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.”

He said most victims were women aged between 18 and 30, but warned that intelligence reports showed “there is a trend toward underage victims” of both sexes.

Mr Frattini said EC President Jose Manuel Barroso had set up a task force to draft measures to counter the problem, notably by further coordinating action by the 25 EU nations.

The EU would also be looking at closer cooperation with non-EU countries from where the trafficking victims are taken, Mr Frattini said, mentioning Ukraine, Moldova and Nigeria.

He also stressed that Romania and Bulgaria should take tougher measures against corruption and organised crime as those countries prepare to join the EU in 2007.

“The commission expects action,” Mr Frattini said. “It is vital that the police forces and the courts cooperate fully with international and European authorities to implement the laws.”