terms of justice, but with the people, the women, as the focus, you work quite differently,’ she says, a perspective which has been at the heart of her work over the past decade. The women she meets, most of whom have been forced into prostitution, possess a drive for life and a great deal of humour despite what they have been through. "It’s about carrying on" she says, "being able to live with what has happened."