In BiH alone, more than 80 children sold in the last three years

A minor girl sold by O.N. from Sarajevo to S.N. from Goražde is of Roma nationality, the BH news agency Patria (NAP) has learned.

Media reported yesterday that police in Goražde suspect that S.N., from the village of Podhranjen near this city, bought a fourteen-year-old girl in Sarajevo from O.N. The case has been handed over to the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), which is further investigating this matter.

- Podhranjeni near Goražde is a Roma settlement, and we think this is not the first time child trafficking has occurred there. But no one talks about it and no one in the country seriously deals with this problem – says a Patria source.

Child trafficking in BiH is on the rise, and many studies by the Ministry of Security and the non-governmental sector show that the situation has been dramatic recently.

According to official data, more than 80 cases of child trafficking have been recorded in BiH in the last three years. And, according to experts, this is far below the actual number, which is much higher than this.

The Ministry of Security of BiH emphasizes that most children who are victims of human trafficking come from families without one or both parents, poor families, Roma families, and often they are also persons with disabilities.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, not only children from Bosnia and Herzegovina are trafficked, but they also come from neighboring countries: Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia.

The spokesperson for the Ombudsman for Children of Republika Srpska, Vesna Popović, previously warned that child trafficking is an increasingly frequent phenomenon in BiH, leading to child prostitution and child pornography.

Last year, the State Department presented shocking data, stating that the police in BiH are also involved in child trafficking.

- Members of police structures in BiH are involved in human trafficking, as stated in the latest report on human trafficking for 2012 by the US State Department.

- According to available reports, the complicity of the police in criminal offenses of human trafficking, as well as the insensitivity of the authorities towards child victims of trafficking, make it difficult to bring perpetrators of these acts to justice – the State Department warns.

Although, as further stated in that report, there has been some progress, the BiH authorities still do not meet even the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking, reports NAP.