Human trafficking in Italy

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Italy is a destination and transit country for women, children, and men trafficked transnationally for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children are trafficked mainly from Nigeria, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Albania, and Ukraine but also from Russia, South America, North and East Africa, the Middle East, China, and Uzbekistan. Chinese men and women are trafficked to Italy for the purpose of forced labor. Roma children continue to be trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced begging. Reportedly, an increasing number of victims are trafficked for labor, mostly in the agricultural sector. According to one NGO, 90 percent of foreign seasonal workers are unregistered and two-thirds are in Italy illegally, rendering them vulnerable to trafficking. The top five source countries for agricultural workers are Romania, Pakistan, Albania, and Ivory Coast. Traffickers reportedly are moving victims more frequently within Italy, often keeping victims in major cities for only a few months at a time, in an attempt to evade police detection. [1]

Contents

The Government of Italy does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. [2]

March 2010, 69 people in connection with the Russian Mafia were arrested in various European countries, including Italy. [3] In June 2010, Italian and Romanian authorities cracked down on a human trafficking network that included over 150 women, including minors, that were being sexually exploited. 14 people were detained in various Romanian regions and 26 were arrested in Italy. Among the 57 people that were found to be involved in the network, the majority were Romanians, but among them were also Italians, an Albanian and an Egyptian. [4]

The New York Times reported in September 2010, that Italian officials in Prato could account for an increasing amount of illegal Chinese immigrants who are buying out Italian businesses and changing the "made in Italy" image that is so well known. Organized crime is on the rise, including illegal fabric importation, human trafficking, prostitution, gambling and money laundering. Authorities raided over 154 Chinese-owned businesses in the first half of 2010, at the time there were over 3,000 registered Chinese-owned businesses. Police forces do not have the man-power in order to stay on top of the immigration problem. Several Italian Officers were arrested earlier that year for taking bribes in exchange for residence permits. [5]

In December 2010, Health Rights Watch reported about the abuse upon migrants which were allowed by many governmental policies and protection gaps. Among those listed was Italy, who through the supply of boats and crews to the Libyan coastal patrols, was indirectly sending migrants, mostly sub-Saharan African, into Libyan detentions which are of degrading condition and inhuman. [6] Libya and Italy created a deal in order to cut off the main sea route to Europe for the illegal African migrants, which in turn sent the majority of the boats to Israel, who recorded a 300% increase at the beginning of 2010. [7]

Prosecution

The Government of Italy continued its strong law enforcement efforts in 2007. Italy prohibits all forms of trafficking in persons through its Measures Against Trafficking in People law of 2003, which prescribes penalties on conviction of between eight and twenty years’ imprisonment. These penalties are considered sufficiently stringent and are comparable with those prescribed for forcible sexual assault. The government’s 2006 legislation to expand its labor trafficking law and introduce new penalties for job recruiters remains in draft form.

In a major case in April 2007, the courts sentenced four Italians and three Romanian human traffickers to between three and 12 years’ imprisonment after they were convicted for the forced prostitution and exploitation of 200 Roma children between 2004 and 2006. In June 2007, the government prosecuted eight other perpetrators on charges of sexually exploiting children by coercing them into performing sexual acts in exchange for small gifts. Government investigations resulting from the previously reported large-scale anti-trafficking crackdown, “Operation Spartacus,” between October 2006 and January 2007, are reported to be still ongoing. In 2007 Italian prosecutors launched trafficking investigations against 1,202 individuals, prosecuted 80 trafficking cases, and the courts convicted 163 traffickers in. The average sentence was four years. The government reported that most traffickers remain in detention during the criminal proceedings. For sentences of more than two years, defendants are not eligible for suspended sentences. The government continued its prosecution of 19 traffickers from a 2006 case involving the trafficking of 113 Polish tomato pickers in Apulia who were exploited in forced labor conditions, and planned to begin to prosecute an additional four perpetrators in early 2008. After local Italian police were initially slow to respond, prosecutors and Carabinieri vigorously investigated allegations of official complicity when notified and found no evidence to support the allegations.

