Recruiting and coercing women to work as “web models” correctly qualified as trafficking in human beings
JUDGMENT
Jasuitis and Šimaitis v. Lithuania 12.12.2023 (app. no. 28186/19 and 29092/19)
SUMMARY
The case concerned the applicants’ conviction for trafficking in human beings. They had hired a
number of women to work as “web models”, but complaints were made by one woman that they
had used threats and psychological violence to force her to carry out that work.
The Court found in particular that the relevant law in this case and its interpretation by the national
courts had been clear. The applicants should have been able to see that their actions would have
come under the definition of trafficking in human beings as set out in the Lithuanian Criminal Code.
PROVISION
Article 7
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The applicants, Vilandas Jasuitis and Darius Šimaitis, are Lithuanian nationals who were born in 1988
and live in Šiauliai (Lithuania).
On an unspecified date the applicants placed a job advertisement online, seeking “attractive girls”
for “online communication with people from different countries of the world in English”. In 2012-13
they hired a number of women to work as “web models”.
In April 2012, one of the women, P.Ch. – who at the time was still an 18-year-old secondary-school
student – made a complaint to the police, stating that she had been subjected to threats and
psychological violence by the applicants. She had initially agreed to communicate with clients online,
but later had been told to show her clients her naked body, to dance striptease, to use sex toys and
to do everything the clients requested, which she had refused to do.
An investigation was opened and the applicants were indicted following the identification of several
women – often in vulnerable situations – in their employ, some of whom also made accusations
against the applicants, including having been threatened, screamed at, and humiliated in front of a
child, among other things. One witness, V.R., was both threatened and offered money to change her
statements to the police.
In January 2017 the Šiauliai Regional Court found the applicants guilty of trafficking in human beings,
along with several other crimes. It held that they had recruited (verbuoti) and forced (vertė) women
to provide pornographic services which the applicants had profited from. That court confirmed that
psychological violence and threats, along with making the victims dependent on them and recruiting
them under false premises, had been part of the operating method of the applicants. The applicants
appealed.
The Court of Appeal overturned the first-instance court and acquitted the applicants in February
2018, considering that the latter court had erred in its assessment of the facts.
The prosecution and one of the victims appealed against that verdict to the Supreme Court, arguing
that the appellate court had wrongly assessed the issue of the victims’ alleged vulnerability and
dependency, and the applicants’ deceit. The Supreme Court found for them, and found the
applicants guilty of trafficking in human beings. They received a five-year prison sentence. The
Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal had not fully examined all the relevant evidence,
departing from the standards of criminal procedure.
Regarding the specific charge of trafficking in human beings (Article 147 of the Criminal Code)
committed in aggravated circumstances (as a group), the Supreme Court stated that that could
involve any of the following: prostitution, pornography, or other forms of sexual abuse, forced
labour or criminal activity, in which there was a transaction that benefited the trafficker. That could
involve elements such as restriction of liberty, recruitment, using a victim’s vulnerability, and
deception. The court found that the applicants’ actions had fallen within the criteria to be classed as
trafficking in human beings.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT…
The parties did not dispute that the relevant provision (Article 147 § 2 of the Criminal Code) as in
force at the time was accessible to the applicants. The question remained whether the applicants
could reasonably have foreseen that their actions would have been consistent with the essence of
that offence.
The applicants relied heavily on the use of “slavery” or “slavery-like conditions” in Article 147 § 1,
but the Court noted that slavery or slavery-like conditions were not an indispensable element for
this crime. The wording overall was foreseeable and consistent with the essence of the offence. It
found no blatant arbitrariness in its application.
“Actions” that were indicative of trafficking included sale, transfer, acquisition, recruitment and
transportation of a person or holding that person captive under Article 147 § 1. The Court held that
the action of advertising on the Internet, when coupled with their subsequent actions, did constitute
“recruitment” within the meaning of the Criminal Code.
The relevant “means” included physical violence or threats, or otherwise depriving the victim of the
possibility to resist, or taking advantage of the victim’s dependency or vulnerability, or resorting to deception. The Court, noting the facts established in the national courts, was satisfied that the applicants had been capable of assuming a dominant position over the women they had recruited and abusing their vulnerability in order to exploit them for the purpose of providing pornographic
services, including by deceiving them. Furthermore, they had used “debt bondage” and coercion in
various forms, among other tactics, as means to control their victims.
As regards the “purpose” of the exploitation, in the applicants’ case they had made money from the
services that the trafficking victims had been providing.
The Court concluded that the relevant provision (Article 147 § 1) was not ambiguous and the
Lithuanian Supreme Court’s interpretation had been precise and consistent, and had not been so
expansive so as to be arbitrary. As a result, there had been no violation of Article 7 of the
Convention.
