BELGRADE -- A Serbian court will open proceedings on September 12 in the country's first publicly documented case of sex trafficking involving Chinese nationals.
A criminal indictment obtained by RFE/RL through a freedom of information request says that two Chinese women were trafficked to Serbia from China and then had their passports taken away from them, given only one meal per day, and forced under the threat of death to provide sexual services to men.
The indictment adds that the two women were trafficked by a male Chinese citizen who "misled the victims" by promising to "find them a job as a masseuse" in Serbia and "provide housing and food" for them. He then forced them to have sex with men shortly after arriving in the Balkan country by threatening "to kill them" and warning "that he is powerful and can do anything to make them disappear."
"After a few hours upon their arrival, he organized their sexual exploitation by" Chinese men in Serbia "under the threat that they... owed him money for the purchased [plane] tickets and that they needed to earn money to obtain work permits."
The Chinese man, who has not been identified, was arrested in March by Serbian police in the eastern city of Bor and is set to begin his closed-door preliminary hearing after being charged with human trafficking by a court in the nearby city of Zajecar.
Large sections of the indictment obtained by RFE/RL, including details about the case and the women's ordeal, were blacked out.
The legal case involving Chinese nationals is likely to test the increasingly friendly relations between China and Serbia.
China has become a major investor and trade partner with Serbia, and the two countries provide visa-free travel for each other's citizens.
"The sensitivity of diplomatic relations often creates pressure on [Serbian] authorities to be cautious when it comes to investigations involving Chinese citizens or companies," said Sasa Djordjevic, senior analyst at the Global Initiative to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, a Switzerland-based think tank.
"The fear that this could jeopardize strategic ties between Serbia and China may lead to a less decisive reaction from [Serbian] authorities and institutions," Djordjevic added.
Looking Closer At The Case
The two women have been officially identified as victims of human trafficking by the Center for the Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking, a Serbian state-run organization that provides support to trafficking victims.
The center told RFE/RL that the case was the first in Serbia involving Chinese nationals since it began collecting data in 2015.
There have been 35 documented cases of human trafficking in Serbia so far in 2024, according to the center.
Examples of trafficking Chinese women to Serbia are mentioned in the 2024 Trafficking In Persons Report released by the U.S. State Department.
The report says that "traffickers exploit women from the [People's Republic of China (PRC)] in sex trafficking, primarily targeting demand for commercial sex from workers at PRC-funded projects, including copper mines."
While no links to the mining industry are mentioned in the indictment, Bor, the city where the man accused of trafficking the women was arrested, and the nearby town of Majdanpek, are both home to large gold and copper mining operations that were taken over in 2018 by China's Zijin Mining company. The firm employs both Serbian and Chinese workers in Bor and Majdanpek.
The State Department declined to answer RFE/RL's questions about the details mentioned in the report or if it included the case of the two Chinese women in the indictment. But the State Department did say that it informed the Serbian government about its findings.
The Serbian government did not respond to RFE/RL's request for comment.
The Chinese Embassy in Belgrade did not respond to RFE/RL's questions about the indictment, the preliminary trial beginning on September 12, or the claims raised by the State Department.
Zoran Pasalic, Serbia's national rapporteur for human trafficking and ombudsman, told RFE/RL in a statement that he was familiar with the case involving the two Chinese women and that "there is no doubt that they are victims of human trafficking."
Pasalic said other people in addition to the Chinese man were also involved in trafficking and exploiting the two women.
"According to our knowledge, it is not only a Chinese citizen. However, in the interest of the investigation, I cannot reveal who was also involved in that case," he said.
Pasalic said the Center for the Protection of Victims of Human Trafficking provided the women with free accommodation and psychological support, granted them temporary residence permits, and "support during their return to China."
In Serbia, human trafficking carries a maximum penalty of 12 years in prison.
But Marija Andjelkovic, the CEO of ASTRA, a Serbian grassroots organization that provides support for human-trafficking victims, says that legal precedent in the country tends to favor lighter sentencing, often between three to five years.
"These procedures can last a long time and be exhausting for the victim," she told RFE/RL. "[The victim] can be expected to repeat her story on average up to seven times from the first contact with the authorities until the end of the trial."
Serbia's Record On Human Trafficking
In another notable human-trafficking case in Serbia in 2021, the Chinese company Linglong, which is building a nearly $1 billion tire factory in northeastern Serbia, was accused of trafficking and exploiting an estimated 500 Vietnamese workers.
As documented through testimony from workers and images shared with local and international media at the time, the laborers were housed in makeshift barracks near the construction site without electricity, hot water, or adequate access to food. Many of the workers also had their passports taken away by their managers after entering Serbia and the incident was raised by the UN Human Rights Council.
A similar case arose in January involving a smaller group of Indian workers with the construction company China Energy Engineering Group Tianjin Electric Power Construction, which is a contractor of Linglong.
Serbian investigators concluded that neither incident was a case of human trafficking, a move that was criticized by grassroots groups like ASTRA and by Tomoya Obokata, the UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery.
Obokata told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network that it was part of a "dangerous trend" of Serbia ignoring potential human-trafficking cases.
