Human Trafficking in [Greece Street Children in [Greece] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Greece] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Republic
of Greece [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Greece is a
destination and transit country for women and children trafficked for the
purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women are trafficked from
Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Africa for the purposes of commercial sexual
exploitation and forced labor. Source countries over the reporting period
include Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Lithuania, Moldova, Ukraine, Albania,
Nigeria, and Sudan. Some Albanian men are trafficked to Greece for forced
labor. Most children trafficked from Albania to Greece are subjected to
forced labor, including forced begging and petty crimes; some are trafficked
for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Reportedly, trafficking of Nigerian
victims for the purposes of sexual exploitation continued to increase and
some victims were forced to marry traffickers or their associates to
“legalize” their status in the country. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in
Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report] |
|
CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** IHF-HR: "A Form of Slavery: Trafficking in Women in OSCE Member States" - Country Reports - GREECE Regarding the coercion of victims,
the following methods were uncovered: o
Their documents are kept in order to stop them from escaping. o
They are often raped, kept without food or water or unable to use the
toilet in order to make them more “willing to cooperate”. o
If they come from religious families, offenders threaten to tell the
victims’ parents or relatives, even videotapes are secretly made for the
purpose of blackmail. There are seldom injuries or
beating that could “spoil” the future exploitation of the woman. Often, women
are forced to see over fifty “customers” per day, to the extent that they
lose a sense of time and space and lose consciousness. Recently, a
thirteen-year-old girl managed to get to the police and escape her
imprisonment and torture. She had been brought illegally and forcefully from
Albania in order to work as a prostitute. She had been imprisoned for six
months. ***
ARCHIVES *** Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS –
According to an academic observer, trafficking in women and children for
sexual exploitation in the country decreased from approximately 20 thousand
victims in 2003 to approximately 10 thousand during the year. Unofficial NGO estimates
placed approximately 13 thousand to 14 thousand trafficked persons in the
country at any given time. Trafficking of children was a
problem. Most child trafficking victims were Albanian Romani children
trafficked for labor exploitation or teenage girls trafficked for commercial
sexual exploitation. Albanian children made up the majority of children
trafficked for forced labor, begging, and stealing. NGOs reported that the
practice of "renting" children had dramatically decreased as it became
easier for Albanian parents to emigrate to the country. An NGO working on
child-trafficking problems reported that some legalized and illegal Albanian
immigrants residing in the country exploited their children. Women and children arrived as
"tourists" or illegal immigrants and were lured into prostitution
by club owners who threatened them with deportation. There were reports that
traffickers kidnapped victims, including minors, from their homes abroad and
smuggled them into the country, where they were sold to local procurers.
Traffickers less frequently confined victims to apartments, hotels, and clubs
against their will, failed to register them with authorities, and forced them
to surrender their passports. Some rescued victims reported being given small
stipends, mobile phones, and limited freedoms but nevertheless were coerced,
threatened, and abused by their traffickers. Concluding
Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) - 2002 [76] Welcoming the State party’s
recent bill in this regard, the Committee remains concerned: (b) At reports of children being
trafficked into, and sometimes through, the State party for, inter alia,
sexual exploitation; Human
trafficking a Games pitfall, researcher warns In its report, the Future Group
said German authorities employed a
coordinated effort to combat human trafficking related to an increased demand
for prostitution during the 2006 World Cup of soccer. It involved public
education, cooperation with social agencies and tight border controls. In the
end, while officials did see an increase in prostitution, they did not detect
a rise in trafficking. However, in Greece, in 2004 -- the same year the country hosted the summer
Olympics -- the country did not adopt measures that were as strong and a
95-per-cent increase in human-trafficking cases was recorded. "Greek security forces
uncovered members of an international criminal group that has been operating
for the last two years," Greek police security chief Drossos
Bougoudis told reporters. "They were trafficking women from
eastern Europe and Balkans," he said.
