“The phenomenon of trafficking persons in Italy is unfortunately expanding in scale and impact … Traffickers are demonstrating a growing capacity for violence, exploitation and horrendous abuse of their victims,” Ezeilo said as she presented her preliminary findings.
Violent gangs are smuggling thousands of men, women and children into Italy, bypassing often inadequate border checks and other efforts to control the growing problem, the United Nations’ trafficking expert said on Friday.
The number of people brought across Italy’s long coasts and borders – many of them bound for work in the sex trade, sweatshops or farms – was much larger than the official records showed, U.N. Special Rapporteur on trafficking Joy Ngozi Ezeilo said.
She called on the government to revamp systems to identify trafficked people when they come in, try to persuade more men to stop using prostitutes and make sure the country’s financial problems did not starve programmes of funding.
Italy’s interior ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Italy identified 2,400 victims of trafficking in 2010, a quarter of all found in the bloc, according to the most recent European Union figures. Ezeilo said she should would release new data in a full report next year.
[…]
