A recent news posting from swissinfo.ch mentions the pressing issue of human trafficking & sexual exploitation happening both inside & outside of Romania.
photo credit (UNICEF)
The article interviews a policewoman from Romania who was part of a 2 person team who spent a week in Ticino and Zurich with members of the Swiss vice squad.
Here are a few quotes from the interview that we found most interesting.
Romania is regarded as an important source of human trafficking: it provides people, but is also a place of transit for those coming from Moldavia. The victims, mostly women, are forced to prostitute themselves or to work in houses, hotels and restaurants. Sometimes men are sent into the fields and minors are sent out to beg in the streets.
In recent years the methods of exploitation have changed radically. We are no longer dealing with mafias controlling large numbers of women, ill-treating them and stealing their passports. Today the victims are “seduced” by a man who often belongs to their social circle. This is known in criminal slang as the “loverboy” strategy. It is thought that over 60 per cent of the traffickers are known to the victim.
Often the traffickers first transfer the victims to urban centres prior to sending them abroad. Here they sell them to other pimps or continue to control them through networks of people they know.
I was amazed by the sheer number of Romanian women here in Switzerland, and I think it is going to be fundamental to intensify cooperation to keep the phenomenon under control and avoid these young women getting into the wrong clutches.
If you’d like to read the complete interview please visit swissinfo.ch