I have no choice, I have nothing to eat, I have a sick child for whom I have to buy medicine. I don't even have health insurance, says a young woman, who sits every day on the asphalt in front of one of the bakeries in the neighborhood of Grbavica, in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
She has two other minor children with her.
Even though the temperatures are below zero, she says, she has to go out, because all her income is what she begs on the street.
In Sarajevo Canton (KS), day care centers for children caught begging have not been working for six years, as Mirsada Poturković, expert associate for information and communication at the Center for Social Work of KS, confirmed for Radio Free Europe (RSE).
"Instead, through the Center, an Education Center was formed, within which children found begging or victims of human trafficking are accepted," the answer to RSE states.
Begging, labor and sexual exploitation are the most common crimes of human trafficking
70 users are registered in the KS Training Center, of which 18 users are on a full-day stay, and 52 are on a half-day stay.
Of the 18 minors who can stay in the Center for up to two months, most are victims of domestic violence.
"We have several girls who reported themselves to the police, who are placed there, because they don't want to get married, and their parents want to sell them," says Elmedin Zuko, head of the service for caring for children in need at the KS Education Center, adding that they they remain housed until the police complete the procedure.
Begging is one of the forms of human trafficking, which is the most prevalent in BiH, according to Samir Rizva, the state coordinator for the fight against human trafficking and a member of the Task Force for the fight against human trafficking at the Ministry of Security of BiH.
"According to the latest data, 70 potential victims of human trafficking have been identified. We noticed that there were victims of all forms of exploitation, both sexual and labor and forced begging. Although it is a pandemic, we have not noticed that COVID has affected this form of crime, in terms of its reduction," Rizvo told RSE.
One of the victims is LS, who in February 2020 was found begging with her baby on the streets of Banja Luka, in the northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
She was 15 years old.
According to the indictment confirmed by the District Court in Banja Luka, her illegitimate husband, Jasmin Seferović, forced her to beg in front of shopping centers in Sarajevo and Banja Luka.
She gave the collected money to Jasmin.
When she did not collect enough money, he would beat her, and numerous injuries and bruises were visible on her body, according to the indictment.
"He forced her to beg, even when she became pregnant, but also after she gave birth to a daughter in October 2019. This lasted until February 20, when the police found her begging with a baby in her arms in the parking lot in Banja Luka," the indictment states.
In the same case, Jasmin's father Ljubo was accused of offering money to the minor's mother, AS, in exchange for her consent to the extramarital union of his son and her daughter, to which she agreed.
Thus, for a fee of around 950 euros, the mother out of self-interest facilitated an illicit extramarital union with a child under 16 years of age.
The Center for Social Work of Banjaluka and the non-governmental organization "New Generation" came to the girl's aid, and they reported everything to the authorities.
"The minor was temporarily housed with us for six or seven days. Then it was taken over by the competent services. Where he is now, we don't even know, because it's secret information. Together with the baby, she has been placed safely," Boris Makarić, a social worker in this organization, told RSE.
Children in a difficult hygienic and health condition
Makarić points out that this organization is ready to provide first aid, because users often come in poor health and hygiene.
"When we take over a child, we immediately go to meet the biological needs - food, hygiene, bathing, provide clothes, create a humane atmosphere so that the children feel safe. Then we start with them on the classic collection of information," explains Makarić, stating that they did the same in the case of LS.
The State Department rated BiH as the worst in the region
Bosnia and Herzegovina has been on the monitoring list for three years in a row and on the second level (Tier 2 Watch List) of the State Department's annual report on human trafficking.
It is the worst ranked country in the region, and risks falling to the lowest level if it does not increase its efforts in the fight against human trafficking.
Among the remarks from the latest report for 2019 is the length of court proceedings, which are conducted for several years, and that "judges continue to impose sentences that are lower than the minimum, including the minimum sentences prescribed by law for the offense of human trafficking, often citing unreasonable "mitigating circumstances" in order to further reduce the amount of the sentence".
In addition, "authorities reported that human traffickers avoided serving prison terms by using a legal provision according to which prison sentences are replaced by fines by equalizing 100 KM (50 euros) for each day of the imposed prison sentence."
"For the trafficking of children for the purpose of forced begging, two second-instance verdicts of five years in prison were pronounced last year, and one first-instance sentence was pronounced for two people each of ten years in prison," says Rizvo.
Because of the State Department's report, he says, the institutions in BiH have intensified their work and in 2020 made progress in terms of the amount of the fine, the investigations launched and the indictments filed.
Migrant children are also exposed to violence and human trafficking, and their trips are most often organized by smugglers.
Research conducted by the non-governmental organization 'Save the Children', with unaccompanied boys, showed that they perceive smugglers as very powerful figures who instill great fear in them.
In the period from 2015 to 2020, according to the data provided to RSE, the Prosecutor's Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina filed indictments in 144 cases against 240 persons for human trafficking and illegal migration.
The non-governmental organizations Emmaus International Solidarity Forum and the Center for Women's Rights conducted an analysis of the monitoring of criminal cases in the field of human trafficking in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the period from 2014 to 2019, where the victim is a female.
"During the analysis of 25 proceedings before the courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11 cases of exploitation of a child for pornography, 10 cases of inducement to prostitution, and four cases of human trafficking were recorded. Out of the 25 analyzed cases, in the majority of the cases, a guilty verdict was pronounced," it was stated in the response to RSE.
According to this analysis, acquittals were pronounced in two cases for human trafficking, and in both cases the victims were minors.
The analysis states that acquittals were reached in these cases, because "the prosecution did not prove that the accused and his father took the victim and her three minor children to various destinations to beg every day, and that her three minor children were also injured by the accused and gave his father money in the name of debt, and that the accused also received that money'.
Around the world, about 25 million people fall into the category of victims of human trafficking.
The value of this trade is estimated at 150 billion US dollars per year, according to the International Labor Organization of the United Nations (ILO).
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