Human Trafficking in [Portugal] [other countries]
Street Children in [Portugal] [other countries]
Child Prostitution in [Portugal] [other countries]
 

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

Portuguese Republic (Portugal) [ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The Portuguese Republic [map] is located in SW Europe on the western side of the Iberian Peninsula and includes the Madeira Islands and the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. Portugal is bordered by Spain (E & N) and by the Atlantic Ocean (W & S). Its capital and largest city is Lisbon. Economic growth had been above the EU average for much of the 1990’s, but fell back in 2001-04. GDP per capita stands at two-thirds that of the Big Four EU economies. A poor educational system, in particular, has been an obstacle to greater productivity and growth.

Portugal is primarily a destination and transit country for women, men, and children trafficked from Brazil, and to a lesser extent, from Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Romania, and Africa for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Male victims from Eastern European countries are trafficked for forced labor into the farming and construction industries. Some trafficking victims transit through Portugal to other European countries. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country report]

CAUTION: The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Portugal. Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

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PORTUGAL-BRAZIL: Human Trafficking and Marriages - Another Link

Brazil’s influence in Portugal is not limited to music, television programming, football, cuisine and tropical beach vacations.

Today it is also the main source of victims of human trafficking to Portugal, women who fall into prostitution and sexual exploitation networks, as well as a source of large numbers of women who marry Portuguese men. Brazil is the favourite country for traffickers who form part of the prostitution networks that have mushroomed in Portugal, which is a springboard to wealthier European Union destinations, according to studies presented at a seminar organised Monday and Tuesday by the governmental Portuguese Youth Institute (IPJ).

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Bur of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – The country is a destination for men and women trafficked from Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, Romania, and Brazil for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. There were reports that immigrant children were used for street begging. Some trafficking victims were transited through the country to other European countries. Most trafficked persons were Eastern European males who ended up working in construction or in other low-wage industries, such as textile manufacturing, woodworking, metalworking, and marble cutting. Some trafficked women (mostly from Eastern Europe and Brazil) worked as prostitutes. Trafficked persons usually lived in hiding in poor conditions, often with little or no sanitation facilities and in cramped spaces. Some trafficked workers were not paid, and some were "housed" within the factory or construction site. Moldovan, Russian, and Ukrainian organized crime groups reportedly conducted most of the trafficking of Eastern Europeans. The traffickers frequently demanded additional payments and a share of earnings following their victims' arrival in the country, usually under threat of physical harm. They often withheld the identification documents of the trafficked persons and threatened to harm family members who remained in the country of origin.

OSCE is a important player to combat against human trafficking

"In Portugal, we are reviewing the definition of trafficking to expand it from transnational trafficking to encompass internal trafficking," he said, adding that the new Immigration Law allows foreign victims to get a one-year residency permit. He also said Portugal had created a centre for trafficking monitoring and proposed that a similar centre be created for trafficking monitoring across Europe.

The Caim Project - Cooperação-Acção-Investigação-Mundivisão

MISSION -

Cooperation - Action - Research - World Vision, aims to create an Institutional and NGO partnership to integrate and coordinate resources to act and transform the social and economical framework of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation in Portugal.

OBJECTIVES - Protection of the victims human rights, by:

Developing and implementing standards and tools to monitor the phenomenon of trafficking in order to act upon it

Strengthen the social interventions aimed at the protection and assistance of trafficked women

Improve victims social inclusion and access to the labor market (as recommended in the Report of the Experts Group on Trafficking in Human beings of the European Commission, 2004)

PORTUGAL-BRAZIL: Human Trafficking and Marriages - Another Link

Brazil’s influence in Portugal is not limited to music, television programming, football, cuisine and tropical beach vacations.

Today it is also the main source of victims of human trafficking to Portugal, women who fall into prostitution and sexual exploitation networks, as well as a source of large numbers of women who marry Portuguese men. Brazil is the favourite country for traffickers who form part of the prostitution networks that have mushroomed in Portugal, which is a springboard to wealthier European Union destinations, according to studies presented at a seminar organised Monday and Tuesday by the governmental Portuguese Youth Institute (IPJ).

