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/Greece.htm
Greece is a
destination and transit country for women and children trafficked for the
purpose of sexual exploitation and for men and children trafficked for the
purpose for forced labor. … One NGO reported that there were many teenage
male sex trafficking victims from Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa in
Greece. … Child labor trafficking victims were subjected to forced begging
and forced to engage in petty crimes. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in
Persons Report, June, 2009 Check out a later country report here or a full TIP Report here |
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in 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. HELP for Victims National Center for Emergency Social
Assistance ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** IHF-HR: "A
Form of Slavery: Trafficking in Women in OSCE Member States" - Country
Reports - GREECE International www.greekhelsinki.gr/english/reports/ihf-wit-july-2000-greece.html [accessed 7 February
2011] www.refworld.org/docid/46963afd0.html [accessed 29 January
2018] 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 *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Greece 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/greece/
[accessed 7 June
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR There were reports
of forced labor of women, children, and men, mostly in the agricultural
sector. Forced begging (see section 7.c., Prohibition of Child Labor and
Minimum Age for Employment) mostly occurred in metropolitan areas and
populous islands, focusing on popular metro stations, squares, and meeting
places. Penalties for violations were commensurate to those of other serious
crimes, but victims seldom reported violations. Agricultural
workers at Manolada in Ilia, Peloponnese, reported
on April 1 that they had to live in makeshift huts for 10 to 20 persons, that
were covered with layers of nylon, without running water, and had showers and
toilets placed outside, according to the Manolada
Watch initiative launched by the NGO Generation 2.0 for Rights, Equality
& Diversity, to monitor the living and working conditions of migrants
workers. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Child labor was a
problem in the informal economy. Younger family members often assisted
families in agriculture, food service, and merchandising on at least a
part-time basis. Family members compelled some children to beg, pick pockets,
or sell merchandise on the street, or trafficked
them for the same purposes. The government and NGOs reported the majority
were indigenous Roma, Bulgarian, Romanian, or Albanian Roma. The pandemic
caused fewer street children in Thessaloniki to “work,” the NGO ARSIS
reported on June 12. For example, ARSIS estimated that approximately 50
children were working in the streets from January to April, as opposed to 189
children during the same period in 2019. There were reports unaccompanied
migrant children were particularly vulnerable to labor exploitation and
worked mainly in the agricultural and, to a lesser extent, manufacturing
sectors. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/greece/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 8 July
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS ENJOY
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? Most residents
enjoy legal protections against exploitative working conditions, but labor
laws are not always adequately enforced. Migrants and asylum seekers are
especially vulnerable to trafficking for forced labor or sexual exploitation,
and government efforts to combat the problem, while increasing, remain
insufficient, according to the US State Department. The Greek cabinet
approved an increase in the minimum wage to 650 euros in January, up by 11
percent. I was sold into
sexual slavery Elizabeth Day, The
Observer, 18 January 2015 www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jan/18/i-was-sold-into-sexual-slavery?CMP=fb_gu [accessed 18 January
2015] On holiday in
Greece as a 14-year-old, Megan Stephens fell in love. But her boyfriend
turned out to be a pimp who trafficked her for six
years. She tells her story to Elizabeth Day. Megan’s story is a
horrifying one. It is a story of how a vulnerable teenage girl on holiday in
Greece with her mother was trafficked into the sex industry and spent six
years as a prostitute – in brothels, on the streets, in dingy hotel rooms –
before finally making her escape from a life of relentless physical and
sexual abuse. It is horrifying not only because of the sadistic violence she
endured, but also because of how easily she seemed to slip into this spiral
of depravity and how difficult she found it to get out. Human Trafficking
Scheme from Bulgaria Busted in Greece Sofia News Agency,
August 16, 2012 www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=142382 [accessed 17 August
2012] Police in Greece
have cracked a network for human trafficking from Bulgaria, in which
Bulgarians were forced to beg. The undisclosed number of Bulgarians were held in an apartment in the
central Greek city of Larissa. The Bulgarians were
among the country's poor, and were lured with promises for work in
Greece. After that, they were
forcefully held, were made to beg in various European countries, and were
severely beaten at each attempt to escape. Greek police
discovered the network, after a 58-year-old male Bulgarian was hospitalized
after being abandoned outside the city following such a beating. Major human
trafficking ring busted in nationwide sweep www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3719151 [accessed 30 August
2011] www.pseka.net/news/index.php?module=article&id=9685 [accessed 29 January
2018] The women coming to
Greece from abroad were picked up at Athens airport and installed in an