According to an NGO based in Genoa working with Nigerian victims of human trafficking, some government officials have been imprisoned for facilitating trafficking. [1]

Protection

The Italian government sustained strong efforts to protect trafficking victims during the reporting period. Article 18 of the anti-trafficking law allows authorities to grant residence permits and provide protection and job training services to victims of trafficking, and during the reporting period the government expanded Article 18 benefits to labor trafficking victims. The government allocated $3.75 million in 2007 for an additional emergency assistance plan and approved 23 projects implemented by NGOs. During the reporting period, it earmarked approximately $9.75 million for 65 victim assistance projects, although the government did not provide data on the number of trafficking victims who benefited from these projects or the number who entered social protection programs. In 2007, NGOs, with government funding, provided literacy courses for 588 victims and vocational training for 313, helped 436 find temporary jobs and 907 find permanent jobs. In 2007, the Ministry of Interior issued 1,009 residence permits to victims who assisted in a law enforcement investigation. The government also ensured the responsible return of 62 foreign trafficking victims in 2007 by funding their repatriation and reintegration and providing money for resettlement in their home countries. During the reporting period, the government implemented systematic procedures for victim identification among vulnerable populations in Italy. Despite the government’s efforts to identify all victims of trafficking, some, such as Nigerian women in commercial sexual exploitation, are still deported. Based on a 2006 independent commission report that its victim identification measures for immigrants arriving in boats from North Africa are not fully effective, the government reportedly improved its process for identifying trafficking victims and it now allows international organizations and NGOs to inspect detention facilities and to interview migrants. Victims who file complaints against traffickers usually do not face penalties for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked. In 2007, the government enacted guidelines for the identification of victims of forced labor and promoted four regional studies on victims of labor exploitation. [1]

In 2008, 1,100 trafficking victims entered social protection programs, among them were 50 children and 100 men. The Ministry of Interior stated that 810 victims were granted 6 months residency permits to which would be extended when they found employment or enrolled in a training program. Children had automatically received permits until they reached the age of 18. The national government and local authorities earmarked $12.7 million for victim assistance programs in 2009. [8]

In January 2010, the Race riots in Rosarno brought to light the increasing exploitation of immigrant labor within Italy’s agriculture sector. Of the 1,000 African migrants, some possessed temporary residencies, others were granted asylum and the others were deported. If the authorities even identified them as trafficking victims is unclear, only 8 migrants had requested residence permits as trafficking victims. [8]

Prevention

The Government of Italy continued to educate the Italian public about trafficking through its funding of NGO awareness efforts, and it initiated a new ad campaign in 2007 that included TV spots, internet banners, and bumper stickers in various languages. In March 2007, the Ministry of Interior established a committee designed to improve oversight and prosecution of trafficking and invited NGOs into the policy making process by including their membership on this committee. The Ministry of Interior is in the planning stage of a public awareness campaign, with several other countries, to reduce demand for commercial sex acts and raise awareness about human trafficking called project Pentametro. The Italian Ministry of Defense reported regularly organizes training sessions on human rights and trafficking for both civilians and military personnel who serve in international peacekeeping missions abroad. The government contributed funding to the NGO ECPAT, which conducts child sex tourism prevention activities in Italy. In February 2007, police arrested a University professor in Naples for committing child sex tourism offenses while in Thailand. [1]

In 2009, the government sponsored an IMO implemented program which was to increase the capabilities of Nigerian NGO’s and to prevent Nigerian trafficking victims. The NGO ECPAT estimates that in 2009, about 80,000 Italian men traveled to Kenya, Thailand, Brazil, Latin America and the Czech Republic for sex tourism each year. Although the government continued to implement programs to combat child sex tourism, they did not report any prosecutions in 2009. [8]

Related Research Articles

Efforts to crack down on human trafficking in Russia focus not only on the men, women, and children who are illegally shipped out of Russia to undergo forced labor and sexual exploitation in other countries, but also those who are illegally brought into Russia from abroad. The Government of the Russian Federation has made significant progress in this area over the past decade, but a report commissioned by the United States Department of State in 2010 concluded that much more needed to be done before Russia could be taken off its Tier 3 watchlist. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 3" in 2017.

Serbia is a source, transit, and destination country for women and girls trafficked transnationally and internally for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Foreign victims are trafficked to Serbia from Macedonia, Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Albania, and the People's Republic of China. Serbia is a transit country for victims trafficked from Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia and destined for Italy and other countries. Internal sex trafficking of Serbian women and girls continued to increase as of 2007, comprising more than three-fourths of trafficking cases in 2007. Some children continue to be trafficked into forced labor or forced street begging. According to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and law enforcement, efforts to shut down known brothels continue to prompt traffickers to better conceal victims of trafficking.

