WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3378, 13 June 1927, Page 2

WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC.

WORLD-WIDE RAMIFICATIONS

One of the most terrible indictments of vice ever compiled is the report of the white slave traffic issued by the Council of the League of Nations. In simple but impressive language it reveals the stark truth about the underworld of the world an appalling ramification of infamy inquired into by an international committee, which pursued investigation in twenty-eight countries. The report was dealt with in public session by the League Council and wasintroduced by Sir Austen Chamberlain. The British statesman explained that the report is in two volumes. Volume 1., which is of a sensational nature, will be issued for publication, but Volume II contains such details that it will on}y be issued to the nations directly concerned.

Sir Austen pointed out that the Commission had interrogated 6500 people, no fewer than 5000 of whom were connected directly or indirectly with “commercialised prostitution.” Heemprasised that the Commission insisted on the desirability of giving to the world the remarkable facts they had brought to light. The report gives an accurate and unexampled picture of the underworld of men and women engaged in the white slave traffic, of their methods, their organisation, and of 'the profits derive from it. Numerous conversations held by the investigators are recorded verbatim. One member of the Commission explained that they themselves had expurgated much which had been prepared for the volumes, because the details were too horrible to be brought to the notice of the general public. Two paragraphs on the same page of the report tell the story of the traffic in outline: — 1. “The traffickers include ‘Madames,’ who manage houses of prostitution, souteneurs, who are mainly responsible for securing girls and _ controlling their movements, principals, who are financially interested in vice districts or brothels, and lend money to ‘Madames’ and souteneurs; and intermediaries, who sometimes secure and transport girls for souteneurs aud ‘Madames. * ” 2. “The main routes of traffic disclosed by the investigation appear to be from Europe, particularly Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Rumania, Spain, Turkey, to South and Central America and Egypt and other places in North Africa. ’ } * Inquiries in Mexico showed that the traffic there is real slavery, procurers buying and selling women and making a profit on every transaction. Proprietors of tolerated houses in Uruguay import women wholesale from Europe. The victims come mainly from cabarets in' Hungary, Austria, and Germany, The movement of tourists is also followed. Women are imported into .Egypt, Tunis, and Algiers for the winter season, and are then sent elsewhere for the summer.

The Commission points out that most of the slaves are recruited among dancing girls, for whose services there is a , world-wide demand. One trafficker remarked: “All these girls are wild about the stage, movies, cabarets and anything that makes them think they are artists. They are of the kind that fall easy.” According to the report South America is the worst offender, largely due to the facility with which it is possible for the traffickers to transport their human wares from one country to another.

The danger is particularly present in the case of British cabaret and dancing girls, who, it is ishown, are frequently taken out there on the strength of specious promises only to find on arrival that the establishments to which they have engaged themselves are nothing more than thinly-camouflaged dens of vice, from which the victim seldom escapes. Investigations in the Argentine, which is considered by traffickers as a sort of Golconda, revealed the fact that, despite rigid police restrictions, there is a constant stream of girls and women from Europe, the majority being Poles. “They keep on going as if they expected to find gold in the streets,” said one witness engaged in the traffic. Evidence was produced that a troupe of fifteen girls, all under age, were taken by a German woman to dance in an Athens cabaret. Seven girls who were sent home in a “pitiable condition 7 ’ related how they were forced into prostitution by being underpaid. Another troupe of girls was sent to Buenos Ayres and stranded. Pour girls formed the troupe, and one committed suicide because she had contracted a disease, another tried to commit suicide because she was starving,' a third disappeared, and a fourth found a lover. The Commission has evidence that white slave agents, posing as theatrical agents, have offices in Belgrade, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Marseilles, Paris, Vienna, and Zegreb.

The report proves Portugal to be one of the worst countries, in the white slave traffic sense, and 40 per cent, of the ; registered prostitutes there range in age from 16 to 20. •, The causes of prostitution, the Commission'states, are to be found in the low salaries paid in many countries to women workers and to cabarets throughout the world, which engage girls to dance and sing, but retain part of their salaries on various pretexts. Girls fall into debt, and are forced first to encourage men to drink, and then to prostitute themselves. Girls also become white slaves through bogus matrimonial agents and bogus employment agencies.

A vivid picture is given of the activities of one particular procurer in Europe who boasted of the number of girls he could secure on any night with the aid of his little car. He showed the ease with which dance-mad girls were procured at night clubs and cabarets, where they will “pick up with anybody who will treat them to a pretty dress. ” As an instance of the vast profits made by the “principals” in the trade, one of them is quoted as saying, at Buenos Ayres: —

“When I first came here I had a hard time of it. Three years ago I got hold of a good proposition. My wife managed the house and I made 60,000 pesos (£12,000). I invested what I made in several other houses, and now I have a steady income, and my wife does not need to hang around the brothels. ” Regarding the remedies still necessary, the investigators urge that there should be a more strict supervision over girls leaving any country, particularly in connection with theatrical and similar agencies. They arc‘emphatic on the necessity of raising the age of consent, which in certain countries is as low as twelve, and in certain special cases ton, and they point out again and again that if the licensed house system were everywhere abolished the white slave traffic would be dealt almost a mortal blow.