Skopje (North Macedonia), 10 January 2024 - A married couple forces four children to beg from morning until night in cities across Bosnia and Herzegovina for over a year.
In Slovenia, a father sells his teenage daughter off to marry a former convict, who physically and mentally abuses her.
Meanwhile, in North Macedonia, a 12-year-old girl is forced to drink alcohol, dance on billiard tables and have sex with men in bars and cars.
“These cases illustrate how children in South Eastern Europe, including migrants and refugees, are being cruelly exploited by human traffickers,” said Davor Raus, a crime prevention expert from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
He was speaking from Skopje, North Macedonia, where UNODC had brought together over 60 anti-human trafficking experts from 20 countries to discuss ways to combat this crime.
UNODC’s latest global report on human trafficking shows that children account for around a quarter of all detected victims in South Eastern Europe.
Forced begging is the most recorded form of trafficking in children. Cases of sexual and labour exploitation, domestic servitude, and forced marriage are also prevalent.
“We’re no longer fighting against lone wolves, but against veritable packs,” said Romanian prosecutor, Dan Alexandru Popa, who specializes in investigations into organized crime.
“We get new resources, but the organized criminal networks get them too, on a much larger scale. The criminals react faster than we do, because we have rules to follow, and they don’t.”
He presented details of an ongoing trial against 14 German and Romanian defendants who are charged with being part of an organized crime group and trafficking minors between 2014 and 2019.
According to the indictment, they exploited vulnerable teenagers who were brought from Germany into Romania under the guise of a ‘rehabilitation and educational programme’ provided by a Romanian foundation on a remote residence in the north of the country.
“The young people were submitted to very strict forms of containment and supervision, physically and psychologically abused and forced to do daily exhausting labours,” said Dan Alexandru Popa.
“This organized crime group misused and appropriated large amounts from the funding received for the minors’ welfare from the German State, amounting to approximately 4,000 euros per child per month,” explained the prosecutor.
Links between migrant smuggling and human trafficking were also highlighted through an ongoing case in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which two Afghan nationals are accused of trafficking crimes, including sexual exploitation and forced criminality.
The indictment states that in 2022, the men were targeting unaccompanied Afghan children in a refugee camp. They deceived the children with a false promise of smuggling them into the European Union for no charge.
Instead, they were taken to an abandoned house close to the Croatian border where they were forced to commit crimes related to an illicit migrant smuggling operation.
The men used violence and sexual exploitation to control the children. The smugglers even filmed some of the sexual exploitation, threatening to publicize or sell the footage online.
“The physical, sexual and emotional abuse endured by many child victims of human trafficking can lead to long-term trauma and mental health issues,” said Stojne Atanasovska Dimishkovska, UNODC’s National Programme Officer in North Macedonia.
The anti-human trafficking expert explains that years of missed education hinders cognitive and social development and makes the reintegration and rehabilitation process for child victims more difficult.
She added: “The impact on children is often magnified due to their vulnerability, developmental stage, and dependency on caregivers, who in some cases are the people who are exploiting them.”
At the recent regional meeting, police officers, prosecutors, judges, victim support specialists, and representatives from international organizations, such as INTERPOL and UNICEF, discussed how to implement meaningful action to combat this crime.
Topics discussed included the latest trafficking trends, best practices in the prevention and detection of cases, the prosecution of the perpetrators, as well as the protection of victims.
Closing remarks were provided by Elodie Goyard, Regional Expert on the Fight against Trafficking in Human Beings from the Permanent Mission of France to the United Nations and the International Organizations in Vienna, which co-organized the event in Skopje with UNODC.
France is a destination country for child trafficking victims from South Eastern Europe, who are predominately exploited by being forced to beg and steal.
Referring to the debates as “quality and fruitful” she said: “We learnt how the traffickers are becoming more professional and organized.”
Furthermore, she mentioned the importance of “immediate and lasting protection of victims and compensation” to aid rehabilitation and avoid revictimization.
“More effort is needed to break down the prejudices surrounding certain so-called ‘cultural practices’, such as forced marriage or forced begging.These preconceived opinions encourage the impunity of the perpetrators,” concluded Goyard.