The Government of Sweden fully complies with the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking. Beginning in July 2007, all foreign victims of trafficking were granted temporary residence permits for a minimum 30-day reflection period to consider whether to cooperate with law enforcement. In December 2007, the government adopted a national action plan on child sexual exploitation, improved awareness on trafficking issues, and increased internal and international cooperation to combat child sex tourism. The government continued to fund both awareness and victim assistance programs in trafficking source countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human trafficking in the United Kingdom</span>

The United Kingdom (UK) is a destination country for men, women, and children primarily from Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe who are subjected to human trafficking for the purposes of sexual slavery and forced labour, including domestic servitude. It is ranked as a "Tier 1" country by the US Department of State, which issues an annual report on human trafficking. "Tier 1" countries are those whose governments fully comply with The Trafficking Victims Protection Act's minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The TVPA is a federal statute of the United States. It is believed that some victims, including minors from the UK, are also trafficked within the country. It is also believed that migrant workers are trafficked to the UK for forced labour in agriculture, construction, food processing, domestic servitude, and food service. Source countries for trafficking victims in the UK include the United Arab Emirates, Lithuania, Russia, Albania, Ukraine, Malaysia, Thailand, the People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Nigeria, and Ghana. Precise details about the extent of human trafficking within the UK are not available, and many have questioned the validity of some of the more widely quoted figures. In 2020, the US State Department estimated that there were 13,000 trafficking victims in the UK.

Vietnam is primarily a source country for women and children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children's are trafficked to the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C), Cambodia, Thailand, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Macau for sexual exploitation. Vietnamese women are trafficked to the P.R.C., Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea via fraudulent or misrepresented marriages for commercial exploitation or forced labor. Vietnam is also a source country for men and women who migrate willingly and legally for work in the construction, fishing, or manufacturing sectors in Malaysia, Taiwan, P.R.C., Thailand, and the Middle East but subsequently face conditions of forced labor or debt bondage. Vietnam is a destination country for Cambodian children trafficked to urban centers for forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Vietnam has an internal trafficking problem with women and children from rural areas trafficked to urban centers for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Vietnam is increasingly a destination for child sex tourism, with perpetrators from Japan, the Republic of Korea, the P.R.C., Taiwan, the UK, Australia, Europe, and the U.S. In 2007, an Australian non-governmental organization (NGO) uncovered 80 cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children by foreign tourists in the Sa Pa tourist area of Vietnam alone.

Zimbabwe is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Large scale migration of Zimbabweans to surrounding countries—as they flee a progressively more desperate situation at home—has increased, and NGOs, international organizations, and governments in neighboring countries are reporting an upsurge in these Zimbabweans facing conditions of exploitation, including human trafficking. Rural Zimbabwean men, women, and children are trafficked internally to farms for agricultural labor and domestic servitude and to cities for domestic labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Women and children are trafficked for domestic labor and sexual exploitation, including in brothels, along both sides of the borders with Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia. Young men and boys are trafficked to South Africa for farm work, often laboring for months in South Africa without pay before "employers" have them arrested and deported as illegal immigrants. Young women and girls are lured to South Africa, the People's Republic of China, Egypt, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada with false employment offers that result in involuntary domestic servitude or commercial sexual exploitation. Men, women, and children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia are trafficked through Zimbabwe en route to South Africa. Small numbers of South African girls are trafficked to Zimbabwe for domestic servitude. The government’s efforts to address trafficking at home have increased with the introduction of the National Action Plan (NAP) as well as the 2014 Trafficking in Persons Act. In addition, the trafficking situation in the country is worsening as more of the population is made vulnerable by declining socio-economic conditions.

Honduras is principally a source and transit country for women, girls, and boys trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Honduran children are typically trafficked from rural areas to urban and tourist centers such as San Pedro Sula, the North Caribbean coast, and the Bay Islands. Honduran women and children are trafficked to Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, and the United States for sexual exploitation. Most foreign victims of commercial sexual exploitation in Honduras are from neighboring countries; some are economic migrants en route to the United States who are victimized by traffickers. Internal child labor and forced child labor for violent criminal gangs are serious concerns.

Indonesia is a source, transit, and destination country for women, children, and men trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. The greatest threat of trafficking facing Indonesian men and women is that posed by conditions of forced labor and debt bondage in more developed Asian countries and the Middle East.

