Report: Migrant children forced into sexual acts at border

ROME: A recent report from a children’s charity revealed that migrant children from Africa are being sexually exploited to obtain safe passage from Italy to France, local media reported.

The report, issued by the non-governmental organisation Save the Children Italy, said the minors, mostly from Africa, are being required to pay ¤50 to ¤150 (RM237-RM711) for safe passage on the border.

The children are forced by smugglers to perform sex acts if they cannot afford the fee. The minors are also abused to get food or shelter.

The charity group said that about 1,900 girls had been sexually exploited across Italy between January 2017 and March 2018.

“These are very young, and particularly at-risk girls, who are among the invisible flow of unaccompanied migrant minors in transit at the northern Italian border who, in an attempt to reunite with their relatives or acquaintances in other European countries, are deprived of the opportunity to travel safely and legally,” said Raffaela Milano, director of Italy-Europe programmes at Save the Children.

The report said that migrant children were also being sexually exploited in other parts of Italy, including Rome. The organisation has called for the protection of the children to save them from exploitation.

“At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen the anti-trafficking network at the European and international level to target criminal networks that speculate on the suffering of minors and to strengthen law enforcement measures in a wide- spread way throughout the territory,” Milano said.

The recent report follows a previous one issued by Oxfam, a Britainbased confederation of 20 independent charitable organisations, which first reported in June that French border police “illegally” sent migrant children back to Italy.

According to the Oxfam report, at least 16,500 migrants, of whom a quarter were children, had passed through the Italian border town of Ventimiglia in the nine months to April 2018.