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Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

Poverty drives the unsuspecting poor into the hands of traffickers

Published reports & articles from 2000 to 2025                                           gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Italy.htm

Italian Republic (Italy)

Italy has a diversified industrial economy, which is divided into a developed industrial north, dominated by private companies, and a less-developed, welfare-dependent, agricultural south, with high unemployment. The Italian economy is driven in large part by the manufacture of high-quality consumer goods produced by small and medium-sized enterprises. Italy also has a sizable underground economy, which by some estimates accounts for as much as 15% of GDP. These activities are most common within the agriculture, construction, and service sectors.  [The World Factbook, U.S.C.I.A. 2009]

Description: Description: Description: Italy

Italy is a destination and transit country for women, children, and men trafficked internationally for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children are trafficked for forced prostitution mainly from Nigeria, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Albania, and Ukraine but also from Russia, South America, North and East Africa, the Middle East, China, and Uzbekistan. Chinese men and women are trafficked to Italy for the purpose of forced labor. Roma children continue to be trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced begging. Men are trafficked for the purpose of forced labor, mostly in the agricultural sector in southern Italy.  - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009    Check out a later country report here or a full TIP Report here

 

 

CAUTION:  The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Italy.  Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false.  No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

HOW TO USE THIS WEB-PAGE

Students

If you are looking for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this page and others to see which aspects of Human Trafficking are of particular interest to you.  Would you like to write about Forced-Labor?  Debt Bondage? Prostitution? Forced Begging? Child Soldiers? Sale of Organs? etc.  On the other hand, you might choose to include precursors of trafficking such as poverty and hunger. There is a lot to the subject of Trafficking.  Scan other countries as well.  Draw comparisons between activity in adjacent countries and/or regions.  Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources that are available on-line.

Teachers

Check out some of the Resources for Teachers attached to this website.

*** FEATURED ARTICLE ***

Italy Rushes in Law to Ban 'Spare Part' Baby Sales

Bruce Johnston in Rome, The Telegraph, May 18, 2003

www.vachss.com/help_text/a2/italy_baby_sales.html

[accessed 14 February 2011]

Italy's government has vowed to push through legislation to stop the sale of human organs after a female gang auctioned off a newborn child near the southern port of Bari, possibly so that its organs could be used for transplants.

The three-strong gang of Ukrainians, including the baby's mother, sold the boy for 350,000 euros (£250,000) while he was still in the womb, not realising that the successful bidders were undercover carabinieri police officers.

6,000 children smuggled to the west each year for sex

Philip Willan in Rome, The Guardian, 12 July 2002

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/12/internationalcrime

[accessed 15 February 2011]

Researchers have identified north-eastern Italy as a key sorting centre for girls from eastern Europe who are either sold by their parents, kidnapped by organised crime gangs, or lured abroad by the mirage of a better life.

There is a particularly high concentration of juvenile sex slaves in the area between Padua and Venice, with 20% of prostitutes under the age of 18, compared to 5% in other Italian cities, the charity said.  Last year 250 girls managed to escape from their exploiters and seek assistance from the Italian state.

 

*** ARCHIVES ***

Romanian man jailed in Italy over human trafficking ring

Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo and Annie Kelly, The Guardian, 30 Dec 2019

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/dec/30/romanian-man-jailed-in-italy-over-human-trafficking-ring

[accessed 4 January 2020]

Guardian investigation in 2017 revealed Romanian women were being exploited on farms

An Italian court has sentenced a Romanian man to 20 years in prison for human trafficking after a Guardian investigation revealed that thousands of women from Romania were being raped and used as forced labour on farms in Sicily.

A court heard that the women were forced to live in terrible conditions in outbuildings on farms without heating, were not paid for their manual labour, were given rotten food to eat, and were beaten and forced to have sex with their employers and other men.

“Women were persuaded to move to Italy with the promise of a decent job and shared living space with fellow Romanians,” she said. “When they arrived here in Ragusa and then learned that they had been deceived, it was too late. They were forced to work every day and to prostitute themselves. They were raped by members of the gang, and everything they earned went to their torturers. They were enslaved, in the true sense of the word.”

2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Italy

U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, 30 March 2021

www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/italy/

[accessed 11 June 2021]

PROHIBITION OF FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR

Forced labor occurred. According to NGO reporting, workers were subjected to debt bondage in construction, domestic service, hotels, restaurants, and agriculture, especially in the south. There continued to be anecdotal evidence that limited numbers of Chinese nationals were forced to work in textile factories and that criminal groups coerced persons with disabilities from Romania and Albania into begging. In the southeastern region of Sicily, 30,000 workers on approximately 5,500 farms worked through the pandemic for as little as 15 euros ($18) per day. There were also reports of children subjected to forced labor (see section 7.c.).