Human trafficking in Israel includes the trafficking of men and women into the country for forced labor and sex slavery. The country has made serious efforts to reduce the problem in recent years and now ranks 90th out of 167 countries who provide data. Identification of victims, criminal justice work and efforts to co-ordinate with business and government agencies has been concerted in reducing this problem in the last decade.

Latvia is a source and destination country for men and women trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Latvian women are trafficked to Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom for commercial sexual exploitation. Latvian women and teenage girls are also trafficked within the country for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Men and women from Latvia are trafficked to the United Kingdom for the purpose of forced labor. In addition, Latvia may be a destination country for victims trafficked from Polo GThailand for the purpose of forced labor.

Germany is a European source, point of transit, organization and destination country for women, children, and men subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced prostitution and forced labor.

Afghanistan is one of the source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children who are subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Trafficking within Afghanistan is more prevalent than transnational trafficking, and the majority of victims are children. In 2005 the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) reported 150 child trafficking cases to other states. Afghan boys and girls are trafficked within the country and into Iran, Pakistan and India as well as Persian gulf Arab states, where they live as slaves and are forced to prostitution and forced labor in brick kilns, carpet-making factories, and domestic service. In some cases the boys and girls were used for organ trafficking. Forced begging is a growing problem in Afghanistan; Mafia groups organize professional begging rings. Afghan boys are subjected to forced prostitution and forced labor in the drug smuggling industry in Pakistan and Iran. Afghan women and girls are subjected to forced prostitution, arranged and forced marriages—including those in which husbands force their wives into prostitution—and involuntary domestic servitude in Pakistan and Iran, and possibly India. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) report that over the past year, increasing numbers of boys were trafficked internally. Some families knowingly sell their children for forced prostitution, including for bacha bazi - a practice combining sexual slavery and child prostitution, through which wealthy men use harems of young boys for social and sexual entertainment. Other families send their children with brokers to gain employment. Many of these children end up in forced labor, particularly in Pakistani carpet factories. NGOs indicate that families sometimes make cost-benefit analyses regarding how much debt they can incur based on their tradable family members.

Austria is a destination and transit country for women, men, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced prostitution and forced labor.

Bangladesh is a source and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. A significant share of Bangladesh's trafficking victims are men recruited for work overseas with fraudulent employment offers who are subsequently exploited under conditions of forced labor or debt bondage. It also includes the trafficking of children – both boys and girls – within Bangladesh for commercial sexual exploitation, bonded labor, and forced labor. Some children are sold into bondage by their parents, while others are induced into labor or commercial sexual exploitation through fraud and physical coercion. Women and children from Bangladesh are also trafficked to India for commercial sexual exploitation.

Belgium is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Victims originate in Eastern Europe, Africa, East Asia, as well as Brazil and India. Some victims are smuggled through Belgium to other European countries, where they are subjected to forced labor and forced prostitution. Male victims are subjected to forced labor and exploitation in restaurants, bars, sweatshops, horticulture sites, fruit farms, construction sites, and retail shops. There were reportedly seven Belgian women subjected to forced prostitution in Luxembourg in 2009. According to a 2009 ECPAT Report, the majority of girls and children subjected to forced prostitution in Belgium originate from Balkan and CIS countries, Eastern Europe, Asia and West Africa ; some young foreign boys are exploited in prostitution in major cities in the country. Local observers also report that a large portion of children trafficked in Belgium are unaccompanied, vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees. Criminal organizations from Thailand use Thai massage parlors in Belgium, which are run by Belgian managers, to sexually exploit young Thai women. These networks are involved in human smuggling and trafficking to exploit victims economically and sexually. Belgium is not only a destination country, but also a transit country for children to be transported to other European country destinations.

Greece is a transit, source and destination country for women and children who are subjected to human trafficking, specifically forced prostitution and conditions of forced labor for men, women, and children. Female sex trafficking victims originate primarily in Eastern Europe and former Soviet bloc countries. Traffickers use physical, emotional, and sexual abuse for coercion. Greece's European Union membership, coupled with a shared border with Turkey, means the country sees massive flows of illegal immigrants looking to enter the EU. Traffickers also use Greece not only as a destination but also as transit stop and also as a source country where even Greek women are prostituted on the way to Western Europe.

