5 Disturbing Facts About the Sex Trafficking of African Girls to European Men

Recruited Through Lies Sponsors with ties to both Africa and Europe lure African teenage girls out of the continent. These European men promise jobs as maids or au pairs, opportunities for higher education and have even given loans to pay for their trip into what is perceived to be a chance to make something of their lives. When they arrive, the girls are forced into sex slavery or trafficking to an abundance of white men and military personnel. The perpetrators take the girls’ passports and other official documents. The girls are unable to seek help from authorities because they fear being deported. It’s a Thriving Business The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has said that prostitution by African immigrants in Europe earns criminal gangs at least $228 million every year. In Europe, over 140,000 victims are trapped in a situation of violence and degradation for sexual exploitation, and up to one in seven sex workers in the region may have been enslaved into prostitution through trafficking, according to UNODC. Overwhelming Number of Victims There are so many prostitutes from Africa in Europe that the United Nations and Liberian police sometimes do nothing to stop women from working. Despite international and domestic policies, actually curbing the trafficking of African girls for sex has not decreased. Europe Is King An estimate of the number of African women engaging in transactional sex in 25 European countries suggests a sex worker population of some 700,000 women in these countries. Extrapolating to the entire European population, this would indicate a total of about 1 million sex workers, according to the UNODC. Use of Different Routes European traffickers, who use routes through Italy, Spain and Greece, isolate women physically, emotionally and culturally, making them easier to manipulate and coerce. The means of entering Europe vary over time and are dependent on the destination. The CIA website says to access the United Kingdom, for example, girls and young women (ranging in age from 10 to 20) are often flown in and instructed by the traffickers to seek asylum upon arrival. Once placed in juvenile homes, they disappear, to be found working in the red-light districts. Some victims are diverted to transit points and suffer sexual exploitation en route to their final destination. Rotation to other places in Europe is a common practice where victims are moved between cities as a means of disorientation. In Switzerland, the federal police have noted that Cameroonian victims are often moved back and forth across the Swiss-French border. The human rights of trafficked people and the rights of victims of crime are key components of the rule of law, and they are directly implicated in the trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation.

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