Criminal Networks of Prostitution

In Europe, the small structures, almost familial, coexist with high-level criminal organizations, who engage in sophisticated forms of trafficking and have high-level accomplices in the political and diplomatic world. Smaller groups can cooperate with large groups involved in multiple forms of trafficking.
No matter their size, these groups are mobile, perfected and structured. That is their main strength. Albanian networks, for example, are well-run criminal groups of 4 to 10 people, formed from clan, geographic, or family ties, just like true companies (market study, rationalization activity, task spacialization...). These groups are controlled by geographic and industry sectors, with, at the head of the organization, their board and chief supervising the group and defining the orientation of their criminal activities.
Different intermediaries intervene in every stage of exploiting women: recruiters, every type of agency, website producers, publicists, travel agencies, hotels, restaurants, "canvassers" who manage the locations on the sidewalk, bouncers in charge of protecting the girls, and sometimes, "solicitors" (bar owners, hotel concierges, taxi drivers...).
Faced with such a complex structure, it is generally difficult to find those who are responsible. Due to the fact that thanks to cell phones and the internet, procurers can manage their business away from the field of operations, without the risk of being caught.

The situation in France

France has the most repressive arsenal against procuring. If one considers prostitution to be free, then the exploitation of prostitution is severely punished. The repression of procuring, presents the unique characteristic of punishing an activity by reference to an activity that is not, in itself, illegal.

Articles 225-5 to 225-12 of the Penal Codes punish all forms of procuring. In its 2010 annual record of convictions, the Ministry of Justice declared 475 individual convictions for procuring acts, of which 275 were for aggravated procuring. About 40 international trafficking networks are dismantled every year, of which 64% are in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

In 2010, the Directorate of Criminal Affairs and Pardons, showed that in the cases of aggravated procuring, the prison sentences amounted to an average of 27.2 months. 78% of those convicted are older than 25. 28% of those convicted are women and 56% are foreigners, still in regards of only aggravated procuring. The average fine amounted to an average of 13.080€ ($17,919 USD).
Even if the legal framework for procuring violations seems to be complete, the offense of trafficking remains, to this day, rarely seen (3 cases in France in 2009, 3 cases, as well in 2010). Few judges use the cumulative nature of the procuring and trafficking violations. However, current texts allow, in theory, to incriminate human trafficking with the purpose of sexual exploitation as a whole, the dismantling of the industry to the original recruiting.