EUOBSERVER (Belgium), 20 December 2022 – More than half of registered victims of human trafficking are EU citizens, and most of them are sold for sex, according to the European Commission (EC). About a quarter of all victims are children, the EC report says. And most of them are registered in Romania, followed by Germany and the Netherlands, an EUObserver investigation, picked up by Rador, shows.
“We can see that a large majority of trafficked children are EU citizens,” EU interior commissioner Ylva Johansson told the press on Monday. Like women, they are “trafficked mainly for sexual purposes,” Johansson said, adding that around a third are trafficked in their own country.
“If you traffic drugs or firearms, you can only sell them once,” she said. “But if you traffic a woman, a girl for sex, you can sell her body again and again and again and again,” she said.
In absolute numbers, Romanian citizens are the worst affected, with 2,315 cases of trafficking recorded in 2019-2020.
The figure also includes trafficking for labour exploitation and other purposes, but trafficking for sexual purposes remains predominant.
Romanians are followed by French (1,202), Italians (904), Bulgarians (553) and Poles (518).
If we compare the number of victims to the size of the population, Romania again comes out on top, but this time it is followed by Bulgaria and Hungary. But Johansson said these figures are only “the tip of the iceberg”, noting that this type of crime is increasingly using the internet, which means it is harder to detect.
The European commission now plans to impose mandatory penalties on companies that contribute to trafficking. Those penalties will be included in the EU anti-trafficking directive, she said.
The EC also wants to extend the definition of trafficking to forced marriages and illegal adoptions.
Another new rule will make it a criminal offence to knowingly exploit a victim of trafficking.
Hungary, the Netherlands and Germany have already passed laws criminalising the knowing use of a trafficked person’s services. Similar measures are under discussion in other countries such as Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Spain. The rules also apply to those trafficked for labour, including construction workers.
“The person may not be employed, but you will have used the services of a victim of trafficking, and that will also be criminalised,” she said.
Most victims of trafficking for labour are men, and the figure is rising for them too, according to the EC report.
The report shows that 51% of trafficking cases are for sexual exploitation, followed by labour exploitation (28%). Other forms of exploitation include forced begging. And less than 1% of cases involve organ harvesting, according to the EC.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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EUOBSERVER (Belgium), 20 December 2022 – More than half of registered victims of human trafficking are EU citizens, and most of them are sold for sex, according to the European Commission (EC). About a quarter of all victims are children, the EC report says. And most of them are registered in Romania, followed by Germany and the Netherlands, an EUObserver investigation, picked up by Rador, shows.
“We can see that a large majority of trafficked children are EU citizens,” EU interior commissioner Ylva Johansson told the press on Monday. Like women, they are “trafficked mainly for sexual purposes,” Johansson said, adding that around a third are trafficked in their own country.
“If you traffic drugs or firearms, you can only sell them once,” she said. “But if you traffic a woman, a girl for sex, you can sell her body again and again and again and again,” she said.
In absolute numbers, Romanian citizens are the worst affected, with 2,315 cases of trafficking recorded in 2019-2020.
The figure also includes trafficking for labour exploitation and other purposes, but trafficking for sexual purposes remains predominant.
Romanians are followed by French (1,202), Italians (904), Bulgarians (553) and Poles (518).
If we compare the number of victims to the size of the population, Romania again comes out on top, but this time it is followed by Bulgaria and Hungary. But Johansson said these figures are only “the tip of the iceberg”, noting that this type of crime is increasingly using the internet, which means it is harder to detect.
The European commission now plans to impose mandatory penalties on companies that contribute to trafficking. Those penalties will be included in the EU anti-trafficking directive, she said.
The EC also wants to extend the definition of trafficking to forced marriages and illegal adoptions.
Another new rule will make it a criminal offence to knowingly exploit a victim of trafficking.
Hungary, the Netherlands and Germany have already passed laws criminalising the knowing use of a trafficked person’s services. Similar measures are under discussion in other countries such as Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Slovakia and Spain. The rules also apply to those trafficked for labour, including construction workers.
“The person may not be employed, but you will have used the services of a victim of trafficking, and that will also be criminalised,” she said.
Most victims of trafficking for labour are men, and the figure is rising for them too, according to the EC report.
The report shows that 51% of trafficking cases are for sexual exploitation, followed by labour exploitation (28%). Other forms of exploitation include forced begging. And less than 1% of cases involve organ harvesting, according to the EC.
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)