Migrant trafficking and human smuggling: the situation in Portugal [PDF]

Smuggling and trafficking of migrants is a relatively new phenomenon in Portugal. Foreign immigration, in itself, has begun in significant numbers in the late 1970s. Only in the late 1980s frequent situations of irregular and illegal migration occurred, and only in the late 1990s smuggling and/or trafficking became a major concern of the general population and public authorities. It was particularly the most recent waves of foreign immigration to the country, namely the one coming from Eastern Europe and the “second wave” of Brazilian immigration, that became involved with those irregular forms of channelling migrants.

The Protection Project - Portugal [DOC]

FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - Organized crime is a large contributor to trafficking in Portugal. It was reported in 2000 that as many as 75,000 women from Brazil had been smuggled into European countries by way of Portugal in a huge operation involving up to 100 organized crime gangs. Criminal networks have been responsible for trafficking Brazilian women through Portugal to the United Kingdom and for trafficking women from multiple countries into Portugal.

FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - Women are trafficked to Portugal for prostitution. In 2001, Brazilian authorities investigated possible Brazilian police involvement in a smuggling ring that sent Brazilian women to Spain and Portugal, where they were forced into prostitution. Authorities believed that the operation, which involved mostly minors, was tied to the mafia on the Iberian Peninsula. An estimated 500 Brazilian women were victims of the ring.

Report Details Mixed Human Trafficking Picture in Europe, Eurasia

Both the Czech Republic and Portugal, which in 2005 were rated Tier 1 countries, have been dropped to Tier 2. In the Czech Republic, there were “inadequate sentences for traffickers,” the report said, and it also cited concerns over forced labor. Portugal “failed to prescribe punishment sufficiently stringent to deter trafficking” and “virtually all convictions for trafficking resulted in suspended sentences in 2004,” the report said.

Human Trafficking: Data Collection, Current Trends and Institutional Approaches [PDF]

VICTIMS -

– Mostly men targeted for low skilled jobs in civil construction

– Also some women, targeted for domestic service and, occasionally, pushed for the sex industry.

Counter Trafficking Training for Religious Personnel, November 6, 2006

Most recently, nearly 40 nuns from Portuguese speaking countries were given intensive training in Lisbon by IOM in a bid to strengthen their ability to help victims of human trafficking. The nuns, from Angola, Brazil, Guinea Bissau, S. Tomé and Príncipe, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Portugal, received general information on human trafficking with a focus on the social implications of human trafficking, criminal networks and their recruitment methods, how to empower victims and how to protect staff involved in assistance programs from psychological burn-out.

Technology Is a Double-Edged Sword: Illegal Human Trafficking in the Information Age

In Portugal, a new immigration Act criminalizes new categories of trafficking and increases penalties for traffickers, but laws on false documentation, extortion, fraud and other criminal activities were also used to prosecute and convict traffickers. According to the Border and Foreigner Service (SEF), 329 trafficking-related investigations were undertaken in 2002-03, of these, four Ukrainians were sentenced from two and a half to nine years for related crimes; 3 Portuguese citizens were sentenced between seven and 15 years for involvement in a human trafficking network of 3,000 victims; and 16 defendants were charged with forced labor, trafficking and kidnapping of more than 300 Brazilian and Moldovan women forced into prostitution.

Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 1 Civil Liberties: 1 Status: Free

Human Rights Overview by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide

U.S. Library of Congress - Country Study

Portugal braced as child prostitution ring trial opens

Portugal's highest-profile trial for years began at a Lisbon court yesterday with a leading television presenter, a former ambassador and five others accused of involvement in a child prostitution ring which allegedly abused orphanage children over a period of 20 years.

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Human Trafficking in [Portugal] [other countries]
Street Children in [Portugal] [other countries]
Child Prostitution in [Portugal] [other countries]