This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 PARIS 001398 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR G/TIP, EUR/WE, G, INL, DRL, PRM, IWI, EUR/PGI, 
INL/CTR 
USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD ASEC PREF ELAB FR RO
SUBJECT: FRANCE SUBMISSION FOR 2005 TIP REPORT 
 
REF: STATE 273089 
 
///OVERVIEW//// 
 
 ¶1. (U) France is a destination country for trafficked 
persons, mainly women trafficked for prostitution from 
Eastern Europe (Romania, Bulgaria, and to a lesser extent 
Albania) and Africa (Nigera, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon). 
France's national Central Office for the Repression of 
Trafficking in Persons (OCRETH, a division of the National 
Police in the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police in 
the Interior Ministry) estimates that there are between 
15,000 and 18,000 prostitutes in France, of which about 
two-thirds are foreigners and thus likely to be trafficking 
victims, making the estimated number of trafficking victims 
in France anywhere from 10,000 to 12,000. 
 
¶2.  (U) OCRETH estimates the numbers and origin of 
prostitutes from statistics of those arrested for 
solicitation, which was criminalized in the 2003 law on 
internal security. Although complete statistics are not yet 
available for 2004, OCRETH shared with post preliminary data 
showing figures for January through November 2004. From 
January through November 2004, 5,152 people (prostitutes) 
were arreted for solicitation.  Because some of those were 
repeat arrests, the office estimates that there were about 
3,000 different persons arrested.  Foreigners accounted for 
82 percent of those arrested, according to government 
statistics (again, government officials believe the number of 
foreigners roughly correlates to the number of trafficked 
persons). The two largest groups of people arrested for 
solicitation were from Eastern Europe and West Africa. East 
Europeans accounted for 34 percent of those arrested and for 
41 percent of the foreigners. In descending order, their 
origins were Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, Serbia and 
Montenegro, and Moldova.  Africans accounted for 31 percent 
of those arrested and for 37 percent of the foreigners.  Most 
of those were from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and Cameroon, 
according to OCRETH. 
 
¶3. (U) The chief of the OCRETH noted that the number of 
Chinese trafficking victims has been on the rise in France. 
This year Chinese accounted for around 10 percent of those 
arrested for solicitation.  He said that the Chinese have a 
different profile: they are older women and not in the 
network.  They may have found that they are unable to earn 
enough in the sweatshop jobs for which they were brought to 
France to repay their debts and thus turn to prostitution in 
order to earn more money to repay their bondage debts. 
 
¶4. (U) We do not have information yet on whether the GOF has 
any surveys underway. 
 
¶5. (U) Trafficking victims in France are mostly put to work 
in prostitution; they must earn money to repay bondage debts. 
They are subject to violence, threats, and withholding of 
documents. 
 
¶6. (U)  There is political will at the highest levels of the 
French government to combat trafficking in persons.  The 
government is making a good faith effort to seriously address 
trafficking. 
 
¶7. (U) Governmental authorities do not facilitate or condone 
trafficking, nor are they otherwise complicit in such 
activities.  Punishments for any official person whose post 
requires him to participate in the fight against human 
trafficking who is found guilty of trafficking are more 
severe than the penalties for traffickers (French penal code, 
Article 225-4-2), and the law provides for a seven-year 
imprisonment and fine of up to 750,000 euros if someone 
cannot "account for resources corresponding to one's 
lifestyle while being in close contact with one or more 
(trafficking) victims or perpetrators" (Art. 225-4-8). 
 
¶8. (U) French government spending is subject in some degree 
to constraints imposed by the EU in view of France's 
membership in the eurozone, which limits members' deficit 
spending to 3 percent of GDP.  As such, France is bound to 
rein in its debt, requiring budget cuts in many areas of 
importance to the state. 
 
¶9.  (U) The government monitors itself for progress in its 
battle against trafficking, compiling statistics on the 
numbers of arrests for various trafficking-related offenses 
and sharing them internally.  The law mandates that OCRETH 
publish an annual report on its activities. 
 