PROHIBITION OF CHILD LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT

There were some reports of child labor during the year, primarily in migrant or Romani communities. In 2019 labor inspectors and Carabinieri officers identified 243 underage laborers, of whom 210 were working in the services sector. In March 2019 police arrested two parents whose underage son was working in a carwash in Acate in the province of Ragusa. He and his two sisters were not enrolled in school.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Policies recognized that unaccompanied minors were vulnerable to becoming child laborers in agriculture, bars, shops, and construction and worked to prevent exploitation by placing them in protected communities that provided education and other services. The law also created a roster of vetted and trained voluntary guardians at the juvenile court-level to help protect unaccompanied minors. According to a report by Save the Children, elements of the law have yet to be fully implemented across the country, although significant progress was made.

Freedom House Country Report

2020 Edition

freedomhouse.org/country/italy/freedom-world/2020

[accessed 8 July 2020]

G4. DO INDIVIDUALS ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION?

The authorities generally enforce legal protections against exploitative working conditions. However, informally employed workers, including the many migrants and asylum seekers who have entered the country in recent years, are more vulnerable to abuses. The trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation also remains a concern, and the 2019 US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report noted that Italian government does not meet minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Despite the government actively working to identify and prosecute traffickers and fund services for victims, they have decreased law enforcement and protection efforts and trafficking rings and networks have become more sophisticated and violent. Italy also did not heed or adequately assess referrals of victims of trafficking from international NGOs and humanitarian organizations, returning victims to countries where they would be at high risk of further danger.

Thai woman jailed for 14 years for human trafficking

Agence France-Presse AFP, Bangkok, Jun 17, 2008

trafficking.org.ph/v5/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2104&Itemid=56

[accessed 28 August 2014]

news.abs-cbn.com/world/06/17/08/thai-woman-jailed-14-years-human-trafficking

[accessed 6 June 2017]

[name withheld] from Thailand's poor northeast, lured two women in their 20s and 30s from her hometown with the promise of work in her daughter's restaurant, a statement from the Fight Against Child Exploitation (FACE) said.  But when the two women arrived in Italy via France in 2005, they were told no jobs were available at the restaurant and they had to work as prostitutes to repay the money Jomsri lent to them to travel to Europe.

Woman, 19, forced to swim with piranhas at circus

Richard Owen, Rome, Times Online, March 26, 2008

www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,341593,00.html

[accessed 23 April  2012]

www.envirolink.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6783&p=119345

[accessed 29 April 2020]

Police have closed down a circus in southern Italy after a terrified 19-year-old woman was forced to swim in a tank full of piranha fish while her younger sister endured the company of snakes and tarantulas. Three men have been arrested and charged with holding the Bulgarian women in slavery and breaching international human rights conventions.

Police said that the Bulgarian family had lived in the back of a cockroach-infested lorry used for animal transport. The only meat they had been given since January was in leftovers from the circus owners' Easter lunch last weekend.

SOCIAL TRENDS: Fighting modern-day slavery

Laura Clarke, Wanted in Rome, 20/02/2008

rome.wantedineurope.com/news/2000666/social-trends-fighting-modern-day-slavery.html

[accessed 30 August 2012]

Once in Italy the victims are subject to intense physical and emotional abuse, working up to 20 hours a day under the watchful eye of their pimp or madam, or of a fellow forced sex worker. They are deprived of their documents and are required to pay board and lodging as well as rent on the stretch of roadside they work; many are also tied to their traffickers by a debt bond sometimes running to tens of thousands of euro, which it can take many years – and thousands of clients – to redeem. However, due to the stigma still attached to prostitution, the weight of personal or family expectations or fear of the consequences for them or their loved ones if they speak out, many are unable or unwilling to denounce their condition.

Trafficking for sexual exploitation is only the tip of the iceberg – the most visible form of the phenomenon in Italy that also includes forced labour especially in the agricultural sector, begging and the sale of drugs. Up to ten per cent of trafficking victims in Italy are children according to the 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report; they include a growing number of Romanians as a result of the forced closure of orphanages in Romania imposed by the European Union as a condition for entry into the EU in 2007. However the more clandestine nature of these activities and a lower level of public and political awareness mean that figures are hard to come by and the victims more difficult to reach.

