German authorities have said they investigated more human trafficking and exploitation cases in 2024 than in any year since 2000. Weak online safeguards are a major driver with many minors among the victims.
Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) on Thursday announced that it had completed 576 investigations into incidents of human trafficking in 2024 — a 13% percent jump from 2023 and the highest level since the BKA began compiling such data in 2000.
The largest share of cases (364) involved sexual exploitation, the highest level recorded by Germany’s BKA in a decade.
Such exploitation is increasingly taking place in private homes, say authorities, a setting that is difficult to monitor. This leads the BKA to conclude that the actual number of crimes taking place is far greater than they have the capacity to know.
Victims and suspects often come from other European countries, with notable increases among Chinese and Colombian victims.
Weak online safeguards endanger children
Many victims are women, young people and minors according to the BKA, which says contact is often established online using the so-called “lover-boy method.”
With this common tactic, men lure women into false relationships in order to create dependency before financially exploiting them through forced prostitution. “Increasingly, psychological and physical violence plays a role,” the BKA said.
Minors are particularly at risk say police, with more than 200 cases involving children and adolescents, almost all in the context of commercial sexual exploitation.
“One reason for the increasing numbers here is, among other things, that various online platforms have too few protective mechanisms, which facilitates the exploitation of minors using the internet as a tool,” said the BKA in Wiesbaden on Thursday. “In two cases, children were offered for sale online.”
Source : https://www.dw.com/en/germany-police-raise-alarm-over-spike-in-child-trafficking/a-73800323