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 On September 23, 2002 the Center for the Study of Democracy hosted a round table on Human
Trafficking in SEE: the Case of Bulgaria. Mr. David Binder, a US journalist who has covered the Balkans
for The New York Times starting in 1963, presented a video
documentary on the trafficking in women in Southeast Europe. The
documentary focused on the stories of women who were victims of
illegal trafficking and became "sex slaves". Originally the young
girls and women left their countries in pursuit of a job in Western
Europe but ended up as prostitutes in Macedonia, Albania, the Czech
Republic and the Netherlands. The trafficking channels have been
developed on the territory of Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Romania,
Serbia and Bulgaria. For example, girls from as far away as
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are trafficked through Bulgaria and moved
by criminal networks to the lucrative markets in Western Europe. 
According to Mr. Binder the trafficking in women
seems to be a growing enterprise on the Balkans, not declining. The
only difference between last year and now is that the police forces
in the region have gathered together to pursue the traffickers in
sex slaves and drugs. Bulgaria, in the opinion of officials at the
Southeast European Cooperative
Initiative, is probably the best of the countries in the region
in trying to deal with organized crime, specifically with trade in
women.
 Experts from the Ministry of Interior, the Customs Agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees, the International
Organization for Migration, the Animus Association and Coalition 2000
discussed the role of various institutions to prevent trafficking
of human beings. The involvement of prosecutors, courts and the
police in the criminal networks dealing with the traffic channels
on the Balkans was also commented as a particularly important
dimension of the problem.
David Binder
(biographical data)
David Binder was a member of the Washington
Bureau of The New York Times from June 1973 to his retirement in
1996, first as a diplomatic correspondent, then as a news editor
and again as a correspondent. He continues to work, specializing in
coverage of Central and Eastern European affairs. He travels
frequently to the area. His previous assignments for The Times
were: Germany correspondent from 1967 to 1973 and East Europe
correspondent (based in Belgrade) from 1963 to 1967. Earlier he
worked in Washington as a diplomatic correspondent and in Berlin
covering the building of the wall in 1961. In 1989 and 1990 he
reported on the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of
Communist systems in East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and
Yugoslavia. He reported on the civil wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and
on the Kosovo conflict.
Prior to joining The Times in 1961, Binder worked for the
Minneapolis Tribune; London Daily Mail (Berlin correspondent);
Louisville Times; Southern Illinoisan, and Quincy Patriot
Ledger.
D. Binder has also lectured and published articles in Germany,
Austria, the former Yugoslavia, Albania, Macedonia, Romania,
Hungary, Finland, Japan, Canada and the United States.
He was born Feb. 22, 1931, in London of American parents. He
graduated from Harvard with a bachelor of arts degree in European
history and literature in 1953 and was a Fulbright scholar at the
University of Cologne 1953-54. He taught at the Salzburg Seminar
summer session in 1953. He is the author of Berlin East and West
(1962) and The Other German - The Life and Times of Willy Brandt
(1976); and a co-author of New York Times books on Project Apollo,
the fall of Communism and Scientists at Work.
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