Combating Trafficking for Forced Labor Purposes in the OSCE Region

Mark P. Lagon, Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Hearing Before the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Washington, DC, October 11, 2007

2001-2009.state.gov/g/tip/rls/rm/07/93496.htm

[accessed 11 July 2013]

Last year, press reports indicated that in Poland, announcements in local newspapers lured workers to Italy for seasonal jobs picking fruit and vegetables. They were promised an hourly wage of up to $7.50, only after paying a finder’s fee and travel costs. Once in Italy the reality was much different. Nearly 100 Polish workers were forced to live in barracks with no sanitation or running water, fed only bread and water and were paid just $1.25 an hour. With these meager wages, they were unable to pay the room and board and were pushed into debt. Attempts to resist were met with severe beatings and torture.

With scars that will never heal, one woman fights human trafficking

Elisabetta Povoledo, The New York Times Europe, Aosta, September 21, 2007

www.nytimes.com/2007/09/21/world/europe/21iht-traffic.4.7597912.html?_r=2

[accessed 14 February 2011]

"You can't imagine before you come that you're going to end up a slave," Aikpitanyi said in an interview in the elegant main square of Aosta, where she now lives. "You don't realize that the world has returned to an era of slavery."  Her story mirrors that of tens of thousands of women from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe who have been lured to the West by the prospect of well-paid work as salesclerks or in factories.

Once there, however, many find that the organizations they used to handle the travel arrangements had criminal intentions in mind.  Documents are withheld. Women find themselves isolated and are frightened into thinking that they will be deported if they turn to the authorities for help.  Many are forced into prostitution, especially - as Aikpitanyi discovered to her horror - if there is a substantial travel debt to repay (€30,000, or $42,000, in her case) and a large family back home to support.

Falling Short of the Mark: An International Study on the Treatment of Human Trafficking Victims [PDF]

The Future Group, March 2006

www.oas.org/atip/canada/Fallingshortofthemark.pdf

[accessed 14 February 2011]

lastradainternational.org/lsidocs/13%20Falling%20short%20of%20the%20mark%20(Future%20Group).pdf

[accessed 4 February 2019]

ITALY - Italy is generally meeting international standards under the Trafficking Protocol for the protection of victims of human trafficking, and it is a signatory to the European Trafficking Convention. It provides for temporary residence for victims and combines government funded support with civil society initiatives to protect these vulnerable persons. There are, however, some troubling cases involving rapid deportations of victims originating from certain countries which warrant further attention.

RESIDENCE - Since 1998, Italian immigration law has provided foreign victims of human trafficking with a special residence permit for a 6-month period.

New study shames human traffickers

Patrick Mathangani, Standard Online, May 11, 2007

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 6 September 2011]

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) says Kenyans were also trafficked to Germany, Italy and South Africa for domestic labour and prostitution.

Its report, ‘Trafficking in Persons — The Eastern Africa Situation’, notes that women and children were favourite targets for well-organised trafficking rings, which operate freely for lack of solid laws against the vice.

Italian police crack down on human trafficking

Deutsche Presse-Agentur DPA, Rome, Jan 24, 2007

www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Italian_police_crack_down_on_human__01242007.html

[accessed 11 July 2013]

'The trafficking and forced prostitution of women, and minors in particular, is one of the most ignoble crimes committed in Italy,' Amato said.  Police said Wednesday's arrests capped a four-month-long investigation that allowed them to uncover how human traffickers operate in Italy.

Some girls were 'bought' by traffickers for 200 euros (260 dollars) in their home country and were then brought to Italy, where they were forced to prostitute themselves. The money they earned, which averaged 5,000 euros per month, was kept by their captors. Women who dared rebel were often beaten and abused.  Police said one 16-year-old girl was forced to have unprotected sex and was sent back on the streets until she was six-months pregnant.

Suspected human trafficking gang leader nabbed in Poland

Deutsche Presse-Agentur (German Press Agency) DPA, Warsaw, 15 November 2006

rawstory.com/news/2006/Suspected_human_trafficking_gang_le_11152006.html

[accessed 27 January 2015]

In July, a joint operation saw Italian and Polish police free more than a hundred Polish citizens that were being held in Nazi-style labour camps in Italy's Apulia region, close to the cities of Bari and Foggi.  Polish prosecutors investigating the Italian slave labour camps using Polish nationals began questioning victims in the case in mid- October.  Polish justice officials believe that up to 1,000 Poles may have been used as slaves in Nazi-style agricultural labour camps in the Apulia region that forms the heel of Italy's boot.

