White Slave Trade

WHITE SLAVE TRADE. - It is the recruitment of women, carried out by violence, deceit, threats or financial offers, and their transport from one region to another, especially from one nation to another, with a view to prostitution.

I. NATURE OF THE PHENOMENON

It is a kind of commerce in prostitution (v.) and an intermediary activity in the service of others' lust, for the sake of one's own interest, like procuring (v.), from which it is distinguished by the added element of transport, to a different region or nation. For this commerce, which is carried on clandestinely and with the methods with which the trade in black slaves transferred from the African continent to the American one was carried on (v. SCHIAVITÙ), has taken the name of the traffic.

In antiquity there was the trade in female slaves, who, besides domestic services, also served the lust of their masters; in the paganizing Renaissance the phenomenon of the trade in Moorish or Muslim female slaves; today the trade in the so-called "white slaves" (without, however, excluding women of other color), which is often mingled with the illicit traffic in narcotics, jewels, and espionage.

This commerce has buyers, importers, brokers, exploiters, procuresses and procurers. Already in the 18th century Sarnelli wrote that procuresses "very often leave the cities and go to the villages and lands of the Kingdom, buying girls to then sell them in the cities like beasts at a fair to the highest bidder" (G. Sarnelli, Ragioni cattol., legali e politi. in difesa delle repubbl. rovinate dall'insolentito meretricio, Naples 1739, p. 29). The advances of international commerce have had their reflections also in the traffic in white slaves, today often directed by international "gangsters"; it has an international network, albeit clandestine, with recruitment centers in the large cities, especially in the great ports, and one of its largest outlets in Latin America.

The most usual means of recruitment is the offer of positions and occupations that are largely remunerated, made by means of advertisements in newspapers, seeking "stars" for the cinema, governesses, teachers, maids, readers, etc. for abroad, or the action of agents who with insinuating manners and promises extract commitments, which gradually reveal themselves for what they are, at the moment most suited to preventing any reaction. There are also special employment agencies, disguised under the most diverse labels of clubs, commercial agencies, etc. Among the causes of the traffic in white slaves, besides the greed for money and the laxity of morals, one must add for certain countries imagination and the superabundance of men separated from their families.

II. REPRESSION OF THE PHENOMENON

The traffic reached very large proportions in the last century, so much as to arouse the reactions of all honest people. Thus arose "The National Vigilance Association," which at a congress in London (1890) laid the foundations of a common action, giving life to the "Fédération abolitioniste internationale," which, aiming at the abolition of legal vice, was able to discover many villainies, brought about understandings between governments and meetings and congresses. At the first diplomatic conference against the traffic in women (Paris, 15 July 1902), governments were urged to improve their legislation regarding the repression of this crime and to bring it into harmony with what the conference had resolved in order to put an end to the scandalous traffic. As a fruit of this conference a first agreement was signed in Paris (18 May 1904). The second international conference was also held in Paris, on 4 May 1910. When the League of Nations was constituted, by express provision sanctioned in the covenant (art. 23), this international body was invested with general control over the agreements relating to the traffic in women and children. At the first assembly of the League of Nations (15 Dec. 1920) an international conference was convened, which took place in Geneva (30 June-5 July 1921) with the participation of 34 States, among them Italy. The resolutions expressed were examined at the 2nd assembly of the League of Nations and led to the formulation of an international convention for the suppression of the traffic in women (30 Sept. 1921), ratified by 50 States. Another international convention, under the aegis of the League of Nations, was stipulated on 11 Oct. 1933. The recruitment even of a consenting woman was forbidden before the age of 21; and even for an older age any recruitment carried out by fraud, blackmail, violence, etc., was forbidden. A Permanent Committee on the Traffic in Women and Children was also instituted (s. 1921). Also following a recrudescence of the problem, due to the war and post-war period, the new United Nations Organization (v.). UN, took a keen interest in the problem, taking up a project elaborated by the League of Nations in 1937 and suitably integrating it. Thus there were amendments to the International Agreements of 18 May 1904 and 4 May 1910, with the Protocol approved in the UN General Assembly on 3 Dec. 1948, and to the agreements of 30 Sept. 1921 and 11 Oct. 1933 with another Protocol, approved by the same Assembly on 20 Oct. 1947. Finally the UN General Assembly, in the course of its fourth session, held in New York (2 Dec. 1949), approved a Convention for the suppression of the traffic in human beings, to be signed by all member States and also non-member States, on the invitation of the UN, by which not only are the previous measures for the repression of the traffic in women aggravated and coordinated, but the abolition is further proposed, in the States where it still exists, of the regulation of prostitution (cf. the text of the convention in Justitia, 5 [1952], pp. 208-12).

III. THE CRIME OF WHITE SLAVE TRADE OF THE B. IN ITALIAN CRIMINAL LAW

In Italy the Geneva Convention of 1921 was made enforceable by royal decree of 31 Oct. 1923, no. 2479. At present the criminal code in force covers the crime of trafficking in women in arts. 535-37, imposing on the abettors or entrepreneurs of the vile trade in minors or in adults in a state of mental infirmity or physical deficiency the penalty of imprisonment from six months to three years and a fine of not less than 3,000 lire, with aggravated penalties in certain specific circumstances (art. 535). To constitute the crime it is enough that the offender knows that the victim, in going abroad, is destined for prostitution. If there is deceit or violence, the passive subject of the crime is a woman of any age and the penalty of imprisonment is raised to a maximum of 5 years, the fine to a maximum of 5,000 lire. The crimes provided for by arts. 536-37 are punishable even if committed by a citizen in foreign territory (art. 537). At the Ministry of the Interior (General Directorate of Public Security) a Central Office is established for the suppression of trafficking in women, with duties of information, investigation, supervision of employment offices for women and suppression of the phenomenon of trafficking. A national committee against trafficking in women had been in operation in Italy since 1901 with its seat in Rome. International associations having as their purpose the protection and rescue of the young girl, and therefore supervision and assistance in the various circumstances from the simplest to the most serious, are the "Union internationale des amies de la jeune fille" (which had as its apostle the Englishman William Coote) and the "Association catholique internationale des œuvres pour la protection de la jeune fille", which have their seats in Switzerland, the former at Neuchâtel, the latter at Fribourg.

Pietro Palazzini