International organization for migration publishes new report on human trafficking. The number of victims of this traffic in two years increased by 600%. Among them, a lot of minors. They are doomed to a nightmare.
Statements to the police is small, negligible: only 78 on nearly 7 thousand of identified victims. It shows “great courage, which should find a girl, claiming to the police: often, they do so against the wishes of her family, when they are alone in a foreign country, trusting the employees of the organizations with which quite a few familiar” tells us of Santarossa Carlotta (Carlotta Santarossa) of the International organization for migration (IOM), the author of the latest report on victims of trafficking. We are talking about women who are brought to Europe by the same route of the refugees in the centre of the Mediterranean, to turn them into slaves. In this case, they become a commodity to be sold on the sex market.
For almost two years, the organization — like Espresso in several of its investigations — has concerns regarding the increasing number of young women, mainly from Nigeria, were planted on the coast of southern Italy. IOM is concerned about the very high likelihood that these girls may become victims of sexual exploitation. Their number continues to grow inexorably. Potential victims — defined as such in accordance with the set to indicate that data in 2016 steel 8277 women. Within two years (2014 and 2015) the number not reached 3.4 thousand. More than 6,5 thousands of cases they were identified as victims. And only 78 of them gave a statement to the police.
To say prevents them from not only the fear of the court or threats and reprisals against their loved ones. They are frightened not only the debt for your journey, which suppresses almost all these girls. “Often it is the lack of awareness. They almost do not perceive themselves as victims. And that’s not all. Increasingly, it appears that they only know what sex is — continues Santarossa. — Because they are too young. And that is what causes us the biggest concern from year to year: their age.”
Arriving girls then dragged through Italy and Europe as prostitutes, and arrived in Italy very young, they soon are forced prematurely to grow up. These teenage girls aged 12-13 years were convinced that just leave their country and they began to sell in an hour on the streets. Of the 290 victims identified by the authorities or sent to a charitable organization in 2016, the 164 was young. 135 set by network against human trafficking, 87 has not reached the age of 18.
Here is the story of precious, she is from Nigeria, she is 17 years old. In the spring of 2016, the police saw her on the roadside in Sicily. She is a girl. At the office she, however, says she’s 21 and she wants to find her sister. The girl scared. The agents find her fingerprints in the database: it arrived in Italy five months earlier, and her 18 years old. The Prosecutor’s office communicates with IOM, the organization’s representatives meet with her in a secure community where she was brought by the police. It remains red wig and provocative clothing that she was given to work on the street. Employee of the organization telling her story the same girl as she who was forced into prostitution so she can pay the debt for the road.
Precious recognized. Before that she never had sexual relations with men. She was forced to work outside 12 hours a day. She fears she is now sick. Afraid of the court. Afraid of friends. IOM meets with her every day for a month. She can’t sleep, sometimes trying to escape, to return to the traffickers, sometimes wants to die. “Each time, however, the fear of a return to the street is the hardest”, says working with her co-worker IOM. In the end she finds the courage to apply. Today she lives in a safe place, speaks Italian, learning for cultural mediation.
Here is the hope, which focuses Santarossa, talking with us: “Changed the attitude of the institutions of government.” Increasingly, alerts from centers whose employees may notice some abnormalities. Association try to timely inform and intervene. However, we often do not have specific prospects that we could offer the girls alternatively, or in specialized organizations. So you need to give this issue more attention. It is not doing anything to protect the girls, you become complicit in those crimes.”