Italy Urges Action on Slave Trade

The Advocates for Human Rights, Rome, 23 October 2006 -- Compiled from Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (Italian news agency) ANSA, "Italy Urges Action on Slave Trade", 19 October 2006

stopvaw.org/http_www_stopvaw_org_traffic.html

[accessed 14 February 2011]

Italy has been viewed as being strong in the area of anti-traffickign legislation.  10,000 victims have benefited from their laws between March 2000 and April 2005.  They have given victims training, education and work.  However, Catholic Charity Caritas feels that the initiatives are not fully meeting their goals.  Women are not given enough residency permits to stay in the country.  Also, they are not given legal protection so they are not secure from deportation.

Human Trafficking Ring Raided in Italy

Associated Press AP, Rome, 19 July 2006

articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-07-20/news/0607200423_1_trafficking-ring-arrests-labor-camps

[accessed 28 August 2014]

"Gangsters working in Poland recruited people looking for seasonal jobs picking fruit and vegetables in Italy through announcements in local newspapers," Bienkowski told a news conference.  He said workers had to pay travel costs and a one-time work-finders fee of up to $280. But once in Italy, their situation quickly deteriorated. The workers were promised $6.30-$7.50 per hour before leaving, but received only $1.25 an hour after arriving, Bienkowski said.  They were quartered in barracks with horrible sanitary conditions and had to pay for food and board, which pushed most of them into debt.

A Human Trafficking Victim Speaks With RFE/RL

Ankica Barbir Mladinovic, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL, Zagreb, June 15, 2006

www.rferl.org/content/article/1069198.html

[accessed 14 February 2011]

Martina was locked in a Rome apartment for two months. Instead of working in a restaurant, she was beaten and raped daily until she was “broken” and had become a sexual slave. Then, she says, the man who bought her took her out to the street.

New arrests on charges of human trafficking in Bulgaria

The Sofia Echo, Jun 05 2006

sofiaecho.com/2006/06/05/642586_new-arrests-on-charges-of-human-trafficking-in-bulgaria

[accessed 14 February 2011]

The actions of Bulgarian police were co-ordinated with Italy’s top anti-mafia prosecutor Piero Grasso, who is head of Italy’s anti-mafia operations. This co-ordination was a result of Velchev’s and Petkov’s recent visit to Rome where Grasso asked for their assistance in the fight against people trafficking.

Europe-Wide Human-Trafficking Ring Cracked

Associated Press AP, Reuters, May 29, 2006

www.rferl.org/content/article/1068749.html

[accessed 14 February 2011]

Authorities across Europe say they have arrested 41 Bulgarians in recent days after Italian police uncovered a trafficking network that exploited hundreds of children.  The arrests were in northern Italy, Bulgaria, Germany, and Austria. Italian police say another 75 people have been placed under investigation. Charges against the suspects include enslavement, human trafficking, and drug smuggling.

Trafficking in Women from Nigeria to Europe

Jørgen Carling, International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), Migration Policy Institute, July 1, 2005

www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/print.cfm?ID=318

[accessed 15 February 2011]

www.migrationpolicy.org/article/trafficking-women-nigeria-europe/

[accessed 29 April 2020]

DESTINATION ITALY - The most important European destination for Nigerian trafficking victims is Italy, where there may be as many as 10,000 Nigerian prostitutes.  The first Nigerian women who worked as prostitutes in Italy usually did so independently and were not trafficking victims. In the early 1990s, however, the rising difficulties of traveling to and settling in Europe meant that prospective emigrants were increasingly dependent on large loans.

Mafia arms, drugs, prostitution ring smashed

AFX News, Rome, 13.12.2005

www.finanznachrichten.de/nachrichten-2005-12/1993878-mafia-arms-drugs-prostitution-ring-smashed-italian-police-020.htm

[accessed 15 February 2011]

The network allegedly forced eastern European women into prostitution in Italy and trafficked drugs as well as guns destined for the Ndrangheta organized crime group in Calabria, southern Italy.  "The operation delivers a serious blow to an Italo-Albanian organization involved in the trade of human beings and the traffic of drugs and narcotics.

