Combating Human Trafficking in Poland: When Victims Are Lost in Translation
![handle is hein.journals/wasglo12 and id is 811 raw text is: COMBATING HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN
POLAND: WHEN VICTIMS ARE LOST IN
TRANSLATION
Near the beautiful Adriatic coast of Italy, outside the cities of Foggia
and Bari, nearly a thousand Polish workers experienced a nightmare.'
Toiling fifteen hours a day, earning one euro per hour, and living in
unsanitary barracks,2 these Poles were not able to escape from the armed
guards patrolling the fruit farms. When the Polish workers working on
these fields notified the police, Polish and Italian law enforcement
agencies refused to act.4 It was only after numerous victims voiced their
concerns that Polish and Italian authorities began an investigation.5 The
facts of this case occurred in 2006, two years after Poland had entered the
European Union and one year after Italy had ratified the Council of Europe
Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, which took
place in Warsaw, Poland.6
Despite ten years of the international community's efforts to combat
human trafficking, the exploitation of men, women, and children has not
abated. Even though most nations have adopted legislation criminalizing
1. These facts are taken from the 2006 joint Polish and Italian operation, Terra Promessa,
which dismantled a trafficking network that recruited mainly Polish, but also Ukrainian, Algerian, and
Italian citizens through newspaper ads to work on agricultural farms. Zbigniew Lasocik & Lukasz
Wieczorek, Trafficking for Forced Labour in Poland, in TRAFFICKING FOR FORCED LABOUR AND
LABOUR EXPLOITATION IN FINLAND, POLAND AND ESTONIA 165, 202 (Anniina Jokinen et al. eds.,
2010), available at www.heuni.fi/Etusivu/Publications/1290610598184. The criminal network
recruited 880 women and men to work on fruit farms. Urszula Kozlowska, Analiza statystyk
dotyczqcych zjawiska handlu ludimi [Analysis of the statistical data concerning the issue of trafficking
in human beings], in MINISTERSTWO SPRAw WEWNITRZYNCH I ADMINISTRACJI, HANDEL LUDZMI W
POLSCE: MATERIALY DO RAPORTU 2009 [MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR, HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN
POLAND: MATERIALS TO THE 2009 REPORT] 38 (2009).
2. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Toolkit to Combat Trafficking in Persons, 211,
215 (2d ed. 2008), available at http://www.unodc.org/documents/human-trafficking/Toolkit-files/07-
89375 Ebook[1].pdf; Lasocik & Wieczorek, supra note 1, at 220-21. The victims were also forced to
pay £120 per month to live in unsanitary barracks. Id. at 197.
3. Lasocik & Wieczorek, supra note 1, at 205.
4. Id. at 221. In fact, local Italian police officers were aware that these Poles were being
exploited for labor, but they refused to act. The victims saw that the perpetrators had contacts with
local police, which contributed to their inability to escape. Id. at 204.
5. Id. at 221.
6. May 16, 2005, C.E.T.S. 197 [hereinafter CECATHB]. Poland did not ratify the CECATHB
until November 17, 2008. Filip Radoniewicz, Przestgpstwo handlu ludzmi [The Crime of Human
Trafficking], 10 PROKURATURA I PRAWO 134, 149 (2011).
7. See LOUISE SHELLEY, HUMAN TRAFFICKING: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE 37-59 (2010);
Meredith Flowe, The International Market for Trafficking in Persons for the Purpose of Sexual
Exploitation: Analyzing Current Treatment of Supply and Demand, 35 N.C. J. INT'L L. & COM. REG.
669,679-81 (2010).
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Combating Human Trafficking in Poland: When Victims Are Lost in Translation
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