PART II OF III: Seventh Annual Anti-Trafficking Report -

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SUBJECT: PART II OF III: Seventh Annual Anti-Trafficking Report -
Czech Republic

Ref: 06 STATE 202745


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PREVENTION (ref Para 28 SECSTATE 202745)
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G) The First Deputy Minister of the Czech Interior Ministry has
primary responsibility for the implementation of the National
Strategy for the Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings. In
September 2005 the government created the Interdisciplinary
Committee on Trafficking, which includes representatives from other
ministries (such as Justice, Health, Labor and Social Affairs, and
the Foreign Ministry) and NGOs. The group met twice in 2006 to
discuss ways to better manage the trafficking situation in the Czech
Republic. The committee focused on the implementation of various
requirements of the national antitrafficking strategy, and
strengthened their implementation of the Program of Support.

Representatives from the Ministry of Interior's Crime Prevention
Department and the Security Policy Department as well as the
police's Organized Crime Unit also conduct monthly outreach meetings
with the NGOs following trafficking in persons closely (La Strada,
Caritas, Rozkos bez Rizika and IOM) to discuss trends, new ideas and
specific cases of victim assistance.

The government's Human Rights Commission also monitors trafficking
issues and proposes actions to the Cabinet. The government has a
specific anti-corruption police unit, The Unit to Combat Corruption
and Financial Criminality. The Office of Detection of Illegal
Proceeds and Taxes (financial police) established in 2004 was merged
with the anti-corruption unit as of January 1, 2007. The Supreme and
Higher Prosecution Offices also have specific departments that deal
strictly with corruption and serious financial crimes.

H) In July 2005, the Czech Government published its National
Strategy of the Fight Against Trafficking in Human Beings 2005-2007.
The first such document was published in 2003. The Interior Ministry
has primary responsibility for the publication, assessment, revision
of the plan, and the Security Policy Office works extensively within
the Interior Ministry (mainly with the Alien and Border Police, the
Organized Crime Unit, and Office for the Prevention of Criminality)
and with other Ministries and NGOs. The Ministries of Education,
Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Labor and Social Affairs are assigned
specific benchmarks and requirements in the National Strategy.

In August 2006, the government approved an additional national
campaign entitled "National Plan to Combat Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children for 2006-2008". This plan is the fourth
campaign to focuses explicitly on the issue of commercial sexual
exploitation of children, including child prostitution, child
pornography and trafficking in children. The plan includes detailed
description of the situation in the Czech Republic and evaluates
earlier efforts from the previous plan (2004-2006). Many ministries
are involved in the campaign including the Ministry of Interior,
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Ministry of Education,
Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Health. As laid out in the plan,
the main priorities are: better coordination of local institutions
that provide care to endangered children, better analyzation and
collection of information about different forms of social
pathological features of criminals that prey on children, improved
protection of children from being exploited (e.g legislative changes
in the areas of conditions for work with minors and the
criminalization of possession of child pornography),increased
opportunities of after-school activities for endangered children,
decrease the number of children being placed in special care
institutions (orphanages) and finding more possibilities of use of
foster care, increasing the awareness of sexual exploitation of
children (among journalists, parents and the lay public),and
finally creating a "friendly" environment for child victims and
witnesses in the judicial system.

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INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF TRAFFICKERS (ref Para 29 SECSTATE
202745)
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A) The trafficking of men, women and children for sexual purposes is
illegal under Section 232a and 216a of the Czech Criminal Code.

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Section 232a came into force in November 2004 and replaced the
previous section of the Criminal Code dealing with trafficking, 246.
As opposed to 246, Section 232a now criminalizes both trafficking
for sexual and non-sexual purposes including forced labor, and
internal as well as cross-border trafficking. Since the 2004 law
cannot be applied retroactively, cases begun under Section 246
continue to use that statute until they are resolved. No new cases
have been initiated under Section 246 since the inception of the new
statute. Because of the complexity of investigating trafficking
cases, and because of the habitually lengthy delays in the Czech
judicial systems, all cases brought to trial in 2005 under specific
trafficking statutes were still adjudicated under Section 246. There
was one ongoing prosecution and one conviction under Section 246 in

2006. The Government continued to charge traffickers with pimping
when they felt that they had a better chance of conviction with that
statute.

