(f) The Taxi Connection.
While not a network in themselves (in the sense of a complete
connection between recruitment and destination) taxi drivers serve a
number of different functions within the broader field of trafficking.
First, taxi drivers may serve as recruiters for traffickers by identifying
women or children for possible trafficking. This would arise
particularly in connection with those women who have already entered
the migrant labor movement and find themselves isolated in a new
environment.
Second, taxi drivers often act as the transporters of trafficked
individuals. "...according to testimony, the individuals in charge of the
delivery of these girls (many of whom are under 18) either
pay for the taxi service or even steal the vehicle. However,
most of the time, these people don't have a professional
driver's license to operate a commercial vehicle.
Taxi service is frequently used in inter city trafficking,
transporting girls from nightclubs located in a certain city
to another city in the state. (South Region Report)
Finally, taxi drivers may actually link the women or children
with the "john".
"According to field research in Foz do Iguacu, taxi drivers
have the following agreement with local brothels: the client
chooses a girl (sometimes a minor) by looking at a book of
pictures... then, the girl is contacted and the taxi driver
picks her up to meet the client..." (South Region Report)
(g) Recruitment Agencies for Infrastructure and Development.
Projects Network: recruitment for agriculture, highway and waterway
construction, gold mining and others.
Large infrastructure projects (Tucurui) and mining operations
(Trombetas, Barcarena and Carajas), as well as the 'gold rush' in the
South and Southeast part of the State (Carajas and Tapajos), made the
State of Para serve as a shelter to vast amounts of people in the 1980's
and 1990's. The prostitution market developed following the same
logic: it followed the migratory flow, increasing and decreasing
according to construction and gold mining operations.
Agents and Recruiters
Careful review of the data obtained by the researchers from
media reports on trafficking provides some detail about the agents and
recruiters of women, children and adolescents for trafficking. It reveals
that majority of the agents are men (59%) between the ages of 20 and
56. Forty one percent of the recruiters were women between the ages of
20 and 35 (Media Research/PESTRAF 2000).
Of the total number of recruiters (161) identified in media
reports, 52 are foreigners (from Spain, Netherlands, Venezuela,
Paraguay, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, China, Israel, Belgium,
Russia, Poland, United States and Switzerland) and 109 are Brazilian.