Human traffickers try to take advantage of refugee women’s situation
For many Ukrainian refugees arriving at Berlin’s Central Station, Sven Francke is a great hope. The slender 44-year-old stands with a notepad, wearing a yellow reflective vest. His cell phone is constantly vibrating, and Berliners are contacting him offering places to sleep.
Those who want to stay in Berlin for longer after fleeing war zones count on the hospitality of the German capital’s residents. The accommodation base run by the city is already completely overflowing. The need for shelter is now unscrupulously exploited by criminals.
“Attention: human traffickers”
Several times a day an urgent warning appears on the Telegram channel, where volunteers in Berlin organize themselves. “Attention! Human traffickers!” – it reads. Men have been approaching young women, coercing or persuading them to go with them in exchange for money. – Be vigilant and report your sightings to the police, the volunteers urge. Many wrote down the emergency number on their hand or on small pieces of paper.
Sven Francke has already seen several times how perpetrators sense their opportunity. Last weekend he was in charge of housing a family. – I was talking to the parents, their 15-year-old daughter was standing behind me. And suddenly she disappeared – he says. – We immediately started looking around, but there was no sign of her. Passers-by told us they saw the girl running away with a man,” he recalls. Sven immediately contacted the police, who told us they had no information about the case.
In the meantime, Francke can identify the suspects to some extent. – They are always men. They walk up and down, looking around surreptitiously,” he explains. Then they offer the young women accommodation. – But when we volunteers approach them, they quickly disappear, she adds. The perpetrators’ latest method, she says, is to pose as agents of nursing homes. – The traffickers] claim to offer jobs for caregivers, but when I asked them if they were interested in men as well, they walked away like they were burned,” he recalls.
They approach and offer accommodation
The Federal Police, which is responsible for security at train stations, confirms that there have been several such incidents at Berlin Central Station. According to the police union (GdP), these perpetrators belong to the “red light” community, among others. – “We observe that they are trying to take advantage of the plight of refugees,” explains Andreas Roßkopf, chairman of the district federal police of GdP, in an interview with “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.
They approach women at border stations and offer them accommodation, we hear. The police have reacted to this threat and have noticeably increased their presence at the station. Officers are patrolling the crowds and approaching suspiciously behaving men.
Christoph Chassee, a freelance cameraman who has been helping refugees for the past week, also noticed this. He witnessed two young men dressed in black down jackets offer a young mother and her little daughter a place to sleep right on the platform – instead of in the official arrivals area in the basement, where helpers arrange accommodation.
The exodus from Ukraine is an exodus of women.”
– This is a perfidious exploitation of an emergency situation. The refugees arrive in Berlin after a long journey and can’t stand it any longer. All they really want to do is sleep,” Chassee believes. Fortunately, he was standing next to a refugee woman with a child and managed to escort her to safety. – The exodus from Ukraine is an exodus of women,” says the filmmaker. According to Celina Hirt of the UN refugee agency in Berlin, the fact that they are reliant on private individuals “is a huge problem because no one guarantees women protection.”
According to UN figures, some two million war refugees have already left Ukraine. Tens of thousands have arrived in Germany, and the willingness to help is enormous. Those who want to help, however, should keep a few things in mind.
– We need to be aware that there are people, criminals, who may try to take advantage of the situation, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told the European Parliament on Tuesday. – There is a high risk that unaccompanied children will become victims of human trafficking, she noted.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) expressed concern on Wednesday that people are trying to exploit women from Ukraine who have fled the war. He said that special attention should be paid to whether anyone provides a private apartment in order to take control of the woman in this way.
The politician also said that the police have been sensitized to this problem. At the same time, Herrmann warned against exposing the volunteers to slander. There is no reason for that. Most of them simply want to help refugees.
Source:
Die Welt
This is so depressing. I despair.
Unfortunately I’m not surprised this is happening in Germany.
Sadly as far as I know a large percentage of pimps and middlemen and the gangsters that run this business in Western Europe come from the former Eastern Block, Ukraine and Russia in particular and it breaks my heart to even imagine that one meets her compatriot hearing the language and feeling relieved at first
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Human traffickers try to take advantage of refugee women’s situation
For many Ukrainian refugees arriving at Berlin’s Central Station, Sven Francke is a great hope. The slender 44-year-old stands with a notepad, wearing a yellow reflective vest. His cell phone is constantly vibrating, and Berliners are contacting him offering places to sleep.