¶10.  (U) Prostitution is not illegal, but exploiting someone 
to prostitute him or herself (e.g. pimping, or "procuring" 
someone else) is illegal, as is solicitation.  Prostitutes 
can even be arrested for 'passive' solicitation (as 
determined by the police; the law is vague on what 
constitutes 'passive conduct,' and this can include even the 
manner of dress).  The age of majority in France is 18. 
Anyone soliciting, accepting or obtaining a person of less 
than 18 years of age for sexual services in exchange for 
remuneration or promise of it is subject to three years' 
imprisonment and a 45,000-euro fine (French penal code 
Article 225-12-1), more for aggravating circumstances (Art. 
225-12-2), and even more (seven years' imprisonment and a 
fine of 100,000 euros) if the child is less than 15 years of 
age (Art. 225-12-3).  Solicitation can bring up to two months 
in jail and up to 3,750 euros in fines (Art. 225-10-1). 
Pimps are punished under laws prohibiting "procuring," 
defined as when a person "in any manner 1) helps, assists, or 
protects the prostitution of others; 2) makes a profit out of 
the prostitution of others, shares the proceeds of it or 
receives income from a person engaging habitually in 
prostitution; and/or 3) hires, trains or corrupts a person 
with a view to prostitution or exercises on such a person 
pressure to practice prostitution or to continue doing so." 
(Art. 225-5)  Procuring is punished by seven years' 
imprisonment and a fine of 150,000 euros.  The law also 
criminalizes acting as an intermediary between a prostitute 
and a pimp; facilitating the justification of a pimp's 
fictitious resources; being unable to account for one's 
income when one lives with a prostitute; and obstructing 
prevention, control, assistance or reeducation efforts for 
prostitute(s).  Under aggravating circumstances (including 
where the prostitute is a minor), procuring is punishable by 
ten years' imprisonment and a fine of 1.5 million euros (Art. 
225-7), and if the prostitute is under 15 years old, it is 
punishable by 15 years' criminal imprisonment and a 3-million 
euro fine (Art. 225-7-1).  If an organized gang does the 
procuring, the punishment is 20 years' imprisonment and a 
3-million euro fine (Art. 225-8), and if the procurer(s) 
resort to torture or acts of barbarity, it is punishable by 
life imprisonment and a 4.5-million euro fine (Art. 225-9). 
 
///PREVENTION/// 
 
¶11. (U)  The government of France acknowledges that 
trafficking is a problem, as evidenced by its passage of the 
2003 law combatting trafficking and its subsequent doubling 
of personnel in the main office fighting trafficking, the 
OCRETH, and by its creation of the intergovernmental 
commission charged with proposing means to combat sex tourism 
involving children. 
 
¶12. (U) The Interministerial Commission combating trafficking 
includes the OCRETH, along with several government 
ministries, including Interior, Justice, Tourism, Education, 
Health and Family, Foreign Affairs, and Employment, Labor and 
Social Cohesion. OCRETH also has strong ties with the 
anti-trafficking brigade of the Paris police. 
 
¶13. (U) The interministerial commission is pressing for the 
government to conduct a public relations campaign to help 
reduce demand; the commission is also seeking to integrate a 
public education campaign into the sex education classes in 
high schools in order to get the message to young people 
first of all that to engage a prostitute is to commit 
violence against him or her, and secondly that any money one 
would pay to a prostitution victim could be going to fund 
organized crime.  In September, a separate interministerial 
commission comprised of several government ministries, NGOs, 
and firms in the tourism sector published a report entitled 
"The Fight Against Sex Tourism Involving Children."  The 
commission made 12 recommendations for pursuing the fight; 
currently an interadministration commission (made up of 
representatives from the Ministries of the Family, Tourism, 
Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Education) is charged with 
delivering on the 12 recommendations; it must report back by 
August on their progress. 
 
¶14. (U) The government continues to fund the campaign of the 
NGO ECPAT combatting child sex tourism; all Air France 
flights broadcast a video warning French tourists against 
engaging in sex with minors and alerting them that their 
actions on foreign soil are subject to French law. 
 
¶15. (U) The French government and NGOs active in France in 
the battle against trafficking in persons work well together 
and often participate together in commissions. Civil society 
plays a robust role in French society and the French 
government recognizes its value in the battle. 
 
¶16. (U) France adequately monitors its borders, but a large 
part of Metropolitan French border-monitoring has been 
subsumed into the Schengen System, which covers the majority 
of France's land borders and some of its air traffic as well 
(flights, trains, cars coming into France from other Schengen 
member countries such as Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany and 
Luxembourg are not subject to border controls because 
passengers have either gone through Schengen border control 
at the point where they entered Schengen territory, or they 
themselves are Schengen residents and thus receive no 
examination). 
 