Police and prosecutors also routinely use laws against pimping,
rape, kidnapping, participation in criminal conspiracy, restriction
of personal freedom, sexual abuse of minors, and endangering the
morals of juveniles against traffickers. In an attempt to target the
demand for sexual services, in January 2004 a new section of the
Criminal Code, Section 217a, made "inducement" of sexual intercourse
(offering money or other inducement for sex or sex acts) to persons
under 18 illegal and punishable by up to 5 years imprisonment.
Section 216 of the criminal code, criminalizes trafficking in
children (defined as under 18),and also bans the abduction of minor
children (or physically or mentally handicapped persons) from their
legal guardians.

B) The maximum prison sentence for trafficking for the purposes of
sexual exploitation, under Section 232a of the Criminal Code,
increased from 12 to 15 years in 2004. The minimum penalty is now
two years. Penalties for trafficking in children range from two to
10 years. These penalties are fully consistent with sentences for
serious sex offenses and violent crimes.

C) The maximum prison sentence for trafficking for the purposes of
forced labor, under Section 232a of the Criminal Code, increased
from 12 to 15 years in 2004. The minimum penalty is now two years.

The government criminally fines employers who violate work contracts
or confiscate workers travel documents. Fines can be as much as
500,000 kc ($25,000) per occurrence and fines in the millions of
crowns (several hundred thousand dollars) have resulted from
employers violating the rights of a number of employees. When
employers use abuse, physical or sexual, against employees they are
charged with crimes ranging from denial of personal liberty, rape,
assault and trafficking in persons.

D) The maximum penalty for rape is now the same as that for
trafficking, 15 years; the minimum penalty is two years.

E) Prostitution in the Czech Republic is unregulated, and it is
therefore neither legal nor illegal. Activities of the prostitute
are not currently criminalized.

The Ministry of Interior however has indicated it has drafted
legislation that will be introduced over the coming year that would
broaden the definition of disorderly conduct to include street
prostitution. The first two convictions under the new law would be
misdemeanors but a third conviction would be a felony punishable by
up to 2 years in jail.

Pimping (and its associated activities),however, is specifically
criminalized under Czech law, and traffickers are often charged
under pimping statutes when the use of the trafficking statutes is
considered too difficult.

F) During 2006 police investigated 14 offenders and made 15 arrests
in multiple trafficking cases. One previous case (under the
pre-November 2004 statute) was prosecuted, resulting in 1
trafficking conviction. Another case under the new statute was
prosecuted resulting in another conviction. For the first time, in
2006 the government convicted two criminals under its child
trafficking statute. None of the four offenders convicted of
trafficking received unconditional sentences; 4 received suspended
sentences. During the same time frame 88 persons (many of them
traffickers) were charged with pimping, with 68 convictions
resulting. Twelve of the criminals charged with pimping were
sentenced to jail time, while seven others were forced to pay fines.

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Pimping charges are often used to prosecute traffickers because of
the complexity of the trafficking statute. Individuals not charged
specifically with trafficking were charged with other offenses such
as pimping, conspiracy, denial or personal liberty, rape, inducement
of a minor for sexual intercourse, etc.

The government criminally fines employers who violate work contracts
or confiscate workers' travel documents. Fines can be as much as
500,000 kc ($25,000) per occurrence and fines in the millions of
crowns (several hundred thousand dollars) have resulted from
employers violating the rights of a number of employees. When
employers use abuse, physical or sexual, against employees they are
charged with crimes ranging from denial of personal liberty, rape,
assault and trafficking in persons. Traffickers serve the time
sentenced and remain on probation upon release.

