Trafficking in human beings for sexual and other purposes - Polisen

1. Summary9tarmac and paving layers from the UK and Ireland.Police also initiated a collaborative venture with theSwedish Tax Agency, Swedish Customs, the SwedishProsecution Authority, the Larmtjänst service (setup to combat organised crime on behalf of theSwedish insurance industry) and the SwedishMigration Board in connection with the special initiative.A methodology manual was updated andmade available on the police intranet, to enable thepolice to work consistently to combat this type ofcrime.1.3 Child trafficking for sexual and otherpurposesSince the legislation was introduced in 2002, all of thechild victims of human trafficking for sexual purposesin Sweden have been girls aged 16-17 years, withfew exceptions. In the preliminary investigations carriedout in Sweden during 2011, concerning humantrafficking for sexual purposes and similar crimessuch as procuring/aggravated procuring, none of thevictims were below the age of 12; the youngest girlwas aged 14 and the oldest woman 41.It also happens that some human traffickers get intouch with parents living in poverty in countries suchas Romania and Bulgaria, either to buy or hire theirsons and daughters with the purpose of exploitingthem for theft or begging, or to exploit them sexuallyin prostitution. The girls and boys, often in the 10-14age-group, are not allowed to attend school but areinstead trained at an early stage by the human traffickerto steal from shops and to pick pockets. Thesehuman traffickers exploit the children’s young agewhich means they escape punishment and a criminalrecord.In 2011, the National Bureau of Investigation assistedNorway in a preliminary investigation in which childrenwere exploited to commit fraud, theft and begging,sold into forced marriage and subjected to rape.Some of these crimes were also committed in Sweden.The case concerned girls aged 13-17 from Romaniawho were bought and sold by a number of perpetratorsin order to be exploited for fraud in the form ofselling fake gold, committing thefts, begging, etc. Thepreliminary investigation also encompassed informationabout forced marriages, rapes, assaults, etc. InJuly 2012, Bergen District Court sentenced six people(three men and three women from Romania) toimprisonment for between three and six years foroffences including human trafficking 4 .1.4 Child trafficking for sexual purposesoutside SwedenOne type of crime that ought to be given greaterattention concerns Swedes who commit sexual crimesagainst girls and boys in other countries. This usuallymeans that a person resident in Sweden travels toanother country in order to sexually exploit a girl orboy resident in that country, in return for some formof payment. The crimes committed against childrenare especially rape/aggravated rape of a child, purchaseof sex acts from children and child pornographycrimes.During the period 2009-2010, the National Bureauof Investigation Cyber-Crime Section ran a project tocombat child trafficking for sexual purposes withinthe framework of the Government’s assignment forthe Swedish National Police Board to strengthennational initiatives to combat prostitution andhuman trafficking for sexual purposes. 5 The purposeof the project was to combat more effectively thecrime of child trafficking for sexual purposes and tosimplify procedures for giving the police tip-offsabout these crimes in Sweden 6 . This is intended particularlyto facilitate the identification of people suspectedof exploiting children for sexual purposes outsideSweden.4 Bergen District Court 05.07.2012, Case no 11-194827MED-BBYR/01.5 Ju2008/7403/PO6 Accessible at: http://polisen.se/sv/Kontakta -oss/Tipsa-Polisen/