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Anastasia Balezdrova

The number of children who beg, pick pockets and steal, or who are forced into prostitution in European countries that are not their homeland, is not only constantly high, but is also increasing.

Forcing Roma children into hard labour is considered as human trafficking that violates the fundamental principles of human dignity and rights of children. The Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy ELIAMEP organised a meeting of the state institutions and non-governmental organisations that are engaged in combating the problem, at which they presented several studies that revealed the scale of the phenomenon.

According to the results of the research conducted within the context of the CONFRONT programme in Greece, in which the Foundation is a partner, trafficking in Roma children starts from their family and that is why it is distinguished from the general framework of human trafficking. "Children are defined as "children on the move" and with other similar terms but not as victims of trafficking," said researcher at ELIAMEP and associate professor at Panteion University in Athens Dia Anagnostou.

"Finding the victims of such trafficking is complicated because the police find it difficult to prove that this kind of exploitation is actually trafficking, as the people who force the children to "work" are their parents or legal guardians. This kind of "work" is part of the survival strategy of the family. The concerns are that recognising it as a crime would possibly harm the children instead of improving their situation. This does not mean that begging by children can be perceived as something different from forced labour," stressed Anagnostou.

However, nobody refutes the reasons that lead to the exploitation of Roma children. "They come from an extremely marginalised social group that is the victim of age-old prejudices and stereotypes. Roma unemployment is high and this increases the risk of children being exploited for profit. Not least among the reasons is the fact that often children are not registered in a municipality which makes it very difficult to find and identify them, and hampers inter-state cooperation," she said.

In her opinion, the ease with which they can cross the borders of European Union member states further exacerbates the problem and according to the researchers of the phenomenon and members of non-profit organisations, that makes children more vulnerable to exploitation.

The research is conducted in four countries of origin of Roma children who are victims of this trafficking, namely Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, and in three receiving countries, which are Greece, Italy and Austria.

"The flow of Roma children from Bulgaria is growing, while we are able to help a small number of children," Marianna Kolovou from the non-governmental organisation "Arsis - Association for the Social Support of Youth" from Thessaloniki told GRReporter. The reason for this is that they constantly change their location and it takes time to convince them that the organisation's members want to help them.

She was firm that the most important thing is to gain their trust. At first, the children refuse to speak or say what their parents or relatives who force them to beg have told them to say. "We are trying to minimize the cases in which we support the withdrawal of children from their families, as this is the only environment they know. The case of a family with five children, only two of whom were placed in reception homes is significant. Only one of these five children preferred not to return to his family and to stay at the reception home. The second is still very young, so we cannot talk about decision taking. The rest of the children returned to their parents," said Kolovou. She concluded that the actions of "Arsis" are aimed at improving the situation of children and that the problem can be solved only by means of training.

The meeting continued with a round table to discuss the methods of operation of the institutions for combating the trafficking of Roma children and the opportunities to improve the cooperation between them.