Obtaining objective statistics about people trafficking is always a very difficult problem.
Such trafficking is a crime and takes place illegally, and most of the trafficked women in the Czech Republic are without any identification papers. In statistics, they figure rather as illegal migrants than victims of the trafficking in people.

Czech women abroad and foreign women in the Czech Republic

Czech women leave the Czech Republic in particular for Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Italy. They are offered some legal work and a high salary. Groups of organized crime promise them to provide for all necessary documents in connection with their stay abroad. Conditions and agreements are then changed, and these women become victims of trafficking.

To the Czech Republic come women in particular from Ukraine, Belorussia, Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria. They are attracted by false promises and vision of instant and easy income. They want to work as models, to help in households, or aim to marry into a „better world“.
Without identification papers, without work and residence permits, they are in serious trouble, and become fully dependant on another person.
No representative research has been carried out so far, which could somehow specify the number of women – foreigners, who work in the Czech Republic without work and residence permits.

Women trafficking for prostitution

Women affected by trafficking are abused in particular as prostitutes. No law has been adopted so far in the Czech Republic, which would define, legalize and also regulate the prostitution on the basis of certain rules.
The penal code in the current wording does not define the concept of prostitution, because prostitution is not a crime. However, acts in the event of child prostitution are very severe.
Closely connected to the prostitution is the whole scale of other activities; they are committed on persons practising prostitution, but also by such persons themselves.
Sanctions can be imposed on the phenomena directly accompanying the prostitution: pimping, curtailment or deprival of personal freedom, blackmailing, raping, threat to the moral upbringing of the youth and trafficking in people.

Qualified estimates of Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic from March 2001 state that the total of 15,000 to 20,0000 persons in the Czech Republic live on prostitution. There are approximately 840 establishments offering sexual services, with about 6,000 women offering erotic services there. www.mvcr.cz/prevence/priority/prostituce2/opatreni
The Czech Statistical Office has presented a study aimed at the estimate of funds gained in the area of prostitution. It is based on an average model, with daily number of prostituting persons estimated to 6,300 with an average daily income of CZK 2,500 (EUR 83). According to the estimates, about 65 % clients are from abroad, and the remaining 35 % clients are local customers. (Source: The Czech Statistical Office – Prostitution in the Czech Republic in 2000)

The Ministry of Justice of the Czech Republic states, that during a period from 1997 to 2000 the total of 55 offenders were adjudged guilty for trafficking in women. In 2001, there were 16 such cases. However, similar cases are those of many hundreds of women – victims of people trafficking.