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The European Commission urges the 27 to be particularly vigilant in registering unaccompanied minors.
Photo d’illustration.
REUTERS
European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson on Tuesday called on EU member states to properly register children arriving from Ukraine, who account for half of the country’s refugees, in the face of the risk of human trafficking. .
“Our priority is registration, registration, registration,” she hammered before the European Parliament meeting in plenary session in Strasbourg. “We need to know where these children are, all the two million (who fled the war). No child should disappear,” she insisted. “Member States must step up these registrations”.
Many Ukrainian parents have had to make a “very, very difficult choice” to send their children home without them to safety, she said. “These Ukrainian parents are counting on us to keep their children safe. It’s up to us to show them that they can count on us,” she added to MEPs, who are due to vote on a resolution on this issue on Thursday.
So far some 3,300 unaccompanied minors have been identified, according to the commissioner. But “UNICEF believes that the real figure is much higher,” she commented before a parliamentary committee on Monday evening. She added that many children arrive with extended family members.
Lithuanian authorities are investigating possible adoption trafficking involving 43 children, she said, without further details. “There are no confirmed cases yet. But we know from experience that the danger is very real,” she added.
Common platform
The EU is in the process of setting up a common registration platform, so that the Twenty-Seven can exchange their information. “Even before the war, Ukrainians were among the nationals most subject to human trafficking to the EU”, in particular for the purpose of sexual exploitation, she underlined. “So we already had in our member states criminal networks specializing in the trafficking of Ukrainians. And of course they are active at the moment,” said the Swedish commissioner.
She said that 282 agents from Frontex, the European coast and border guard agency, were deployed at the borders with Ukraine to help identify people vulnerable to trafficking.
She added that the European police agency Europol had set up a specially dedicated task force and that the EU anti-trafficking coordinator, Diane Schmitt, had visited Poland and Romania.
(AFP)