Victims of trafficking in the form of child labor exploitation is on the rise in Costa Rica, Paula Aragón, from the Fiscalía contra la Trata (Prosecutor’s Office against Trafficking) revealed on Monday.
Aragón said that, so far this year, they have at least four open cases.
Domestic work continues to be one of the main sources of alarm. This includes the use of children and adolescents in all domestic tasks, ranging from cleaning to caring for other people younger than them or assisting older adults.
– Advertisement –
Added to this are also suspicious scenarios in agriculture, fishing, and supermarkets.
Families put them at risk though it seems unbelievable. In cases of trafficking involving minors, several questions focus on the role of the parents or guardians.
Aragón warns that in several cases it is the family members themselves who are behind the violation. “Even if you don’t believe it,” she warned. “Friends and people close to the minor also join in, who tend to deceive with false promises,” added Aragón.
Just as adults fall into traps with false offers, it has been mapped how such tactics are also used to attract victims, both in traditional ways and on social networks.
“They offer them better (living) conditions and that is where many of the deceived parents give up their children and later are exploited,” explains Aragón.
– Advertisement –
Crime that multiplies
Another issue that raises alarms among authorities is that trafficking generates not only its crime by itself.
“Combing” are other illicit acts, among them, rape, sexual abuse, manufacturing and dissemination of child pornography, deprivation of liberty, and drug trafficking, among others.
This is also surrounded by a series of threats where the perpetrators generate fear in those affected, either with violence or reported to immigration and deported.
– Advertisement –
As occurs with cases of adult trafficking, authorities encounter an important obstacle and it is “That the victims of trafficking do not consider themselves victims. They consider that their traffickers are people who are helping them, who are giving them the opportunity to move forward,” Aragón said.
“What they do not understand is that they are being exploited,” she added.
“Prevention begins there, in the schools. If we in educational centers begin to explain to children and adolescents what human trafficking is in a simple and easy way, we can prevent it,” says Aragón.
The prosecutor explained the modus operandi to capture victims and their families, using the example of an already resolved case of a minor that a couple took out of Nicaragua.
“They went to the community there, talked to the relatives, offering better living conditions, that they were going to bring her (the child) to Costa Rica so that she would have access to education, so that she would have access to food, a place to sleep, better opportunities in life,” said the Prosecutor.
“Under these better living conditions, obviously, her caregivers at that time, tutors, gave the minor to these two people, brought her to Costa Rica and there they began the exploitation by putting her to take care of other minors, also to take care of animals and do housework,” she added.
It was not until a neighbor contacted 911 that intervention was achieved.
The prosecutor says to always report given the veil of secrecy with which a case of trafficking can move, the call from the authorities is to alert any suspicious context.
“When in doubt, when suspecting that there are people who are victims of trafficking or labor exploitation, in this particular case of children, the important thing is to report it,” says Aragón.
Complaints can be filed through the judicial system (the OIJ). You can also request an investigation from organizations such as the Patronato Nacional de la Infancia (PANI) – child welfare service, the Ministerio de Trabajo (MTSS) – labor ministry, or the Instituto Nacional de las Mujeres (Inamu) – women’s institute.
The same can be done by calling 911 or 800-8000-645.
– Advertisement –
Source link
Rico
