France: Child Prostitution Increased 600 Per Cent from 2014 to 2020
Between 2014 and 2020, the number of children reported being exploited and sold by sex traffickers in France increased by 600 per cent, according to the country’s human trafficking agency.
The French Central Office for the Suppression of Human Trafficking (OCRTEH) revealed that the number of minors reported as being exploited as child prostitutes was 28 in 2014, but the number rose to 198 in 2020, representing a 600 per cent increase in just six years.
One of the areas in which the number of child prostitution cases has especially multiplied in recent years is Lille, where prosecutor Carole Étienne has said the figures should act as a “wake-up call” for authorities, Actu reports.
Earlier this month, the city saw the latest case involving two young men involved in a sex trafficking network that included children.
One-Third of Young Prostitutes in Paris No-Go Suburbs Under 15-Years-Old https://t.co/XGzxmt0n7z
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 13, 2019
One man was accused of taking pictures of the girls and using them to advertise their services on social media, while the other is accused of providing security for the young victims.
Prosecutor Carole Étienne said: “In 2020, of the pimping cases we had to deal with, there were 33 victims and 22 were minors. It’s a wake-up call I want to push.”
“They are often vulnerable, struggling people between the ages of 14 and 17, on the run,” Étienne said. She added: “We see a trivialisation of pimping and prostitution among young people, to finance a lifestyle.”
Several other cases of child prostitution made headlines last year in France, including a report from Dijon in which a judge was accused of pimping out his 12-year-old daughter to other men through an online dating website.
In 2019, the Observatory of Violence Against Women in Seine-Saint-Denis published a report claiming that around a third of the underage prostitutes in Paris’s no-go suburbs were under the age of 15 and that some were as young as just six years old.
French Judge Arrested for Attempting to Prostitute 12-Year-Old Daughter Online https://t.co/le3PRFnp6O
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 14, 2020
