“Hungarian authorities should step up their efforts to prevent child trafficking”, said the Council of Europe Expert Group on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) in a report published on Friday 27 September.
In concrete terms, this text calls for raising awareness and training on the risks of trafficking in persons working with children, including those placed in institutions.
The experts also call for the repeal of laws that allow fines and even prison sentences to be imposed on children involved in prostitution. From 14 to 18 years of age, they should be considered victims of trafficking and not criminals, they point out.
Special mention is made of migrant and asylum-seeking children, including in transit areas. The Hungarian authorities should work to better identify victims of trafficking among them and not prohibit access to borders for NGOs specialising in this issue.
However, GRETA acknowledges that progress has been made in Hungary since 2015, the date of a previous report. A victim support centre has been set up, as well as a database created in 2017 to register identified victims. This database still needs to be made fully operational and allow statistics to be compiled, the experts stress. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)