An excellent example of Czech police investigative best practices is
the September 2006 break up one of the largest local criminal
syndicates trafficking woman to Scandinavia. The police arrested 16
individuals for trafficking numerous young Czech and Slovak Romani
girls to Norway. The police stated that typically the girls were
trafficked from small communities to Prague, where they were forced
into prostitution. Once deemed "experienced" the traffickers sent
the girls and women to Norway. Each victim was required to pay the
traffickers 12,000 kc ($600) daily and during the six months the
traffickers were monitored by the police they took in over 12
million crowns ($600,000) from their trafficking victims. Police
estimate the trafficking syndicate had been functioning for several
years. More than 160 Czech police were involved in the sting
operation.

A Vietnamese criminal group that was active in the Czech Republic,
Vietnam and Germany was broken up when the Czech police arrested 6
offenders for pimping and trafficking in persons. The criminals
would traditionally recruit Vietnamese girls for legal work in the
Czech Republic, but upon arrival in the country the women were
forced into prostitution. The success of the police to break up this
organized crime syndicate is notable given the fact that the
traffickers, victims and clients are exclusively Vietnamese making
such criminal organizations extremely difficult to infiltrate.

The Czech regional court in Plzen in January 2007 sentenced two
Germans with sexually molesting multiple young Czech boys, the
youngest being seven years old, in the Czech town of Klatovy. The
two Germans were sentenced to 5 years and 3 years in jail
respectively. The Germans paid the children with money or gifts for
sexual intercourse. Czech police worked closely with German police
to bring the case to a positive result. In addition to those
convicted of trafficking, 16 individuals were convicted of
inducement of minors for sexual intercourse in 2006.

In July 2006, three additional individuals were arrested under the
child trafficking statute for attempting to sell a 10-month old girl
for 100,000 Euros to a couple in the United Kingdom.

G) Sex trafficking remains dominated by organized criminal groups
from the former Soviet Union (predominantly Russia, Ukraine, and
Belarus) and Bulgaria.

A significant number of Vietnamese and Chinese women are trafficked
into the Czech Republic by Asian Organized Crime syndicates. There
are significant Vietnamese and Chinese communities in the Czech
Republic, and police and NGOs report that Asian sex trafficking
victims will often be forced to work in social clubs and brothels
catering exclusively to the Asian community. Asian trafficking
operations are particularly difficult to combat due to the
relatively closed nature of the communities in the country, a higher
observed level of violence as a means of control, and the more
complete dependence of trafficked women on their sponsors.

Among other groups, police have noted a marked trend away from
direct violence, and they instead use what police refer to as "soft
exploitation". "Soft exploitation" involves the concerted use of
psychological and financial pressure against the victim to secure
their compliance.

Roma criminal groups are involved in the internal trafficking of
Roma and non-Roma Czech women. This internal trafficking is often
tied to specific groups or families. As a rule sex trafficking
organizations tend to be smaller groups of individuals who form
opportunistic alliances and relations with other groups for specific

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purposes. NGOs have observed that these groups or types of groups
frequently operate within specific territorial zones.

Labor trafficking organizations, on the other hand, were revealed in
the two 2005 studies to be highly sophisticated operations with
extensive organized crime groups that operate in several different
countries. Labor trafficking organizations will frequently act
within the framework of a former USSR-model "client" system and the
organization will act as brokers or contractors for illegal labor.
These groups will often deduct large portions of the worker's
salary. Different studies have indicated that nearly all laborers
working illegally in the country do so under the auspices of an
interlocutor.

There is no evidence at all to suggest that government officials are
involved in trafficking, but there are rumors of alleged corruption
of a limited number of members of the Alien and Border Police.
However, once the Czech Republic joins the Schengen Agreement at the
beginning of 2008 the Czechs will no longer have a functioning
border police due to the fact that all Czech border countries will
be EU and Schengen member states. As a result, only at airports will
there be passport and immigration control.