¶17. (U) In addition to the anti-trafficking interministerial 
commission, the government working group fighting sex tourism 
involving children produced its report proposing a French 
strategy for fighting the problem in September.  The working 
group included NGOs, tourism-sector firms (French hotel 
chains, tour operators, travel agents' associations, travel 
workers' unions and Air France), and governmental ministries 
(MFA, Tourism, Interior, Youth and Education, Justice, and 
Family). (One of the two rapporteurs for this group 
participated at the State Department's invitation at the 
October 2004 G/TIP-hosted child sex tourism panel at the UN.) 
 
¶18. (U) France works with the EU, the OSCE, the UN, Europol, 
and Interpol to combat trafficking. The French are currently 
working within the EU to establish an EU treaty fighting 
trafficking, along the lines of the Palermo Protocol.  In 
early May, the French will host the sixth meeting of the 
Interpol focus group on the trafficking of women. The meeting 
aims to bring international experts from all of the involved 
regions together to discuss ways of combatting the 
trafficking in women for the purposes of sexual exploitation. 
 
 
¶19.  (U) The French national plan of action to combat 
trafficking is embodied in the 2003 law on internal security. 
 
¶20.  (U) The OCRETH has the lead on creating anti-trafficking 
programs. 
 
///INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF TRAFFICKERS/// 
 
¶21. (U) French law specifically forbids trafficking in humans 
-- defined as "the recruitment, transport, transfer, 
accommodation, or reception of a person in exchange for 
remuneration or any other benefit or for the promise of 
remuneration or any other benefit, in order to put him at the 
disposal of a third party, whether identified or not, so as 
to permit the commission against that person of offenses of 
procuring, sexual assault or attack, exploitation for 
begging, or the imposition of living or working conditions 
inconsistent with human dignity, or to force this person to 
commit any crime or misdemeanor" --  for both sexual and 
non-sexual purposes (French penal code, Book II, Title II, 
Chapter V, Sec 1bis, Article 225-4-1 and following). 
 
¶22. (U)  Trafficking in persons is punishable by up to seven 
years in prison and a fine of up to 150,000 euros (Art. 
225-4-1); the penalty rises to 10 years' imprisonment and a 
1.5-million euro fine if the trafficking is done to a minor, 
pregnant woman, other "vulnerable persons;" done to a person 
"upon his arrival on (French) territory;" if threats are 
used; or if the perpetrator holds a post that requires him to 
fight against human trafficking or in any of several other 
aggravating circumstances (Art. 225-4-2).  If an organized 
gang perpetrates the trafficking, it is punishable by 20 
years' imprisonment and a 3-million euro fine (Art. 225-4-3), 
and if the trafficking is committed "with recourse to torture 
or acts of barbarity," the perpetrator incurs life 
imprisonment and a 4.5-million euro fine (Art. 225-4-4). 
 
¶23. (U) Convicted rapists can receive up to 15 years in 
prison (Art. 222-23); if the rape was committed against 
someone under 15 years of age, the penalty increases to up to 
20 years (Art. 222-24).  Sexual assault is punishable by up 
to five years in prison and a 75,000 euro fine (Art.222-27), 
seven years and 100,000 euros if the victim is under 15 years 
or age or if there are aggravating circumstances (Arts. 
222-28 and 222-29). 
 
¶24.  (U)  According to the Justice Ministry, French 
authorities detained more than 940 people in 2004 for pimping 
-- that number was almost evently split between French 
nationals and foreigners.  Of those detained, 46 percent were 
jailed with the remainder released.  Further statistics on 
number of judicial proceedings/convictions/sentences will be 
available later, but were not ready at the end of February. 
 
¶25.  (U) Trafficking in France is organized by international 
criminal gangs, according to the OCRETH. 
 
¶26.  (U) The French government actively investigates 
trafficking cases, using surveillance, telephone taps, and a 
wide range of investigative techniques.  In addition, French 
law encourages the testimony of trafficking victims by 
providing residency cards for complaints or witnesses that 
end in a conviction, but French police can also proceed 
without a victim's testimony. 
 
