ACSUR LAS SEGOVIAS is a Spanish NGO active in co-operation for development, humanitarian aid, human rights awareness and education, and migration issues. Together with other two NGOs --Asamblea de Cooperación por la Paz and Paz y Tercer Mundo-- in January 1999 we began a public awareness campaign to denounce trafficking women, directed to the Spanish civil society.

Quoting the definition made by GAATW (Global Alliance Against Trafficking Women), we understand trafficking women as "All acts and attempted acts involved in the recruitment, transportation within or across borders, purchase, sale, transfer, receipt or harbouring of a person involving the use of deception, coercion (including the use or threat of force or the abuse of authority) or debt bondage for the purpose of placing or holding such person, whether for pay or not, in involuntary servitude (domestic, sexual or reproductive), in forced or bonded labour, or in slavery-like conditions, in a community other than the one in which such person lived at the time of the original deception, coercion or debt bondage".

Thousands of women are annually entering Spain due to this kind of Mafia. Trafficked victims do not receive either legal or social assistance from the government, and are rapidly deported to their home countries, where they face the problem of coping with their still unpaid "debts".

Therefore, the aim of the campaign is twofold. On one hand, we intend to reach a human rights treatment for the victims from the government. On the other, we want to inform Spanish civil society about the outreach of this process in our country.