In April 2003 a 56-year-old Swedish woman went on trial for procuring and trafficking more than two dozen Estonian women as part of a prostitution ring operating from Stockholm. The proximity of the Scandinavian countries has exacerbated the sex trade in all the Baltic States – the short ferry journey from Finland is the means whereby much of the business is conducted. There are also growing numbers of young men from Western Europe going to cities like Tallinn for stag parties which amounts to a weekend of cheap booze and commercial sex.
There are also fears that the procurement of children for sex is widespread in the Baltics. In many poverty-stricken post-Communist countries (Ukraine is another example), people of working age have gone abroad to seek jobs, leaving their children behind to roam the streets. The same problem seems to have arisen in the Baltics. There are numerous ‘modeling agencies’ in the Baltic States with connections in Scandinavia. Some may be perfectly respectable organizations offering young women modeling opportunities, but when the ‘models’ turn out to be children whose ages are not revealed but who look as young as eight or nine years old, suspicions mount. There are also fears about bogus adoption claims for children in orphanages in the Baltic states.
In Tartu, Estonia’s second largest city, BHHRG’s representatives met with the directors of the Tartu Child Support Center for Abused Children. The organization has been operating with assistance from the Estonian branch of George Soros’ Open Society Institute since November 1995, and has implemented a programme called “Big Brother, Big Sister” to pair “risk-group” children in “one-on-one friendships” with adults, both recent university graduates and older people.
Head Paediatrician Dr. Ruth Soonets told BHHRG that the problem of child abuse in Estonia, including child trafficking, is much worse than in Soviet times. “Seventy-five percent of children in Estonia now live in poverty,” said Dr. Soonets. Poverty, stress, joblessness, alcoholism, narcotics, and neglect resulting from families going in search of money for food are the post-Soviet social dysfunctions that have led to endemic child abuse, sexual and otherwise. The Center tried to encourage abused children to come forward, and said that minors are often brought to them by mothers and other relatives (usually not fathers), social workers, teachers and police officers.
Dr. Soonets, a former employee of the Tartu Hospital Child Outpatient Department for twelve years, told BHHRG that her organization was busy composing a letter to the local government requesting further assistance in confronting the child abuse problem. She complained about the reluctance of the political parties to help by acting on existing legislation. Dr. Soonets asserted that the primary need was financial, but strangely seemed to place great importance on the fact that she had attended so many conferences abroad in the past several years.
It seems unlikely that the child abuse and trafficking in the Baltics could be eliminated by programmes such as “Big Brother, Big Sister,” however well-intentioned such projects may be. They are not a substitute for the firm hand of the state enforcing the law and prosecuting offenders. However, the problem with crimes such as paedophilia is that they often involve politicians and people at the highest levels of society. Belgium is a case in point and similar allegations made against leading figures in the government structures in Latvia, although unproven, have refused to go away. Also, it is BHHRG’s experience that when any ex-Communist government attempts to rigidly enforce the law it can expect to come under fire from the West (including from organizations like Soros’s Open Society Institute) for authoritarianism or dictatorship.
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