Italian Group Uses 'Street Units' to Protect Victims of Sex Trafficking

humantrafficking.org, September 2005 -- Adapted from: AdvocacyNet. News Bulletin - Number 44. 24 August 2005

www.humantrafficking.org/updates/310

[accessed 15 February 2011]

www.advocacynet.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/PR-46-TAMPEP-anti-trafficking-in-Italy.pdf

[accessed 11 February 2019]

TAMPEP's approach is to send out unita di strada (street units) that include 'cultural mediators' from the same background as the trafficked women and girls. The units seek out likely victims of trafficking, like Jessica, and offer them health education and testing. Once inside the privacy of a health clinic, social workers set out the woman's rights and options.

Sex Traffickers Prey On Eastern Europeans

Ron Synovitz, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty RFE/RL, August 23, 2005 (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service contributed to this report.)

www.rferl.org/content/article/1060878.html

[accessed 15 February 2011]

Maria says her nightmare began after she and the other women arrived in Italy and were met by several suspicious men. They were human traffickers in the illegal global sex industry.  One man in the building told Maria he had "bought" her for several hundred dollars. He said she owed him money for the cost of the airplane ticket and would have to work for him until the debt was repaid.  For the next nine months, Maria was forced against her will to work as a prostitute.

Trafficked Women in Italy Retain Faith Despite Exploitation

Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service CNS, Vatican City, June 22, 2005

www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0503678.htm

[accessed 11 July 2013]

archive.is/9iVii

[accessed 1 February 2018]

Women smuggled into Italy and forced to work as prostitutes experience a "nightmare" of exploitation and abuse that leave them intensely traumatized, said an Italian nun who heads an anti-trafficking initiative.  Almost 90 percent of the African women forced into prostitution in Italy come from Nigeria and many of them are Christian, she said.

Research based on case studies of victims of trafficking in human beings in 3 EU Member States, i.e. Belgium, Italy and The Netherlands [PDF]

Commission of the European Communities, DG Justice & Home Affairs, Hippokrates JAI/2001/HIP/023

Bruno Moens, Country Report, Belgium

Isabella Orfano, et.al., Country Report, Italy

Ruth Hopkins and Jan Nijboer. Country Report, The Netherlands

www.childtrafficking.com/Docs/payoke_on_the_road_de_rode_.pdf

[accessed 22 January 2011]

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 9 September 2011]

biblio.ugent.be/publication/216832

[accessed 28 May 2017]

[page 397]  EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - This project was carried out in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands concerning trafficking for the purposes of sexual and/or labour exploitation in countries other than the origin as well as victims of smuggling. The outset of the project was: to identify the practices and mechanisms of transnational crime related to trafficking, to contribute towards recommendations policy and to defines durable solutions for preventing and combating THB.

General recommendations are provided in 14 clusters. However, in each country report, the researchers offer an assessment of national laws and policies on THB as well as their assistance programs.

Italy, Nigeria Take Action against Human Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation

UN Information Service UNIS, Vienna, 21 January 2004

www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/pressrels/2004/uniscp460.html

[accessed 15 February 2011]

The main objective of the programme is to contribute to the formulation and implementation of effective policies in the field of criminal justice and social prevention to curb human trafficking practices. The project focuses particularly on improving judicial cooperation between the Nigerian and the Italian Government, on strengthening Nigerian law enforcement, prosecution and criminal justice agencies involved in counter trafficking, and also on awareness raising activities, both in Nigeria and Italy, in order to protect the victims of such crimes.

Albania Mourns Smuggling Victims

Blendi Dibra, OneWorld Southeast Europe, 14 January 2004

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 6 September 2011]

Albania mourns 21 human trafficking victims that died last Saturday in the speedboat that was transporting them to Italy. Fear remains that there have been more victims that swill have to be found in the waters of the Ionian sea.

Reining in Child Trafficking in the New EU

Lisa Kurbiel, UN Dept of Peacekeeping Ops, Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute MPI, July 2004

www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?id=238

[accessed 15 February 2011]

www.migrationpolicy.org/article/reining-child-trafficking-new-eu

[accessed 29 April 2020]

In this underworld of human trade, children are trafficked for prostitution, domestic services, and begging, as well as for work at construction sites, markets, small shops, and factories. Hidden from sight and beyond the reach of the law, these children are sexually abused, exposed to hazardous working conditions, confined to their workplace, and denied education, basic health care, adequate nutrition, and the safety and security of their families and communities. Treated like slaves, countless numbers are exposed to health risks, such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The particular physical, psychological, and psychosocial harm suffered by trafficked children in these situations, as well as their special vulnerability to exploitation, require that they be dealt with separately from adult trafficked persons in terms of laws, policies, programs, and interventions.

