A person for the price of meat? Human trafficking in Hungary
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Sadly, human trafficking is still a pressing issue today. Although Romania has more developed underworld networks, in Hungary, too, people are bought and sold as if they were mere objects.
“They used to buy girls at the price of meat, but now meat has become so expensive that they can get them even cheaper than that. On average, a girl costs between HUF 50,000 and 100,000 (EUR 130-260),”
Ákos Tóth told Szabad Európa.
The war in Ukraine has aggravated the situation
The price is always determined by the situation. However, some people are bought at a price of 50 to 100, 000 forints, while others are given to the pimps by their own families in exchange for a debt. Due to the refugee crisis in Ukraine, the problem has escalated throughout the whole of Europe.
Ukrainian refugees are in need of protection
According to a source of Szabad Európa, Ukrainian girls who flee their country and have no vision of the future are very easy to be forced into human trafficking. As we can read in the article of Index,
by the beginning of April, more than 378,000 unaccompanied Ukrainian children were in need of protection. Out of them, nearly 100,000 were from orphanages and other state institutions,
said Tatiana Kotlyarenko, Anti-Trafficking Advisor at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.