Three Ukrainian women, held against their will in an Athens apartment,
were freed and now in safe hands, police said. "Members of the gang were
luring women from these regions promising them legal work and were keeping
them in several apartments in Athens," Bougoudis
said. Agencies
involved in human trafficking, says expert Journalist Pavlos
Nerantzis told a seminar on "Trafficking in
Human Beings" held in Thessaloniki on Monday,
that human trafficking rings had changed their mode of operation, enlisting
travel agencies to handle the issue of necessary travel documents for women
wishing to come to Greece or go to other countries, Athens News Agency
reported. He added that as soon as these
victims reached their destination, the travel documents were taken away from
them and they were led to prostitution. Joint
police operation in SE European countries targets human trafficking A simultaneous police operation in
Greece
and other southeast European countries led to discovery and rescue of more
than 460 young women, all reportedly victims of human trafficking, Athens
News Agency reported on Monday. The Greek government estimates
that there are some 3,000 unaccompanied Albanian children in the country,
with more coming during the summer months. In oral evidence about the
trafficking of Albanian children to Greek
Police Dismantle International Human Trafficking Ring The ring sought out young women and undertook to provide
them with travel documents, promising them legitimate work as baby-sitters,
domestic help or waitresses once they arrived in Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Trafficking
of Migrant Women for Forced Prostitution into Greece Despite widespread acknowledgment
that trafficking of human beings for the purpose of forced prostitution has
escalated dramatically in recent years, the government of Greece has failed
to address this problem. Greece has failed to take action to prevent
trafficking, to protect the victims of trafficking, and to prosecute the
traffickers. Moreover, efforts to identify and prosecute law enforcement and
other officials complicit in trafficking are inadequate. Child
Trafficking Between Albania And Greece For the last three years, the
Swiss Foundation, Terre des hommes, has been
fighting against the trafficking of children from poor villages around Elbasan and Korca in Albania to
Greece. The traffickers force the children to beg in tourist places in
Greece. [page 31] CASE NO 3 - Elixhena T. has
denounced a young couple as her traffickers. They made me a beggar in Athens. “In the summer of 1998, I ended up
in the hands of a young married couple, - says the girl – and in few days I
was in Greece. At the beginning they beat me by saying that I had to beg on
the streets and in this way I could help my family. I didn’t agree but they
put me in the street”. The girl declared that she begged every day in the
centre of Athens, so she knew and was known to many people, especially those
who gave her money. The girl said that during this time she didn’t lose
contact with her family. Thousands of migrant women and
girls as young as 12 are trafficked to Greece and sold into forced prostitution
each year. They are the ill-fated pawns in one of the most profitable organised criminal activities in the world, after the
illicit trade of drugs and guns. Many of the women have been lured to Greece
under false pretences. They were promised a better life here, a well-paid job
as a waitress or a maid, but were deceived. Once in the country, they were
beaten, raped and traded like a commodity. Psychologically crushed into
suppression and stripped of their passports by ruthless pimps and owners of
brothels, strip clubs and seedy massage parlours,
these women and girls are forced to "work off" exorbitant debts
owed to traffickers. As many as 20,000 women, including 1,000 girls between
the ages of 13 and 15, have been sold so far into Greece's alarmingly booming
sex trade industry for thousands of euros each. They are mainly from the
Balkans and countries of the former Soviet Union. East
European prostitutes find haven in Greece The hostel looks ordinary enough
-- four bedrooms, a television room, a work room with two computers, a
kitchen and a bathroom located above a charity medical centre in a run-down
district of the Greek capital. But 15 Michalis Boda Street, Athens,
opened on October 24, is the first shelter in Greece for east Europeans lured
by human traffickers into prostitution and there are security guards on the
door to prevent pimps sinking their claws back into their prey. Additional
measures taken by the Greek Ministry of Public Order and the Greek Police OKEA has contributed to the
mobilization of relevant NGO's and governmental agencies to take appropriate action
in combating human trafficking, especially within the framework of the Greek
Presidency. Combating human trafficking is a priority for all Greek police
services. The Police Headquarters is actively involved with the Department of
Public Safety, whose director is a member of OKEA.
Three officers have been assigned to deal specifically with issues of human
trafficking and to provide guidance to the regional police services. Special
anti-trafficking squads in the Public Safety Divisions of Athens and Thessaloniki will start operations by the end of October
2003. The turnover from the exploitation
of women and children forced into prostitution in Greece has come to an
astronomical 6 billion euros over the last 10 years, an academic who has
studied the subject said yesterday.
The decade of 1990-2000 showed a great increase in the problem of forced
prostitution, with an estimated 75,500 women and children victims, said Grigoris Lazos, a sociologist
and criminologist at Panteion University. The fight against human
trafficking in Greece received a tentative boost last month after the launch
of the country’s first shelter for victims of human trafficking. Thousands of
women from the former Eastern European bloc are trapped in sex trade networks
and forced into prostitution in brothels around Europe. “We’re not dealing with illegal
prostitution but female slaves,” said Nikitas Kanakis, president of the Greek Medecins
du Monde (MDM). “The
shelter is the first step for a new beginning for these women,” he added. The modern slave trade: Forced prostitution THE CHRONICLE OF SHAME NADIA FROM KIEV - Twenty-two-year-old Nadia from Kiev had supported herself as a dancer during the difficult years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, having studied classical ballet as a child. As a member of a dance troupe, she visited Greece twice on a group tourist visa. In 2000, she received a solo job offer in this country through the same Ukrainian agent with whom she had collaborated before. On her arrival, she was met by the Greek club owner. She received a rude shock when she realized that in reality, her employer had bought her. He took her passport, locked her in her room, deprived her of food, and beat her to make her realize that her survival depended on him from then on. Her treatment became even harsher as her legal period of residence in Greece drew to a close. He demanded that she prostitute herself. After eight months in Greece, she was arrested by the police during a chance sweep, and deported. At the first train station inside Bulgaria, the Bulgarian mafia boarded the train and kidnapped Nadia, along with another six women. She was prostituted again, this time in Karditsa, again by force and fed with drugs. The most common way ‘sex slaves’
are trapped is by responding to newspaper advertisements for a job in a
European country as a maid or a baby sitter – no documents or passport
required. They usually end up as hostages of organised
crime gangs forced into prostitution to the tune of an average of 12,000 men
annually. Under the threat of bodily harm to themselves and their family back
home, most women are forced to comply, while passports are withheld by organised prostitution circuits for ‘safekeeping’. THE DECISION TO ACT - In Greece there are an
estimated 30,00 trafficking victims who stay for an average of two years
before being passed on to another European country. VICTIMS NOT CRIMINALS - But women fortunate enough to
escape their captors sometimes do so only temporarily. “Many women are
pursued by gangs again and sent back to Greece,’ Kanakis
said. NGOs are strengthening ties with victims’ embassies to facilitate their
repatriation and obtain necessary documents. Johnson's Russia List #5256 - May 16, 20011 http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/5256.html#4 Lena leapt at the chance to go to
Greece as a maid. But the day Lena arrived, her employers seized her
passport, beat her, and … East
European Women Trapped In Sex Slavery POLICE CAN'T BE TRUSTED - Usually the women are forced to
stay in the brothels, often behind barred windows. Sometimes a woman finds a client who will
help her escape, Mrs. Shvab said. "But we do
not recommend [that the women] contact police. Authorities in Greece advise
them to contact the office of a public prosecutor because the police are
corrupt. Often, they themselves are [brothel] clients." IHF-HR: "A Form of Slavery: Trafficking in Women in OSCE Member States" - Country Reports - GREECE Regarding the coercion of victims,
the following methods were uncovered: o
Their documents are kept in order to stop them from escaping. o
They are often raped, kept without food or water or unable to use the toilet
in order to make them more “willing to cooperate”. o
If they come from religious families, offenders threaten to tell the
victims’ parents or relatives, even videotapes are secretly made for the
purpose of blackmail. There are seldom injuries or beating
that could “spoil” the future exploitation of the woman. Often, women are
forced to see over fifty “customers” per day, to the extent that they lose a
sense of time and space and lose consciousness. Recently, a thirteen-year-old
girl managed to get to the police and escape her imprisonment and torture.
She had been brought illegally and forcefully from Albania in order to work
as a prostitute. She had been imprisoned for six months. 1.
The linked article has been taken down, moved or restricted All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC §
107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use |
Human Trafficking in [Greece Street Children in [Greece] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Greece] [other countries]