Is trafficking in human beings demand driven?: a multi-country pilot study

Bridget Anderson and Julia O’Connell Davidson, Save the Children Sweden, ISBN:91-7321-069-2, 2003

[Long URL]

[accessed 17 February 2022]

INTRODUCTION - Part I of this report sets out to review current debates and existing research on “the demand side of trafficking”.

New danger for Italy's foreign prostitutes

Tamsin Smith, BBC News, Rome, 12 September, 2003

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3103460.stm

[accessed 15 February 2011]

THREATS - "On 4 October 2002 a man brought me from Romania to Italy," says Helena, a slight 17-year-old, with an empty expression and bruises on her arms and chest which she tries to cover as she talks to me.  "He told me I had a job as a cleaner but he shut me in a house and took my passport.  "Then he and others beat me and raped me until I agreed to work on the streets. They said if I didn't do it they would kill my family."

Tackling the sex slave trade

Paula Dobriansky, Observer.co.uk, 2 March 2003

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/02/usa.gender

[accessed 15 February 2011]

Mercy escaped her slavers last year. Like many Nigerian women smuggled or lured into Italy with the promise of jobs, Mercy was forced into prostitution to earn her freedom. But escape did not end her nightmare. Three weeks after speaking publicly to human rights groups about her experience, her sister was reported dead in Florence, true to the threats made by her former captors.

Some pay to be smuggled into Europe, but end up as victims. In one smuggling run to Italy via Morocco, seventeen Nigerian girls died when their boat capsized on the Mediterranean Sea. Forty died after reaching their destination in Italy: brothels where women and girls are forced to pay off a $50,000 debt by servicing a dozen men per night.

Trafficking in Women to Italy for Sexual Exploitation

Migration Information Programme, International Organization for Migration IOM, June 1996

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 6 September 2011]

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The study describes how women are trafficked to Italy for sexual exploitation. The ways in which these women were recruited and transported to Italy, and the methods which are used to control and exploit them are discussed. The role played by traffickers is examined.

Slavery & Slave Trade In The African Union

African Unification Front AUF

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 6 September 2011]

TRAFFICKING NIGHTMARE FOR NIGERIAN CHILDREN - The children's ordeal begins in Benin City in Nigeria is a dusty, sweaty, frenetic and noisy place. Girls and boys are lured into sexual slavery with tales of riches in far-off lands.  Osamede Iguobaro was just 14 when she was approached at a local market. She was told she would earn big money pleating hair in Italy.  She was smuggled across a number of West African countries to the Ivory Coast where she was sold to a Nigerian woman - a "Madame" based in Italy.  Like so many other teenage girls, she was forced to become a prostitute.  The case is now before a Nigerian court but, even if convicted, the woman who sold her is likely to escape with a fine.  Grace Osakue, the founder of Girls Power Initiative, says the real tragedy of Osamede's story is just how routine it is.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 31 January 2003

www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/italy2003.html

[accessed 14 February 2011]

[49] The Committee welcomes the adoption of Act 269/98 against the exploitation of prostitution, pornography, and sexual tourism targeting children and the establishment of an Inter-Ministerial Committee for the Coordination of the Government Action Against Child Abuse and Trafficking in Minors and Women for Sexual Purposes. Nevertheless, the Committee remains concerned at the numbers of children who are trafficked for sexual purposes in the State party.

*** EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE ***

Human Rights Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, March 8, 2006

2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61655.htm

[accessed 9 February 2020]

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – Organized criminal groups were responsible for most trafficking in the country; prostitution rings routinely moved trafficked persons from city to city to avoid arrest.

Victims of trafficking were usually lured to Western Europe with promises of a job, or sold by relatives, friends, or acquaintances. They were then forced into prostitution, laboring in restaurants or sweatshops, or begging in the street. Their traffickers enforced compliance by taking their documents, beating and raping them, or threatening their families.

The following reported 2004 trafficking investigations remained ongoing at year's end: a Romanian father who was selling his 10‑year-old child for sex in the outskirts of Milan; two Albanians, one Egyptian, one Pakistani, and one Italian involved in trafficking women from Eastern European countries for prostitution; six Bulgarian men who accompanied Bulgarian women into the country who gave birth to children and then sold the babies to Italian families for $13,500 (10 thousand euros) each; 12 persons, including 2 police officers, who were arrested in Sassari and charged with trafficking for prostitution and falsification of documents; and four persons who were accused of organizing tours to Brazil that included the sexual services of girls ages 12 to 17.

All material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.  PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.  Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery - Italy", http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Italy.htm, [accessed <date>]