Those who want to stay in Berlin for longer after fleeing war zones count on the hospitality of the German capital’s residents. The accommodation base run by the city is already completely overflowing. The need for shelter is now unscrupulously exploited by criminals.
“Attention: human traffickers”
Several times a day an urgent warning appears on the Telegram channel, where volunteers in Berlin organize themselves. “Attention! Human traffickers!” – it reads. Men have been approaching young women, coercing or persuading them to go with them in exchange for money. – Be vigilant and report your sightings to the police, the volunteers urge. Many wrote down the emergency number on their hand or on small pieces of paper.
Sven Francke has already seen several times how perpetrators sense their opportunity. Last weekend he was in charge of housing a family. – I was talking to the parents, their 15-year-old daughter was standing behind me. And suddenly she disappeared – he says. – We immediately started looking around, but there was no sign of her. Passers-by told us they saw the girl running away with a man,” he recalls. Sven immediately contacted the police, who told us they had no information about the case.
In the meantime, Francke can identify the suspects to some extent. – They are always men. They walk up and down, looking around surreptitiously,” he explains. Then they offer the young women accommodation. – But when we volunteers approach them, they quickly disappear, she adds. The perpetrators’ latest method, she says, is to pose as agents of nursing homes. – The traffickers] claim to offer jobs for caregivers, but when I asked them if they were interested in men as well, they walked away like they were burned,” he recalls.
They approach and offer accommodation
The Federal Police, which is responsible for security at train stations, confirms that there have been several such incidents at Berlin Central Station. According to the police union (GdP), these perpetrators belong to the “red light” community, among others. – “We observe that they are trying to take advantage of the plight of refugees,” explains Andreas Roßkopf, chairman of the district federal police of GdP, in an interview with “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland.
They approach women at border stations and offer them accommodation, we hear. The police have reacted to this threat and have noticeably increased their presence at the station. Officers are patrolling the crowds and approaching suspiciously behaving men.
Christoph Chassee, a freelance cameraman who has been helping refugees for the past week, also noticed this. He witnessed two young men dressed in black down jackets offer a young mother and her little daughter a place to sleep right on the platform – instead of in the official arrivals area in the basement, where helpers arrange accommodation.
The exodus from Ukraine is an exodus of women.”
– This is a perfidious exploitation of an emergency situation. The refugees arrive in Berlin after a long journey and can’t stand it any longer. All they really want to do is sleep,” Chassee believes. Fortunately, he was standing next to a refugee woman with a child and managed to escort her to safety. – The exodus from Ukraine is an exodus of women,” says the filmmaker. According to Celina Hirt of the UN refugee agency in Berlin, the fact that they are reliant on private individuals “is a huge problem because no one guarantees women protection.”
According to UN figures, some two million war refugees have already left Ukraine. Tens of thousands have arrived in Germany, and the willingness to help is enormous. Those who want to help, however, should keep a few things in mind.
– We need to be aware that there are people, criminals, who may try to take advantage of the situation, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson told the European Parliament on Tuesday. – There is a high risk that unaccompanied children will become victims of human trafficking, she noted.
Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) expressed concern on Wednesday that people are trying to exploit women from Ukraine who have fled the war. He said that special attention should be paid to whether anyone provides a private apartment in order to take control of the woman in this way.
The politician also said that the police have been sensitized to this problem. At the same time, Herrmann warned against exposing the volunteers to slander. There is no reason for that. Most of them simply want to help refugees.
Source:
Die Welt
This is so depressing. I despair.
Unfortunately I’m not surprised this is happening in Germany.
Sadly as far as I know a large percentage of pimps and middlemen and the gangsters that run this business in Western Europe come from the former Eastern Block, Ukraine and Russia in particular and it breaks my heart to even imagine that one meets her compatriot hearing the language and feeling relieved at first
Thats disgusting
[Post from Poland](https://files.fm/u/m3twgkmpk)
i fucking hate Zuhälter and Freier
These people have no shame huh