The evaluation of Greece in the State Department’s annual report, concerning human trafficking and the tackling of modern slavery remains unchanged.
According to the data in the report, which was released on June 19, Greece remains in Tier 2, which means that it is a transit and destination country of human trafficking, however it is a limited source of sexual exploitation of women and children as well as of promotion of child labor.
According to the report of the U.S. State Department, in Greece there is trafficking of women from Albania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Nigeria and some Asian countries, while the victims of child labor are young boys from Albania, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, India, Moldova, Pakistan, Romania and increasingly from Afghanistan. These people are mainly employed in agricultural work and in construction. In parallel, many Roma children as well as children from Albania and Romania are forced to sell products on the streets, to beg and commit petty thefts.
As the authors of the State Department’s report say, the Greek Government does not fully comply even with minimum regulations for the elimination of trafficking, but is making significant efforts towards this direction. As it is stated in the report, the Greek authorities in 2012 proceeded to more arrests of human traffickers, in comparison to the preceding period and they made significant efforts to train police and the judiciary, on issues relating to human trafficking.
Furthermore, it is referred that there has been a close cooperation of the police authorities with Non-Governmental Organizations both for unraveling trafficking cases as well as for providing accommodation and hospitality to the victims of such cases. Finally, in the State Department’s report it is stressed that there was no arrest or prosecution of government officials who are allegedly involved in trafficking rings, although there were also specific references of minor officers of the Greek police.
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