Trafficking in human beings for sexual and other purposes - Polisen

3. Criminal Development30sexual acts from children and where crimes areuncovered, are young teenagers. Despite this manyperpetrators still escape being sentenced for thiscrime. In many cases where perpetrators have beenprosecuted for the attempted or actual purchase ofsexual acts, they claim that they had no knowledge ofthe child’s actual age. In these situations, the courtsoften find that the accused’s objection concerning thechild’s age cannot be disproved, and convict theminstead for the purchase of sexual services, a crimewhich results in shorter sentences.The purchase of a sexual act from a child via theInternetIn 2011, because of its focus on the sexual abuse ofyoung girls and boys, the Stockholm police wereinvestigating several cases in which men contactedchildren through advertisements on the internet, andpurchased sexual acts from them or sexually exploitedchildren in other ways. Police also discovered casesin which perpetrators of sexual abuse had changedto act as pimps for young girls. In conjunction withthis initiative, the police also contacted people whoused on-line advertising to sell sexual services whenthere was a suspicion that they were minors. Thiswork was done in collaboration with social services inStockholm to ensure that the young people who hadbeen contacted through the initiative could be offeredprotection and support.3.3.3 Modus operandi: trafficking children with theintention of exploiting them to commit crimesFrom previous years, it has been known that certaincriminal gangs in countries such as Romania andBulgaria, specialise in trafficking children in order toexploit them for the purposes of theft and begging, orfor sexual exploitation through prostitution.Traffickers make contact with parents living in povertywith offers to buy or hire their children with theintention of exploiting them for the purposes of theft.These girls and boys, who are often aged 10-14, arenot allowed to attend school but are instead trainedat an early stage by the trafficker to shoplift or to pickpockets. To make detection more difficult, the perpetratorsacquire documents to show that they are actingas guardians with permission to travel abroadwith the child/children for a specific period. Often thetraffickers provide the children and themselves withseveral different identity documents, making it difficultfor police to identify and trace the crime, especiallybecause these itinerant groups move betweendifferent EU countries.The girls and boys are often taken out of their homecountries in groups resembling family units, consistingof two adults and two or three children. To makedetection more difficult, the perpetrators acquiredocuments to show that they are acting as guardianswith permission to travel abroad with the child/childrenfor a specific period. The groups travel by carbetween countries within the EU, where the childrenare exploited for begging and for committing variousproperty crimes.The police investigations conducted in 2011 showthat it was common for an adult to pretend to berelated to the child, or to be the child’s guardian to beable to fetch the child after being picked up by thepolice or social services. The children constitute animportant investment for the traffickers, who may useviolence to retrieve them from the authorities. Thechildren are socially isolated, deprived of access toeducation, and linked emotionally to the perpetrators.They are therefore extremely likely to run awaywhen they are placed in safe houses. In addition, thechildren frequently do not trust the authorities, especiallythe police, and often do not see themselves asvictims of a crime. This leads to time-consuming preliminaryinvestigations in which, until now, there hasbeen little chance of prosecuting the perpetrators.Four cases of particular interestBeginning in autumn 2010, the National Bureau ofInvestigation was collaborating with the police in the