Corruption in Greece
Posted by yabastablog on July 10, 2009
While most European countries are rated in Tier 1 by the State Department’s TIP Report, Greece manages to stay in Tier 2. Greece has always had problems with government and law enforcement corruption. While living in Bulgaria four years ago during my time in the Peace Corps, I would witness firsthand the taxis on the Bulgarian/Grecian border that would deliver and trade young girls to traffickers on the Greek side. The demand for cheap sex has been so high in Greece that it has been on the TIP Report’s watch list. 2009’s TIP Report states that, “Greece is a destination and transit country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and for men and children trafficked for the purpose for forced labor. Women and teenage girls were trafficked from Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, other parts of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, Nigeria, and Brazil into forced prostitution and forced labor. One NGO reported that there were many teenage male sex trafficking victims from Afghanistan and sub-Saharan Africa in Greece.” Victims in Greece come from all over the world. The State Department recommended that Greece improve its efforts to prosecute traffickers and improve law enforcement’s role in combating the problem.
I do not know why human trafficking remains such a huge problem for this European country, but the demand for cheap labor and cheap sex still seems to grow. The situation in Greece, as in many other countries around the world, proves that law enforcement plays a key role in allowing modern day slavery to continue. Even here in San Antonio, one can hear stories of how local police can take advantage of young women as they pull them over for what seems to be an ordinary traffic violation…what can we do to show that this behavior is not acceptable?
Policemen arrested in Greece for sex trafficking
Europe News
Jul 8, 2009, 14:30 GMT
Athens – Four policemen were among those arrested on Wednesday for trafficking hundreds of women from Eastern Europe into Greece for prostitution, the Athens News Agency reported.
Reports said the officers were among 25 people held during a police operation to dismantle one of the largest sex-trafficking rings in Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
The officers had been dismissed from the force and were due to appear before a public prosecutor and be charged later Wednesday.
Among those arrested was a retired senior police officer believed to be the mastermind behind the group.
The ring was responsible for recruiting more than 300 women and setting them up at several night clubs in Athens over the past six months.
The crackdown followed months of investigation by more than 150 officers when raids were conducted on eight nightclubs, four brothels, two yachts and ten houses.
In recent years Greece has become a major destination and transit country for trafficking women and children from countries in Eastern Europe and parts of Africa.
