By Daniela Schroeder, Brussels: Anna thought she was getting a chance to improve her life. But instead of a job in Spain, the 18-year old Russian was taken to Belgium on a forged Lithuanian passport, forced into prostitution and sold to an Albanian trafficker who took her to Britain.
Anna is not alone. According to a recent conference on combating human trafficking held in Brussels, an estimated one million people - mainly women - are trapped every year worldwide.
Of this total, about 500,000 people are exploited for either sex or made to work illegally. More than 80 percent of these are women and girls who end up as prostitutes.
People trafficking is a thriving business. For many criminal organisations, trading in people means more profits than trade in drugs or weapons. After all, people can be sold over and over again.
Human trafficking is now believed to be worth 11 billion euros annually, becoming the third most lucrative illicit income-spinner for organised crime, after dealing in arms and drugs, according to the UN.
"Trafficking in human beings constitutes first and foremost a human rights violation," EU justice affairs chief Franco Frattini told the conference.
The commissioner, presenting new EU plans to prevent human trafficking and prosecute and punish traffickers, said that while the problem was not new, globalisation had given it another dimension.
He said the commission plan would encourage EU member states to improve cooperation by pooling their best practices on how to combat the growing problem.
Biometric identifiers such as iris scans should be included in visa and residence permits, improving checks and surveillance at the EU's external borders and enhancing the fight against illegal immigration, the commission said.
However, others at the conference warned that stricter border controls requiring more documents would lead to even more people falling into the hands of human traffickers.
Italy, which lies at the centre of a smuggling route from the Balkans to Western Europe, has issued residence permits to over 4,000 women who have been trafficked into the country since 1998.
Other improvements, including an overhaul of labour laws, more trade union activity as well as model employment contracts, could also help prevent trafficking and reduce the demand for smuggled workers, the conference said.
A new report by the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality criticises the lack of a specific EU anti-trafficking policy.
It said that legal immigration channels should be seen as a mechanism to prevent trafficking and that EU states should also revise their visa policies.
The committee underlined that it was essential to tackle the root causes - poverty, violence and discrimination against women - which allow people to fall into the hands of traffickers.
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