In order to reduce the opportunity for possible corruption, the
Government in the latest amendment to the law on the residence of
foreigners switched responsibility regarding decisions on long-term
residency for protection purposes from the Alien and Boarder Police
to the Ministry of Interior. Police believe that trafficking
organizations often launder their profits through casinos, as well
as through real estate transactions and other investments in the
Czech Republic, channeling funds home to organized crime affiliates
or operations. Gambling organizations and casinos are only loosely
regulated in the Czech Republic.

H) The Czech Government devotes considerable effort to dismantling
trafficking organizations. The Interior Ministry has established a
specialized police investigative unit, the Organized Crime Unit
(UOOZ),specifically for this purpose. The UOOZ, in addition to
investigative responsibilities, also plays a critical role in the
implementation of the Model Program for the Support of Victims of
Trafficking. The Organized Crime Unit suffered from personnel
turbulence in 2005, due to changes in police retirement laws, but
the situation improved in 2006 and the Organized Crime Unit created
a new specialized police unit to combat trafficking in person for
the purposes of forced labor. This significantly increased the
number of police investigators strictly working on trafficking in
persons issues. The national police are also in the process of
identifying specific officers at the regional level that will
function as local liaisons to the forced labor section. The new unit
cooperates closely with local police, NGOs, Labor Offices and Labor
Inspectorates. The creation of a police unit solely focused on
forced labor is unique in the region and reflects the Czechs
commitment to address the problem. It should also be noted that in a
country suffering from corruption, the Organized Crime Unit has an
excellent record and reputation for probity and integrity.

Police and investigators often use other statutes and charges under
which conviction can be easier and more assured; this is especially
true when alternative serious charges carry comparable penalties to
the trafficking statute. Faced with a goal of dismantling an
organized crime network, Czech police will often use the most
expedient serious charge available for which they can reasonably
expect a conviction.

Labor trafficking remains an area of intense interest to the Czech
Government since the publication in 2005 of two government-funded
studies that indicated that the problem was more widespread then
previously thought. Responding to this problem, Czech law has
directly incorporated language from international trafficking
conventions to criminalize forced labor. The creation of the forced
labor section within the trafficking division should greatly assist
in these efforts. The Czech Supreme Prosecutor's Office is currently
examining revisions and addendums to its Criminal Code and internal
guidelines that will also provide better clarity on labor
trafficking. In the interim, the Ministry of Interior has translated
into Czech for the use of the police and prosecutors a new
International Labor Organization (ILO) manual entitled "Forced Labor
Trafficking - How to Monitor Recruitment of Working Migrants". The
manual provides local police and prosecutors a better understanding
of the labor trafficking issue and the official ILO definition of
labor trafficking.

PRAGUE 00000201 005 OF 007



Child pornography continues to spread via the internet and while
production of child pornography is a crime, the Czech Republic is
the only country in the EU where mere possession of child
pornography is not a crime. This issue was highlighted recently when
the Austrian police notified their Czech counterparts that more than
a dozen Czechs had downloaded child pornography from a computer
server in Austria. The Czech authorities had to explain that
currently this was not a crime in the Czech Republic. There is
legislation pending before parliament that is likely to be approved
this year that would finally criminalize the possession of child
pornography.

The Organized Crime Unit is extremely aggressive in using electronic
surveillance, undercover operations and all other means of effective
investigative techniques in its trafficking investigations.

An excellent example of Czech police investigative best practices is
the September 2006 break up one of the largest local criminal
syndicates trafficking woman to Scandinavia. The police arrested 16
individuals for trafficking numerous young Czech and Slovak Romani
girls to Norway. The police stated that typically the girls were
trafficked from small communities to Prague, where they were force
into prostitution. Once deemed "experienced" the traffickers sent
the girls and women to Norway. Each victim was required to pay the
traffickers 12,000 kc ($600) daily and during the six months the
traffickers were monitored by the police they took in over 12
million crowns ($600,000) from their trafficking victims. Police
estimate the trafficking syndicate had been functioning for several
years. More than 160 Czech police were involved in the sting
operation.

