Greece: uphold the rights of women and girls trafficked for sexual exploitation

The trafficking of women and girls into forced prostitution is a human rights abuse and a crime in international and Greek law. Under international law, trafficking in human beings is defined as "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people by means of the threat of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purposes of exploitation", including by forced labour or forced prostitution.

(Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, Article 4a) Women and girls trafficked into Greece for sexual exploitation, are being forced to put themselves at risk once they succeed in escaping the traffickers. Under the protection system offered by the Greek authorities, if they want continued protection in Greece they must testify against their traffickers, whatever the risk of reprisals.