One Euro: the price of a child on the trafficking market

Children from poor families in Ethiopia are being sold to traffickers for as little as one Euro, the Missionary News Service reported last night. At least 20,000 children have been sold, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which has just issued a study of the issue. According to the IOM, two thirds of this trade is directly carried out by organised human traffickers who take the minors from impoverished rural parents promising bright prospects of work or studies for their offspring. Trafficked girls usually end up as domestic workers or prostitutes, while boys do menial work or become professional beggars. In a third of the cases members of the same family have been involved in the trafficking. IOM legal adviser in Ethiopia, Alem Brook, emphasised the constant growth in the number of Ethiopian women that end up in the prostitution market in Gulf nations. The price of a young Ethiopian girl in Arab nations is of around 800 Euro. More than 80% of Ethiopia's 71-million people live in rural areas and depend on subsistence farming, while 45% of these live in extreme poverty. The average annual income in the country is of $100. Source: MISNA