I) The Resident Twinning Advisors for Human Trafficking, working
under the auspices of the EU PHARE program, worked closely with the
Interior Ministry to improve the level of trafficking awareness and
training in the Czech police. Prior to the program ending in
November 2005, the advisor had trained several hundred police
officers. The advisor also worked with the Ministry to complete in
2005 an updated training manual for police on trafficking, with a
priority being to help street-level, non-specialized police officers
recognize potential or possible trafficking victims and to access
the appropriate state or NGO agencies. Most of the training
activities continued in 2006 due to Ministry of Interior funding
including regional roundtables. Representatives of the trafficking
department within the Organized Crime Unit continued to provide
one-day trafficking seminars at secondary police schools. Police
investigators inform students about the specifics of detecting and
investigating trafficking cases, about necessary cooperation with
NGOs and provide information on assistance to victims.

NGOs are uniformly in agreement that Czech police, while not
perfect, have greatly enhanced their ability to identify victims of
trafficking due to diligence of higher-up authorities and the
Ministry of Interior in reinforcing the importance of combating
trafficking into the basic police curriculum. Most victims are
currently identified by the police and NGOs agree that the police
effectiveness in dealing with victims when compared to just three
years ago is astoundingly good.

The Government has also sponsored several training programs and
seminars at its Judicial Academy for prosecutors and judges that
focus upon improving prosecution for these offenses. One of the
purposes of the program has been to confront the issue of the
generally low sentences that have historically been meted out to
convicted traffickers by Czech courts. The training also addressed
other topics including the commercial sexual exploitation of
children, and best practices in working with minors. The government
has instituted numerous other programs focused upon educating local
officials, NGOs, and other social service agencies at regional
levels to help identify and respond to trafficking victims (see
above).

J) The Czechs cooperate extensively with other European governments
in investigating and prosecuting trafficking cases, and have worked
especially closely with Germany, Austria, Denmark, Holland, France,
Britain, Italy, Slovakia, Switzerland and Poland. Czech officials
have noted an improvement in the attitude and level of cooperation
with Ukrainian officials since the "Orange Revolution" of early

2005. The Czechs are members of EUROPOL and INTERPOL.

The Czech Republic has law-enforcement cross-border cooperation

PRAGUE 00000201 006 OF 007


agreements with Germany and Slovakia; agreements with Poland,
Austria are currently under preparation.

In 2006, international cooperation with Czech police has been very
successful. The Organized Crime Unit with foreign partners worked on
33 cases of international criminal organizations that focused on
commercial sexual exploitation of women and children, production and
spreading of children pornography, including across the internet.

In July, three individuals were arrested for attempting to sell a
10-month old girl for 100,000 Euros to a couple in the United
Kingdom. The Czech police were alerted to the case by their British
counterparts when advertisements were placed in the British press.

A Vietnamese criminal group that was active in the Czech Republic,
Vietnam and Germany was broken up when the Czech police arrested 6
offenders for pimping and trafficking in persons. The criminals
would traditionally recruit Vietnamese girls for legal work in the
Czech Republic, but upon arrival in the country the women were
forced into prostitution. The success of the police to break up this
organized crime syndicate is notable given the fact that the
traffickers, victims and clients are exclusively Vietnamese making
such criminal organizations extremely difficult to infiltrate.

The Czech regional court in Plzen in January 2007 sentenced two
Germans with sexually molesting multiple young Czech boys, the
youngest being seven years old, in the Czech town of Klatovy. The
two Germans were sentenced to 5 years and 3 years in jail
respectively. Czech police worked closely with German police to
bring the case to a positive result.

K) Although the Czech government has adapted the European Arrest
Warrant, current interpretation of language in the Czech
Constitution designed to proscribe the use enforced exile (a favored
tactic of the Communist regime) also prohibits the extradition of
Czech nationals charged in foreign courts. No Czechs have been
extradited under the EAW. Three wanted Israeli nationals hiding in
the Czech Republic were arrested and extradited to Israel in 2006
for trafficking Ukrainian women. Although the Czech Government does
extradite foreign suspects for trafficking offenses without
problems, extradition of Czech nationals remains controversial.

