EU targets traffickers as children ‘sold as slaves’

THE EU is to step up the fight against human trafficking gangs, which the new anti-crime commissioner warned yesterday were increasingly targeting children to be sold into sexual slavery.

Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said hundreds of thousands of people had fallen victim to human traffickers in Europe.

“Unfortunately, trafficking in human beings is a low risk and high profit enterprise for organised crime,” Mr Frattini said in Brussels. “Torture, physical and psychological abuse are commonly used to break the victims’ resistance to prostitution.”