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Greece starts actively working on the control on human trafficking

16 October 2010 / 16:10:33  GRReporter
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Representative of the General Secretariat for gender equality Maria Stratigaki spoke about the women victims of trafficking. "Not only do the victims suffer, but also the entire society does because they create the perception that people commodities. Trafficking is a symptom of a integral crisis of the society, and while there is demand, there will also be supply – it is important for us to stop the demand," said Mrs. Stratigaki. She said that they are working in ways for the limitation of the phenomenon: 1. a draft law has been prepared related to the violence within the family, the workplace and in society. 2. development of an infrastructure financed by the National Strategic Framework 2007-2013 and  the objective is to build 14 centers in 13 regions of the country and to open a national helpline aiming to work with women victims of violence in any form. In these centers they will have access to psycho-social support and legal advice 3. cooperation with ministries, to support initiatives for control over trafficking.

In turn, the representative of the European Commission in Athens, Mr. Martin stressed that it is difficult to assess the scale of the phenomenon of "human trafficking", but yet there are data showing that 2 million and a half are the people worldwide who are victims of trafficking and are forced to work in conditions of modern slavery. The problem is also related to children, and according to UNICEF data 1.2 million of them are victims of trafficking. The reason for the human trade is their exploitation: 42% of the victims are sexually exploited and almost all of them are women, 32% - are forced to work 25% - are victims of both types of exploitation. "Other causes of trafficking are even more terrifying. It is believed that between 5% and 10% of transplanted kidneys came from trade of human beings," noted the representative of the European Commission in Athens. At the same time the cases which are fought do not correspond even a bit to the scale of the phenomenon - in 2007 there were 5,700 criminal cases and only 3400 convictions, which means that for every 800 victims of human trafficking only one trafficker has been sentenced.

For the countries in EU there also aren’t many details, but according to estimates there are about 120,000 women and children who are victims of trade with human beings only in the Balkan region each year, said Mr Martin. In Italy, it is reported that there are 40,000 victims of sexual exploitation and it is estimated that profits from these activities for the year 2009 have increased five times compared with 2005.

Mr. Yannis Androulakis, adviser in the Ministry of Justice, noted that the adjustment to the international legal system and the signing of the Palermo Protocol in August 2009, strengthens anthropocentric nature of the criminal law of Greece as well as the National Action Plan against trafficking. At the end of the conference Mr. Moskof from the National Coordinating Mechanism stressed that we should not calm down, that from a period of barbarism we have switched to a more correct way to deal with trafficking. Currently the consent of the victims has been bought while the human traders are giving them incentives, such as pocket money or a day off, limited freedom of movement or some kind of opportunity for liberation, but that "smiling face" of trafficking does not mean that there is less violence. According to data 71% of the girls have been abused, 89 percent want to escape and AIDS threshes one and all.

Tags: news human trafficking
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