¶27.  (U) The French government cooperates with other 
governments in investigating and prosecuting traffickers and 
in trying to prevent trafficking from occurring.  OCRETH has 
sent an officer to the French Embassy in Sofia to serve as a 
liaison with Bulgarian officials to combat the trafficking of 
Bulgarian nationals to France.  The officer is attached to 
the French police attache's office in the embassy there. A 
Bulgarian  officer will come to work with OCRETH sometime in 
¶2005.  In Bucharest, the French Embassy works closely with 
police to address the trafficking issue, and France and 
Romania conduct officer exchanges as well.  Last year, France 
and Romania held a Commission Rogatoire.  A much smaller 
percentage of trafficking victims in France comes from South 
America, but OCRETH director Colombani and other French 
officers participated in a seminar in Ecuador in November 
2004 to share best practices with police and judges in 
Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela. 
 
¶28.  (U) France can extradite persons suspected of 
trafficking to other countries; the process would be 
expedited in the case where the seeking country was a fellow 
party to the European arrest warrant.  In the case of 
countries such as Romania or Bulgaria, the extradition would 
be subject to the Council of Europe extradition treaty. 
France would not extradite one of its own nationals. 
 
¶29. (U) There is no evidence of government involvement in or 
tolerance of trafficking on a local or institutional level. 
 
¶30. (U) France's child sex tourism laws have extraterritorial 
coverage.  Sex with minors can be punished under French law 
if the act is committed by a French national or by a person 
habitually resident on French territory (i.e. the person need 
not be a French citizen, but only a French resident, to be 
subject to the law).  (Art. 225-12-3)  The interministerial 
commission on child sex tourism will propose placing 
representatives in the French embassies in Senegal, Morocco, 
Mexico, Brazil, and Thailand in order to follow the legal 
cases of French nationals under arrest there for engaging in 
prostitution with minor victims, with the goal of 
repatriating the French to be tried in the French justice 
system.  The interministerial commission believes its 
proposal will be implemented. 
 
¶31. (U) France has signed and ratified each of the mentioned 
Conventions and Protocols. 
 
         ILO CONVENTION 182 - Ratified Sept. 11, 2001 
 
         ILO CONVENTION 29 - Ratified June 24, 1937 
 
         ILO CONVENTION 105 - Ratified Dec. 18, 1969 
 
         Optional Protocol to the CRC - Signed Feb. 6, 2000; 
ratified Feb. 5, 2003 
 
         Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking 
in Persons, especially Women       and Children, 
supplementing the UN Convention Against Transnational 
Organized Crime - 
      Signed Dec. 12, 2000; ratified Oct. 29, 2002. 
 
 
///VICTIM PROTECTION/ASSISTANCE/// 
 
 
¶32. (U)  A trafficking victim who files a complaint against 
their trafficker(s) or who testifies against them is eligible 
for a temporary three-month card providing residency status 
and a work permit.  If the police can corroborate the 
victim's report (with reference to names, locations, etc.), 
the temporary card can be renewed for another three months 
for a total of six months, and then again for an additional 
six months. If the trafficker on whom the victim made the 
complaint or testified against is convicted, the victim is 
eligible for a permanent residency card (Article 76 of Law on 
Internal Security, Official Journal of March 19, 2003).  A 
private association, the Accompaniment Places of Welcome 
(ALC), provides long-term shelter services for trafficking 
victims in metropolitan France and Corsica.  Thirty-three 
shelters across France have voluntarily agreed to provide 
space for trafficking victims, and belong to the ALC. The 
government funds three-quarters of the ALC's budget, with the 
city of Paris funding the last quarter.  (The French 
government contribution is 157,850 euros a year, and an 
official from the Office of Social Action in the Ministry of 
Employment, Labor, and Social Cohesion estimates it costs 
3,500 euros per year to shelter a victim.) In 2004, the ALC 
welcomed 44 trafficking victims who were dispersed among 23 
of the shelters.  Six of the victims opted to return to their 
country of origin.  Six of the victims were French, with 
another two coming from other EU countries. Almost 
one-quarter of victims who approached ALC for help were 
Romanian, with 12 percent coming from Nigeria.  ALC shelters 
provide judicial, administrative, health, and psychiatric 
assistance; help in finding a job or getting new training; 
assistance to the victim to return to his/her country of 
origin if that is what she/he wants; and food and lodging. 
 
¶33.  (U) See response 32 for government funding of shelters 
welcoming trafficking victims. 
 
