A man promised them good jobs in Europe, working in clubs and making high salaries. They were to fly to Greece for free and be met when they arrived by employers who had positions waiting for them.
They jumped at the chance, waved goodbye to family and friends and boarded the plane.
Only when they arrived did they realize they had been duped. There were no lucrative jobs, only threats of violence from men who stuffed them into Athens apartments and forced them to become strippers and prostitutes to “pay off debts” that their new pimps—who stole their passports—insisted they owed.
With its centralized location at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, and its extensive coastline, Greece is an ideal operating ground for human traffickers.
With no money, no ability to speak the language and no one to turn to for help, they were trapped in a sickening international human trafficking scam that had been going on for five years unabated.
When the trafficking ring was finally dismantled this month, police confiscated over $30,000 as well as weapons, surveillance cameras and recording equipment—the latter, an indication that blackmail schemes had been going on. Twenty-nine women were freed from sexual slavery and nine pimps were arrested, including the leader of the gang. Those arrested have been charged with human trafficking, sexual exploitation, pimping and possession of third-party travel documents and firearms.
Sadly, those numbers are a tiny drop in a very big bucket.
With its centralized location at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa, and its extensive coastline, Greece is an ideal operating ground for human traffickers, which is why trafficking is such a serious problem in the nation. Anti-trafficking nonprofit A21 has estimated that there are 89,000 victims of human trafficking in Greece, with over half caught up in the country’s active sex trafficking trade.
In 2023, Greek police broke up an international sex trafficking ring, arresting seven Albanians and one Egyptian and freeing 15 women, including nine Brazilians, three Colombians, two Venezuelans and one Moroccan.
That’s about as international as it gets.
Ads for the women’s “services” on a website stressed the international nature of the trafficking ring, openly stating: “In our office you will find women, girls—escorts who travel from all over the world to spend a few romantic days with us in Athens. All the escort girls who come to our agency are experienced girls from various foreign countries, such as Russians, Ukrainians who are the top category in the sex sector, Spanish, Latinas, Asians.” Prices ran from around $150 per hour to over $2,300 for a full day.
“The Government of Greece does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so,” a recent US State Department release said.
“Significant”? Really?
The report urged more vigorous investigation and prosecution of sex trafficking, with “significant prison terms,” training first responders on how to recognize trafficking, shelter and support victims, and better screen immigrants to detect the telltale signs.
On December 2, UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons Siobhán Mullally noted that authorities failed to identify 10 out of 14 trafficking victims at the immigrant center on the Greek island of Samos, though the immigrants—from West and Central Africa—displayed “clear signs” like injuries, sexual diseases and pregnancy.
Mullally suggested that as many as 285 other asylum-seekers arriving to Samos may have been victims of sexual trafficking.
Doesn’t sound like “significant efforts” to us, now does it?
It’s estimated that there are five million female sex trafficking victims around the world.
Forced labor generates $236 billion a year, with nearly three-quarters of that from sex trafficking.
In short, it seems that the Greeks (indeed, the entire world) have a long, long way to go and an overwhelming amount of work to do before we eradicate the disgusting specter of sex trafficking from our species.
But we really must.
There is no other way, if we want to call ourselves human beings.
