Atina: Sexually abused children are being inflicted irreversible damage once their identity is disclosed

Photo taken from the website: https://www.hindustantimes.com/

According to the latest available data from 2019 for Serbia, 64 percent of the victims of human trafficking are persons under the age of 18, while last year, following the statistical data, situation was similar – around 90 percent of them were girls”, Jelena Hrnjak from organization Atina has stated.

Why the system is not capable of identifying and helping victims of trafficking in Serbia

Photo: Jack Sullivan/Alamy Stock Photo

During last year, out of 57 victims of human trafficking, almost half of them, that is 24, were children. Traffickers most commonly use children for forced labour or begging, criminal activities, sexual exploitation or forced marriages, as stated by NGO “Atina”, organization that deals with combating human trafficking.  

Fourteen-year-old girls are at highest risk

Photo: Jordan Times

Half of the victims of human trafficking are minors, and it is feared that the number of victims is up to 10 times higher

In the past year, of the 57 identified victims of trafficking, 24 were minors, almost half of whom were girls. Experts around the world, as well as experts in the Balkans and Serbia, assume that the number of victims in this area is up to ten times higher!

Photo: Stojne Atanasovska Dimishkovska

Child trafficking in the Western Balkans region is still on the rise, despite a number of legislative and practical measures taken in previous years.

The coronavirus pandemic has further increased the vulnerability of children, due to the growing economic insecurity, unemployment and restrictions of movement.

Promising practices: During the pandemic, 178 girls and women with the experience of trafficking contributed to shedding light on the issue of violence in digital surroundings

Visual: Bojan Milojević

As the world grapples with the Covid-19 pandemic, a shadow pandemic of violence against women and girls is emerging around the world. Like many organisations, the Sigrid Rausing Trust’s grantees are sounding the alarm about the rapid and widespread increase in abuse, and telling us how funders can stand with them to respond.

Women activists from the Western Balkans and Turkey determined to change the way they prevent violence against migrant women

A threat is violence in itself, and it must be treated that way. It is also necessary to develop society consciousness that violence is unacceptable, including the social responsibility of reporting it. Children should be spoken to on these topics as early as elementary school, especially boys, who should be ‘equally repelled by rape as by cannibalism’.

The pandemic has shown that life of a woman, victim of violence, is in many ways reminiscent of a permanent state of emergency due to various factors, and the problems will only begin after the pandemic calms, said Jelena Hrnjak, Programme Manager of Citizens' Association Atina, at the roundtable “The Impact of COVID-19 on the Social Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups".