In 2011, the US navy gave up its $8.5m (£6m) annual lease and returned the property to Pizzarotti. The buildings are overrun by cockroaches and rats that feed off festering piles of garbage, while mangy, flea-infested dogs duck in and out of holes in the razor-wire fence. Most of them had come to Italy to work in hair salons, and all had contact numbers to call. Many of those trafficked for sex slavery are assured by their “sponsors” that they will take care of getting the necessary documents for them once they leave the centres. After three days, a man Joy didn’t recognise came to find her in the camp and told her she was to wait at a roundabout down the road from the entrance every morning, and eventually someone would come for her. She was wearing a faded denim jacket over a crisp white T-shirt and tight jeans, and six or seven strings of colourful beads were wrapped around her neck. They were rarely hired for farm work, so many had no choice but to prostitute themselves. She was one of the most powerful bosses of the Camorra in the city of Naples from 1993 until her arrest in 2001. The charges against him have since been reduced to aggravated fraud and corruption. The group, which prosecutors defined as a mafia-style association, had siphoned off millions of euros intended to fund public services. “There are radicalised individuals who attract foreigners in order to incite them to fundamentalism.”. Another appeal is under way. Those turned down are easy bait for criminal gangs working inside the camps, who get paid for providing mafia groups with illegal cheap labour, running drugs and arms or working in the many industries those groups have infiltrated. (Foreign Correspondent: Louie Eroglu) Another big money spinner for the Camorra is the drug trade. igerian girls who are trafficked directly to madams in Naples and elsewhere are forced to do sex work to pay off large debts. Indeed Italy is one of the principal entry points for the drugs smuggled into Europe for different reasons: ... Cuba (Avana) and Domenican Republic. Many of those first prostitutes eventually became madams, controlled by Nigerian drug-smuggling gangs, who had to pay protection money to the Camorra to operate on their territory. Many of the Nigerian women and girls rescued from the smugglers’ boats by charities or coastguard vessels are from small villages around Benin City. There were a handful of other migrants loitering along the road. Nigerian girls who are trafficked directly to madams in Naples and elsewhere are forced to do sex work to pay off large debts. One of those young women was Joy. The approaching car didn’t slow down, so Joy came back over to me and carried on our conversation. The UN's International Organisation for Migration estimates 80 per cent of the Nigerian women and girls arriving by sea are likely to be victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation in Italy. As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit foreign victims in Italy. Under the new strategy for the prevention of and fight against trafficking in human beings in 2012-2016, and bearing in mind the priorities set for the 2014-2017 policy cycle, the Italian Presidency stimulates the development of coherent action to combat … The Camorra Alongside Calabria's ’Ndrangheta, Sicily's Cosa Nostra and Puglia's Sacra Corona Unita, Campania's Camorra is one of Italy's four main organised-crime syndicates. Most are single and travelling alone. It was built for officers stationed at the Sigonella naval air base about 40km away. Photograph: Elena Perlino/Rex/Shutterstock, ‘Migrants are more profitable than drugs’: how the mafia infiltrated Italy’s asylum system. Ghosts of the centre’s former life remain. Victims originate primarily from Nigeria and other African countries, China, and Eastern Europe. STOP THE TRAFFIK works globally to disrupt these networks and build resilience in these vulnerable communities. P.I. As reported over the past five years, Italy is a destination, transit, and source country for women, children, and men subjected to sex trafficking and forced labor. (At last count, it housed 4,000 people.) He was accused of collusion with the mafia, and of using funds intended for the care of migrants and refugees for personal gain. Most migrants live in another former military residential development, now dilapidated and controlled by the Camorra, who charge rent to squatters and trafficked women. people allegedly involved in human trafficking between Albania Indeed, the Camorra-ravaged suburbs of Secondigliano and Scampia in northern Naples have the dubious claim of being Europe's largest open-air drug market, supplying addicts from across the country with cheap, low-grade heroin and cocaine. It was late summer 2016, and the weather was still hot. A cut goes to the recruiter in Nigeria, a cut to the traffickers and smugglers who expedited the women’s journey, and a large portion goes to the Nigerian gang members, who must pay the Naples mafia, the Camorra, or other crime syndicates in whose territories the women will be forced to work. Italian justice. Most of the residents are divided by ethnic or religious background, which has done nothing to reduce tensions and fighting. Maria Licciardi is an Italian criminal affiliated with the Camorra, head of the Licciardi clan, and one of the bosses of the Secondigliano Alliance. The farmers call them ragazzo or “boy”, demanding they turn around or show them how straight their backs are. The woman who answered the phone told her to apply for political asylum using a fake name and birthdate, and never to give the phone number she had just called to anyone. The villas are falling apart, and the migrants are left to do what they can to take care of maintenance with scant tools. The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute estimates there are between 8,000 and 10,000 Nigerian women and girls living in Italy who have been forced into prostitution. When the migrants got off the boat, an armed military policeman in a bulletproof vest stood guard as another patted them down and took knives from some of the men. Experts believe the overall number of trafficking victims in Italy is increasing due to the dramatic rise in migrants and asylum seekers arriving by boat escaping war and oppressive political, social, or economic conditions. A Catholic charity had given Italian phone cards to all those who had been rescued, which they could use to call home. Victims originate primarily from Nigeria and other African countries, China, and Eastern Europe, and include ethnic Roma. More than 400 villas were built to accommodate the standard family of five. Murder rates are the highest in the country, and locals call it Beirut, or the Bronx. Our Nigeria-Libya-Italy campaign was just 1 of 5 social-media campaigns launched by STOP THE TRAFFIK this year. Most of them had come to Italy to work in hair salons, and all had contact numbers to call. She wrote back a third and final time. But often, before they can obtain legal status, they are claimed by the criminal underworld. In 2012, an investigation was opened into forced prostitution at Cara di Mineo, after doctors at the centre received a series of requests for abortions. Joy was number 323. The camp’s director, Sebastiano Maccarrone, admitted in a series of media interviews in early 2016 that it was virtually impossible to protect the inhabitants. Accommodation blocks are often so overcrowded that people have to sleep on the floor or in tents. In 2016, Maccarrone, who previously ran the migrant reception centre on the island of Lampedusa, came under criminal investigation for corruption at Cara di Mineo. After the incident, Francesco Verzera, a prosecutor with jurisdiction over Cara di Mineo, appealed to the authorities to close down the camp, stating that overcrowding and lack of supervision is creating a dangerous criminal environment. Others are provided with false personal details that they are told to use for their applications. “You can’t imagine how many bodies are buried in fields and tied to rocks at the bottom of the river.”. The Albanian suspects allegedly maintained close ties with “We have received very specific reports of recruitment activities and radicalisation,” he told the paper. Many of the trafficked Nigerian women end up in Castel Volturno, outside Naples, known as the most lawless part of Italy. Prosecutor Nicola Gratteri said detectives had filmed appalling conditions inside the centre. Realising she was being put to work as a prostitute, she had refused to leave the camp. (The investigation is ongoing, and no trial date has been set. The centre has become a lawless place where people are easy prey for criminal gangs. A futher two … After the Americans left, Pizzarotti removed many of the amentities – from washing machines and air-conditioning units to ceiling fans and bathtubs – leaving exposed wires and holes in the walls. During the investigation, an undercover police officer was tipped off by one of the aid agencies working in Cara di Mineo, and picked Joy up on the road leading through the citrus groves. They come back for the promise of documents that will allow free movement through Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone, and the right to work. Italian and Nigerian gangs: A deadly alliance An uneasy partnership between Italian and Nigerian gangs has led to a boom in human trafficking and the drugs trade. The rest will have paid the smugglers to get them to Europe, but once they get there, will be unlikely to escape the sex-trafficking rings. Italy prohibits all forms of trafficking in persons through its 2003 Measures Against Trafficking in Persons law, which prescribes penalties of eight to 20 years’ imprisonment. Whatever way you want you can support and care for orphan kids education about human trafficking, transitional homes and training for orphans and foster children who have aged out of care. A gold chain hung from her left wrist, a gift from her mother. When Joy turned 16, she went through a ceremony that bound her to the maman by a curse: if she disobeyed the maman, her family would die. She said she might have to start by cleaning floors, but that she would work her way up. Indeed Italy is one of the principal entry points for the drugs smuggled into Europe for different reasons: ... Cuba (Avana) and Domenican Republic. Once Joy was taken off the bus in the reception centre with the other passengers, she was given a bed in a villa with 10 Nigerian women around her age. “Trafficking in Persons”… mean[s] the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another perso… Th… The state funds these centres by giving them a sum of money for each asylum seeker, but many of them cut corners on food and other amenities, and pocket the profits. Since 2015, the country has been coping with an overwhelming flow of migrants, a significant portion of whom are vulnerable to trafficking. Human trafficking and modern slavery are global issues. But Verzera says he found that migrants who had been gone for months were kept on the list for financial support. As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit foreign victims in Italy. I caught up with Joy by email thanks to a local anti-trafficking advocate in Sicily who took an interest in her case and acted as a liaison with the court. By law, each migrant awaiting asylum is given an electronic card to check in and out of the centre when making outings. Six of the suspects are Albanian nationals and one Italian. “The crimes continue to get more violent, and the growing disregard for life is a clear sign of a deteriorating situation.”. Joy still had her jacket with the phone number sewn inside. Trafficked women who disappear to work as sex slaves have little chance of being rescued, because their absence causes no concern. I wished her good luck and gave her my phone number, which she saved in her phone before walking through the sliding metal gate back inside the centre. regional capital. Italy is one of the main destination countries for trafficked men, women and children. Posing as asylum seekers, traffickers lure women out of the centre on the pretext of shopping trips or other excursions, and deliver them to the Nigerian women who control forced prostitution rings. If we assume half of the estimated 11,000 Nigerian girls who came to Italy in 2016 generated €60,000 each through debt bondage for the madams’ gangs, the profits off those girls alone would top €300m (£264m), even after their travel costs are deducted. Crime families have cashed in on the ‘refugee industry’. human trafficking A growing number of Chinese immigrants are being trafficked into Italy to work in inhumane conditions at the country’s garment factories or … Many of the migrants on the official roster had long since disappeared, even though the centre, under the direction of Maccarrone, was still reimbursed €35 (£31) a day for them. A Catholic charity had given Italian phone cards to all those who had been rescued, which they could use to call home. The same year, during the height of the Arab spring, Silvio Berlusconi’s government decided to lease the complex as an asylum “hot spot”, for processing the growing number of asylum seekers coming to Italy. “Do you have any idea how much I earn on immigrants?” he was heard telling an associate. “There was a group of men standing there watching this. Joy’s new life would turn out to be nothing like what she had expected. Many of the trafficked Nigerian women end up in Castel Volturno, outside Naples, known as the most lawless part of Italy. Low-level members of Italy’s various mafia organisations and Nigerian gangs come to the centre to recruit drug mules and petty criminals among the bored, idle men who have given up on the life they dreamed of when they crossed the sea. • Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here. A UN expert on human trafficking has called on Italy to do more to confront the problem. (ANSA) - Naples, June 30 - Police on Tuesday arrested seven I was also selfishly scared that if I intervened, I might get caught up in some sort of retaliation act, that someone might harm me or my children for taking one of the madam’s precious “assets” off the streets. By the 1990s, women started arriving in greater numbers. “This sort of violence will become the norm if you continue to operate a community-based asylum centre with nearly 4,000 people,” he warned. Official complicity in human trafficking crimes occurs at the local level. The operation leading to the arrests was carried out by officials from the Guardia di Finanza (GdF), which is the Italian law enforcement agency responsible for dealing with financial crimes and smuggling. The women arrested in Castel Volturno included Irene Ebhoadaghe, 44, who called herself Mummy Shade. A few weeks later, she was told she was moving to Italy, where she would work for her maman’s sister. He maintains he is innocent, and is working as a volunteer at one of the smaller migrant centres in Catania while he awaits trial. When I asked her what she thought would happen when she was picked up, she said she was sure she would be taken to a beauty salon owned by her maman’s sister, where she would be given a job as a hair braider, as she had been in Benin City. She wrote again. Before they’ve even started work, they will owe around €60,000 (£53,000). Victims originate primarily from Nigeria and other African countries, China, and Eastern Europe, and include ethnic Roma. Their wages are part of the illicit economy that makes up around 20% of Italy’s overall GDP. Nigerian women working as prostitutes in Turin, Italy. The complex that houses Cara di Mineo was built in 2005 by the Pizzarotti Company of Parma, which is still the primary contractor for US defence logistics in Italy. The new arrivals were divided into groups and put on buses. Joy still had her jacket with the phone number sewn inside. The most importa... nt thing you can do for victims of human trafficking is learn the indicators and report suspected trafficking when you see it. If they don’t check back in after three days, they are supposed to be taken off the roster, and that information sent to Rome so the reimbursement will be stopped. Because of the church’s influence over migrant care, contraception was not being distributed, and few migrants have the means to source their own. The Duchess of Cornwall, 69, visited a centre for victims of human trafficking and domestic violence in Florence on the third day in Italy. Italy has an estimated 1.5 million unregistered workers, who were particularly vulnerable to labor trafficking. Several centres have become the subject of criminal investigations, revealing corruption at local and state level, and infiltration by powerful crime syndicates. In 2014, an investigation known as “Mafia Capitale” found that a criminal group had been running Rome’s municipal government for years. One woman handed out shoes and flip-flops, and another gave them bruised yellow apples from a large metal tub. Conzo and his men discovered a huge human-trafficking and drugs-smuggling Nigerian ring in the area of Naples and Castel Volturno. In 2017, anti-mafia police arrested 68 people, including the local parish priest, in the Calabrian town of Isola di Capo Rizzuto, where one of the country’s largest migrant and refugee reception centres has been in operation for more than a decade. nce Joy was taken off the bus in the reception centre with the other passengers, she was given a bed in a villa with 10 Nigerian women around her age. She is joining Prince Charles on his European tour. It is rare to meet a trafficked woman who has not been faced with this choice. The number of potentially … She believed she would be working in a hair salon. The fight against trafficking in human beings is one of Italy’s key priorities within the framework of the Italian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. She had since come to suspect that her parents had sold her to raise money for their younger children. I asked her if she knew that a lot of girls like her ended up as sex workers. An officer used a black marker pen to write a number on the migrants’ left hands. As we spoke, a dark car came into view and she took a couple of steps away from me to make sure whoever was driving saw her, and saw that she was alone. “They probably had no choice,” she said as she looked down the road toward the thick citrus groves that hid the coming traffic. IT00876481003 - © Copyright ANSA - All rights reserved, ANSA certification for the production, distribution and publication of news in multimedia format, COVID-19: 477 more deaths in 24 hours, 16,146 new cases, One million vaccinations done in Italy says Conte, Bank of Italy cuts 2021 growth forecast to 3.5%, COVID: Risk of uncontrolled epidemic has risen says ISS, ++ Most of Italy set to be an orange zone ++, Cinema: Bong Joon-ho to be president of Venice jury, Almost all of Italy set to be an orange zone. Among those arrested were Nigerian women who worked with what were termed “connection men” inside the camp. At that time, the complex was completely locked down, and the mostly Tunisian and Moroccan migrants were held until they were repatriated. The bar is now the medical centre, and the restaurant a canteen where migrants pick up rations of rice and bananas. She had no papers or passport. Victims originate primarily from Nigeria and other African countries, China, and Eastern Europe. “You knew about this. “Naples has a very high (rate) of human trafficking,” said Teig. Officers then detained a 33-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man on suspicion of being involved in human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Italy has an estimated 1.5 million unregistered workers, who were particularly vulnerable to labor trafficking. This cycle has continued for more than a decade, but in 2016, the number of Nigerian women who arrived by smugglers’ boats was 60% higher than the previous year. ast year, Catania’s chief prosecutor, Carmelo Zuccaro, tried to make it illegal for NGO charity ships to rescue migrants at sea and bring them to Italian shores. She said she was 18, but looked much younger. Because Joy was named in the sealed arrest warrant as a victim of trafficking, after cooperating with the police, she was given asylum and moved to northern Europe to join a relative. Now the people inside are called “guests” and are free to come and go once they have applied for asylum. This is one of the reasons trafficked women have been allowed to leave so easily: their names tend to stay on the lists, and the centres continue to receive funding. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons defines human trafficking or trafficking in persons: 1. and monitored by one of their 'seniors'. I wrote back to console her, telling her not to worry, that many women fell into the same trap. I admitted that I hadn’t known exactly what to do. It can take five years or more of sexual slavery to pay the debts. They are then forced into sex work under the threat of violence, most of them – like Joy – terrorised by a curse that binds them into slavery. and Italy and exploiting prostitution in Naples. A shelter for trafficked women who have entered a protection programme run by the Italian state. By Barbie Latza Nadeau, Last modified on Tue 28 Apr 2020 14.37 EDT. ... “This involves many cities including Turin, Milan, Genoa, Rome, Naples and Palermo and thousands of Nigerian and Italian people. All she had was an Italian phone number, which her maman had stitched into the sleeve of her jacket. “You will know,” the man told her. Teens believe they escaped a sex trafficking ring after being attacked in Naples, Italy. An Italian court has sentenced a Romanian man to 20 years in prison for human trafficking after a Guardian investigation revealed that thousands of women from Romania were being raped and used as forced labour on farms in Sicily. So why didn’t they help? The boulevards and tree-lined streets of the compound were meant to replicate a US suburb, complete with a recreation centre, supermarket, American-style steakhouse and a coffee and pastry shop. The woman had been told, like Joy, to wait on the street for someone to pick her up. Most of the trafficked women end up with fake documents provided by Italian organised-crime groups. The theory is that if a woman realises that the penalty for refusing to prostitute herself is gang rape, she will likely agree that roadside sex is a better alternative. She applied for asylum the morning after she arrived, using her own birth date and the name of her younger sister. There are other incidentals, including room, board, clothing and rent for the space on the pavement from which they solicit sex. I had tried, I thought, but obviously not hard enough. About 70km from the coast in central Sicily, it is a hellish place where the vast majority of African migrants who arrive by sea start their lengthy journey to asylum. The site was built as luxury housing for US military personnel, but it is ill-equipped to deal with the number of migrants washing up on the shores of Sicily. Freeing girls trafficked to Italy for sex: ‘You will not be a slave for ever’, interview with the rightwing newspaper Il Giornale. It was built for officers stationed at the Sigonella naval air base about 40km away. The woman who answered the phone told her to apply for political asylum using a fake name and birthdate, and never to give the phone number she had just called to anyone. ROME --Precious survived a trip across North Africa and two sinking boats before making it to Italy, ... Organization for Migration's 2017 report on human trafficking. On Friday (November 13), eight migrants of non-EU origin including three minors and one woman were discovered inside the refrigerated compartment of a lorry that was transiting through Italy's southern Campania region near Naples. He convinced her to help them catch the people who had trafficked her, and her evidence became key to the operation’s success. “It’s like a small city,” he said. The oldest of six children, Joy (not her real name) told me she had left her family in a small village in Edo state in Nigeria at the age of 15, and gone to work for a wealthy woman who owned a beauty salon in Benin City. Joy asked how she would know who was picking her up. In three months, the centre’s doctors performed 32 abortions on migrants – an increase of more than 200% on the year before. I had no idea how to help her. The authorities concluded that this was due to an increase in prostitution, along with a lack of birth control options. The recreation room is now a makeshift school, and offices have become dormitories. Escaping the sex trade: the stories of Nigerian women lured to Italy - in pictures, A Nigerian cultural mediator offers condoms and psychological support to prostitutes working close to Naples, Italy. Investigators say the criminals stole tens of millions of euros in public funds intended for asylum seekers to live on while their applications were heard. 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