Athens apartment with promises that they would be made legal residents in
exchange for an exorbitant fee. They were then
imprisoned in the apartment by members of the ring until they had payed off their so-called debts, sleeping 12 to a room
and paying five euros a day in rent, one euro to use cold water, two euros
for hot water and five euros to wash their clothes. Several of them
were sent to work in bars and strip clubs in Karditsa
and Florina, for which the ring received a one-off payment for their
"sale" to the club owners, who then kept all the money that they
earned. In order to force them into prostitution or other sexual acts with
clients, they were beaten and threatened. Human trafficking a
Games pitfall, researcher warns The www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=c8b93773-4373-465c-92a3-4c5af740bec7 [accessed 7 February
2011] www.pressreader.com/canada/vancouver-sun/20071102/283094179760967 [accessed 28 April
2020] 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 Human trafficking
ring busted Reuters, news.oneindia.in/2007/07/10/greek-police-break-up-human-trafficking-ring-1184007980.html [accessed 7 February
2011] www.iol.co.za/news/world/human-trafficking-ring-busted-361217 [accessed 5 June
2017] "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 Xinhua News Agency,
November 14, 2006 english.people.com.cn/200611/14/eng20061114_321236.html [accessed 7 February
2011] Journalist Pavlos Nerantzis told a seminar
on "Trafficking in Human Beings" held in 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 Xinhua News Agency,
October 03, 2006 english.people.com.cn/200610/03/eng20061003_308443.html [accessed 7 February
2011] A simultaneous
police operation in Children of the
Stoplights Discarded Lies,
January 14, 2005 www.windsofchange.net/archives/006160.html [accessed 7 February
2011] discardedlies.com/entry/?2078 [accessed 29 January
2018] 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 Xinhua News Agency, news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-02/19/content_2593030.htm [accessed 7 February
2011] 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 Trafficking of
Migrant Women for Forced Prostitution into Greece Human Rights Watch
Backgrounder www.hrw.org/backgrounder/eca/greece/greece_memo_back.htm [accessed 7 February
2011] Despite widespread
acknowledgment that trafficking of human beings for the purpose of forced
prostitution has escalated dramatically in recent years, the government of Child Trafficking
Between Albania And Greece Stop Child
Trafficking, 01. 06. 2005 At one time this article
had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 5
September 2011] 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 Joint East West
Research Project On Trafficking In Children For Sexual Purposes In Europe:
The Sending Countries - Compiled by Alma Maksutaj, Programme
Coordinator, www.defenceforchildren.nl/images/13/2769.pdf [accessed 29 August
2014] childhub.org/en/system/tdf/library/attachments/50_141_EN_original.pdf?file=1&type=node&id=6981 [accessed 5 February
2019] [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. New Fight to Stop
Sex Trade Kathy Tzilivakis, www.helleniccomserve.com/archivedgreeknews33.html [accessed 7 February
2011] Thousands of migrant
women and girls as young as 12 are trafficked to 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 Didier Kunz, Agence France-Presse AFP, quickstart.clari.net/qs_se/webnews/wed/ab/Qgreece-eeurope.R8mp_DOU.html [accessed 7 February
2011] talk.politics.european-union.narkive.com/TKxn4gz0/greece-sex-trade-is-a-big-industry [accessed 29 January
2018] [scroll down] 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 At one time this article
had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 5
September 2011] 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. Campaign against
sex slavery Kathimerini, English Edition,
June 27, 2002 www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_politics_100016_27/06/2002_18048 [accessed 7 February
2011] www.ekathimerini.com/6712/article/ekathimerini/news/campaign-against-sex-slavery [accessed 5 February
2019] 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. Sex slaves' refuge - At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 5
September 2011] The fight against
human trafficking in The chronicle of
shame Fotini Kalliri,
Kathimerini, English Edition, December 27, 2001 www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=11774 [accessed 7 February
2011] www.ekathimerini.com/2472/article/ekathimerini/news/the-modern-slave-trade-forced-prostitution [accessed 5 February
2019] [scroll down to THE CHRONICLE OF SHAME] NADIA FROM 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. Sex slavery
warriors
- At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 5
September 2011] 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. Fred Weir, Special to
The Christian Science Monitor, 16 May 2001 www.csmonitor.com/2001/0516/p1s2.html [accessed 30 August
2012] Lena, a Russian
woman in her 20s, still remembers the friendly middle-aged woman who spun a
tale of her own daughter going abroad and sending cash home to her mother.
Lena leapt at the chance to go to Greece
as a maid. But the day East European Women
Trapped In Sex Slavery Irina Sandul, The www.sos-sexisme.org/English/east.htm [accessed 7 February
2011] 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." Concluding
Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) - 2002 UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 1 February 2002 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/greece2002.html [accessed 7 February
2011] [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; ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61651.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] 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. All
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