Over the past five years Slovak authorities have recorded 775 cases of children who have come to Slovakia from their home countries without their parents, the Human Rights League reported on Tuesday. Human Rights League lawyer Katarína Fajnorová further stated that many of the children who have been placed in children's homes in Slovakia have disappeared, presumably ending up in the hands of human traffickers.
“In underdeveloped countries that are suffering from unrest, starvation and a lack of opportunities there are many families that decide to sell all of their belongings ... only so that they can send at least one of their children to safety, so that at least this child can enjoy better prospects for the future”, said Fajnorová. Fajnorová went on to observe that people from countries such as Somalia and Afghanistan view Europe as a land of countless opportunities governed by justice. Older children (aged 15-17) sent to Europe are often expected to earn money and send it back home. Most of the children arrive in Slovakia through the Ukrainian border, where they are picked up by the foreign police and placed in a children's home in Medzilaborce (Prešov region). Some of the children disappear after just two days at the facility, while some stay for months before disappearing. According to statistics, as many as 90 percent of the children apprehended by police eventually go missing. “Most recently, three boys from Vietnam were reported to have tied blankets together and climbed down from a window at night," said Fajnorová. The lawyer added that before the children go missing they are often heard talking intensively on mobile phones to strangers, who most probably give them instructions as to how to escape the facility. Then the strangers pick them up or have a taxi do this. “We're not aware of their fate or what has happened to them and none of our authorities are searching for them”, warned the lawyer, adding that the children may end up as victims of prostitution, or forced to commit petty crimes, go out begging, undergo lives of domestic slavery and/or donate bodily organs. Fajnorová added that this is how they pay their debts to traffickers for their trip to Europe, for example. The Human Rights League believes that children who apply for asylum in Slovakia shouldn't be placed in refugee camps to make sure that they are separated from adults, who often drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and can mediate contacts with traffickers. Slovakia should also begin keeping records of children who go missing and should search for them, as is done in the case of Slovak children.