L) There is no evidence of government involvement in or tolerance of
trafficking. NGOs have reported concerns that individual officers of
the border police may have been involved in facilitating border
crossing for traffickers but have been unable to provide any proof
of corruption. However, once the Czech Republic joins the Schengen
Agreement at the beginning of 2008 the Czechs will no longer have a
functioning border police due to the fact that all Czech border
countries will be EU and Schengen member states. As a result, only
at airports will there be passport and immigration control.

M) With no evidence of government involvement in or tolerance of
trafficking, there have been no government officials indicted or
convicted in connection with such activity.

N) Pedophile sex tourists in the Czech Republic are predominately
German and Austrian although British and American pedophiles have
been known to travel to Prague. On the German border in Cheb, the
Government continued to support activities of its specialized police
team, "Eger", as well as worked closely with Roma police assistants.
In addition, two projects were organized within the framework of a
trilateral Czech-German-Polish working group. These projects focused
on the creation and distribution of informative leaflets warning
against sex tourism. The local government and police force also
continued close cooperation with several local NGOs. One such
example of successful cooperation is coordination with the German
NGO EJF-Lazarus (evangelic social services to youth) that provides
care for criminal delinquent children and youth all over Germany.
EJF-Lazarus opened a specialized center in Cheb named "Utociste"
that is focused on high-risk children, usually runaways with
psychological problems. The Cheb police developed a new "case
management" system: a holistic approach focused on working with
specific youth and children that are high-risk. The system requires
the close cooperation of the police and other social-legal
institutions such as children protective services, doctors,
probation and mediation services as well as counseling centers. This
best practice has been adopted by police in other regions.

In the area of trafficking in children, the police are intently
focused on organized child prostitution. Czech police are very

PRAGUE 00000201 007.2 OF 007


proactive in cooperating with their German and Austrian
counterparts, since these are the source countries of most
pedophiles in the Czech Republic. In an improvement over previous
years, the police investigated 3 cases of trafficking in children
and there were also two convictions in 2006. In addition, there were
16 individuals that were convicted of inducement of minors for
sexual intercourse. The largest problem is the spread of child
pornography through the internet. The largest obstacle is that while
production of child pornography is a crime, the Czech Republic is
the only country in the EU where mere possession of child
pornography is not a crime. This issue was highlighted recently when
the Austrian police notified their Czech counterparts that more than
a dozen Czechs had downloaded child pornography from a computer
server in Austria. The Czech authorities had to explain that
currently this was not a crime in the Czech Republic. There is
legislation pending before parliament that is likely to be approved
this year that would finally criminalize the possession of child
pornography.

It should also be noted that the reports of extensive child
prostitution in Cheb published in 2005 by a German NGO have since
been seriously (and credibly) disputed by both Czech and German
officials and other NGOs in the region. While child prostitution
exists in the area, the scope of the problem appears to have been
seriously overstated. Other studies and statistics have failed to
replicate or support the German NGO's assertions.

The Czech regional court in Plzen in January 2007 sentenced two
Germans with sexually molesting multiple young Czech boys, the
youngest being seven years old, in the Czech town of Klatovy. The
two Germans were sentenced to 5 years and 3 years in jail
respectively. Czech police worked closely with German police to
bring the case to a positive result.

O) The GOCR ratified ILO Convention 182 on June 19, 2001, Convention
29 on January 1, 1993 and Convention 105 on June 8, 1996. The
government signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the
Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution, and
child pornography on January 26, 2005; it has not yet been ratified.
The Czech Republic signed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and
Punish Trafficking in Persons on December 10, 2002; it is not yet
ratified, but it will be pending resolution of the definition of
criminal liability of companies in the Czech Republic. All other
requirements for the ratification of the Protocol are met.