Trafficking in human beings in one of the most violent, invidious violations of human rights. It is the 3rd most profitable form of international organized crime, with hundreds of thousands of victims worldwide, a number that is ever growing. Among them, women, children and men have been forced into sex work, labor, forced marriages, sex slavery, pornography, servile status, and other forms of slavery.

Human trafficking is attached to many factors: migration policy, organized crime, prostitution, forced labour, human rights, violence against women and children, the reflected social pathology, and the corruption of the authorities.

Women and young girls are two of the most vulnerable social groups and therefore most often victimized in the sex trade.

Greece is a major transit and destination country of trafficked women since the beginning of the ‘90s. The victims are coming mainly from countries of Southeastern and Eastern Europe, but also from Africa.

They are being misled with untruthful promises for a better life in Greece or somewhere else, trafficked into commercial sex work, threatened, abused, coerced, sold and bought, being convinced there is no escape, being deprived of their travel documents, money, freedom and human rights.

Sex trafficking is not prostitution. It is a form of slavery, in which the sex worker does not have a choice over her life, body, health, clientele, living and working conditions, safety and payment.