¶34. (U)  Social services, NGOs, or police can call the ALC to 
request placement for a victim.  There are short-term 
emergency centers that host the victim while the long-term 
shelter is preparing a place for her/him. The entry 
questionnaire for ALC is deliberately limited in order to 
protect victims in case they are collaborating with the 
police or serving as a witness. 
 
¶35. (U) Some prostitutes have been fined under the 2003 law 
on internal security; while the maximum fine under the law is 
3750 euros, OCRETH reports that the average fine is around 
300 euros.  The government believes that punishing the victim 
prostitutes in this way is a means to hamper the work of the 
networks running them.  The government assesses that the more 
income traffickers lose because their prostitute-victims are 
unable to work because they are jailed overnight, the more 
difficult the traffickers find their work.  Government 
officials believe that every step that hampers the networks' 
success contributes to eliminating trafficking. 
 
¶36. (U) The government encourages victims to participate in 
the investigation and prosecution of trafficking by provicing 
temporary and permanent residence cards for victims who file 
complaints and/or testify against their traffickers.  (see 
#32 above). 
 
¶37. (U) See response to #32 above. 
 
¶38. (U) Both the government and the ALC provide training for 
the persons who will be treating and working with the victims 
in the shelters.  The fight against sexual tourism involving 
children is a mandatory element of the training that students 
in French tourism schools undertake to receive their degrees. 
 
¶39. (U) French nationals are not trafficked abroad, as far as 
is known. 
 
¶40. (U) There are numerous NGOs in France working with both 
adult and child victims of trafficking, prostitution, and 
child sex tourism abroad.  A few of the more prominent are: 
 
Amis du Bus des Femmes - (Friends of the Women's Bus) A Paris 
NGO that works with prostitutes, both trafficked and 
untrafficked to provide care and to help reinsert them in a 
non-prostituted life. The NGO drives its equipped bus to 
locations frequented by prostitute-victims; they provide 
medical attention but also seek to be a refuge for prostitute 
victims in hopes of drawing them out of victimhood. Amis du 
Bus criticizes the 2003 law, assessing that its passage 
increased the dangers for trafficked prostitution victims 
rather than improving their situation. 
ECPAT France - French chapter of ECPAT International, founded 
to combat sexual tourism in Asia and since enlarged to 
protect children against sexual aggression worldwide. ECPAT 
France works with AirFrance to distribute promotional 
material to French residents touring abroad to make them 
aware of the repercussions of child sex tourism. 
Mouvement du Nid - Assists prostitutes to find a better life 
and works to sensitize the public to the dangers of 
prostitution. 
ACPE - Association Against Child Prostitution. Work with 
shelters in Guatemala and Manila, aiding their support to 
prostituted children.  Also civil party to a case against a 
French national in Cambodia for sex with minors.  In 
addition, makes presentations to students in tourism colleges 
across France, making them aware of their responsibilities as 
tourism professionals to protect children, and works through 
competitions in the school to design prevention campaigns and 
to raise money through the high-profile World Salon of 
Tourism, held every year in Paris. 
 
¶41. (U) Embassy contact for trafficking in persons is poloff 
Kimberly Baker.  Email: bakerke@state.gov. Office phone  (33) 
1 43 12 23 93.  Fax  (33) 1 43 12 26 63.  Time spent on 
project: FS-04 poloff, 60 hours.  FS-01 pol officer, 15 
hours' assistance to new officer working on report.  FS-02 
France desk officer, 15 hours working with G/TIP bureaucracy 
to craft benchmarks cable for France and to serve as liaison 
between G/TIP and post.  FS-01 officer, 2 hours' review. 
FEMC, one-half hour's review. DCM, one-half hour's review. 
 
¶42. (U) NOTE: There was a calculation error in last year's 
TIP report for France.  Where the text on prosecution said 
that the number of of individuals arrested on 
trafficking-related charges had increased "66 percent" over 
the previous year,it should have been a "10-percent" 
increase: 66 was the REAL NUMBER increase in individuals 
charged, not/not the percentage change.  Post notes this to 
avoid inaccurate comparisons from last year to this year 
(i.e. the wording in last year's report would make it appear 
that the France had improved much more from 2002 to 2003 than 
it had from 2003 to 2004, when in reality the improvement 
accelerated, with a trafficking-related arrests increasing 33 
percent in the first 11 months of 2004 over all of 2003.) 
 
Leach