Guinea is a source, transit, and to a lesser extent, a destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically in the areas of forced labor and forced prostitution. The majority of victims are children, and these incidents of trafficking are more prevalent among Guinean citizens than among foreign migrants living in Guinea. Within the country, girls are largely subjected to involuntary domestic servitude and commercial sexual exploitation, while boys are subjected to forced begging and forced labor as street vendors, shoe shiners, and laborers in gold and diamond mines. Some Guinean men are also subjected to forced agricultural labor within Guinea. Smaller numbers of girls from Mali, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Guinea-Bissau migrate to Guinea, where they are subjected to involuntary domestic servitude and likely also commercial sexual exploitation. Some Guinean boys and girls are subjected to forced labor in gold mining operations in Senegal, Mali, and possibly other African countries. Guinean women and girls are subjected to involuntary domestic servitude and forced prostitution in Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, Senegal, Greece, and Spain. Chinese women are trafficked to Guinea for commercial sexual exploitation by Chinese traffickers. Networks also traffic women from Nigeria, India, and Greece through Guinea to the Maghreb and onward to Europe, notably Italy, Ukraine, Switzerland, and France for forced prostitution and involuntary domestic servitude.

Malta is a destination country for European women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced prostitution. During this reporting period and in the past, the Maltese media also covered possible cases of Maltese teenage girls who may have been involved in forced prostitution in Malta. Malta is likely a destination country for men subjected to forced labor, as reflected by a report in 2009 that three Pakistani males were forced to work in Pakistani restaurants in Malta. The dozens of children and 4,304 total irregular migrants currently residing in Malta from African countries may be vulnerable to human trafficking in Malta’s “grey” informal labor market.

Morocco is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children who are subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Children are trafficked within the country from rural areas to urban centers to work as maids or laborers, or for commercial sexual exploitation. Moroccan men, women, and children are exploited for forced labor and prostitution in European and Middle Eastern countries. Young Moroccan girls from rural areas are recruited to work as child maids in cities, but often experience non-payment of wages, threats, and physical or sexual abuse, and sometimes face restrictions on movement. These practices indicate that these girls are subjected to involuntary servitude. Moroccan boys experience forced labor as apprentices in the artisan and construction industries and in mechanic shops. A few Moroccan men and boys are lured to Europe by fraudulent job offers, and are subsequently forced to sell drugs. In addition, men and women from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Philippines enter Morocco voluntarily but illegally with the assistance of smugglers; once in Morocco, some of the women are coerced into prostitution or, less frequently, forced into domestic service. Nigerian gangs, who engage in a variety of criminal activities like human smuggling and drug trafficking, compete to control the trafficking of sub-Saharan Africans in Morocco.

Women, and children from Eastern Europe, West Africa, and Asia, as well as the Caribbean and Brazil, subjected to trafficking in persons, forced prostitution and forced labor. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 1" in 2017. Women and children, many from Africa, continued to be subjected to forced domestic servitude. Often their “employers” are diplomats who enjoy diplomatic immunity from prosecution, including those from Saudi Arabia. Reportedly men from North Africa are subjected to forced labor in the agricultural and construction sectors in southern France. The Government of France estimates that the majority of the 18,000 women in France's commercial sex trade are likely forced into prostitution. It also estimates a significant number of children in France are victims of forced prostitution, primarily from Romania, West Africa, and North Africa. Romani and other unaccompanied minors in France continued to be vulnerable to forced begging. There were reportedly six French women subjected to forced prostitution in Luxembourg in 2009.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Department Of State. The Office of Electronic Information, Bureau of Public Affairs (2008-06-10). "Country Narratives -- Countries H through R". US Department of State. Retrieved 2023-01-01.PD-icon.svg This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain .
  2. ↑ "2022 Trafficking in Persons Report: Italy". US Department of State. 2023-02-10. Archived from the original on 2022-12-27. Retrieved 2023-02-10.
  3. ↑ "Police arrest 69 in European crackdown on Russian mafia". France 24. 2010-03-15. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  4. ↑ "Human trafficking gang busted". News24. Retrieved 2021-03-26.
  5. ↑ Donadio, Rachel (2010-09-13). "Chinese Remake the 'Made in Italy' Fashion Label". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2021-03-30.
  6. ↑ "Global: Flawed Policies Expose Migrants to Abuse". Human Rights Watch. 2010-12-11. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  7. ↑ "Israel starts building barrier on Egypt border". BBC News. 2010-11-22. Retrieved 2021-04-07.
  8. 1 2 3 "Trafficking in Persons Report 2010 - Italy". Refworld. 2010-06-14. Retrieved 2021-04-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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