For the second time in a few days, Málaga receives a visit from a member of the Real home. This time it was the turn of the Queen Letiziawho, in his firm commitment to social problems, traveled to Malaga this Thursday to chair the II International Congress on Trafficking in Human Beings. Last week was Queen Emerita Doña Sofía who traveled to the capital of Malaga to chair the International Congress of Neurodegenerative Diseases.
With the focus on the trafficking in human beings for the purposes of sexual exploitation as the new “slavery of the 21st century”, which affects millions of people around the world – including Spain and Andalusia -, Bethany association has organized this event with the aim of addressing all the key issues to achieve the eradication of this crime.
To this end, the event has brought together national and international specialists, in the Edgar Neville auditorium of the Malaga Provincial Council, to debate the importance of raising awareness in society, prevention strategies and the need for international cooperation.
Queen Letizia
Her Majesty the Queen arrived this Thursday at 11:30 at the Provincial Council of the capital of Malaga, accompanied by numerous authorities such as the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá; the counselor of Social Inclusion, Youth, Families and Igualada of the Junta de Andalucía Loles López; the mayor of Malaga, Francisco de la Torre; the president of the Provincial Council, Francisco Salado; the Government delegate in Andalusia, Pedro Fernandezand the rector of the University of Malaga, José Ángel Narváez. All of them They appreciated the presence of the queen that would help make this cause visible.
The Congress has begun with the inaugural conference of the prosecutor of the Human Trafficking and Immigration Chamber of the State Attorney General’s Office, Beatriz Sánchez Álvarez, that, with a forceful speech, has laid the foundations for this serious problem and defended the “indispensable need” to have a comprehensive anti-trafficking law and to implement in Spain the French model that pursue pimping.
Trafficking, a lucrative business
The prosecutor has highlighted that one of the great obstacles today is that trafficking is a very lucrative industry which leaves more than forty billion a year. Which leads certain people to continue taking advantage every day of the situation of poverty, violation, inequality and lack of opportunity that women and girls suffer, fundamentally, to obtain important benefits. For this reason, Sánchez has stressed the importance of addressing this problem from a gender perspectivesince 75% of trafficking cases are women, a percentage that rises up to 98% when the case of trafficking is for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
75% of trafficking cases are women, a percentage that rises to 98% when the trafficking case is for sexual exploitation.
Trafficking detection program
Faced with this harsh reality, the Minister of Social Inclusion, Youth, Families and Equality, has highlighted that Andalusia has a pioneering program in the detection of trafficking victimswhich so far this year has served 2,789 women, of which 426 have been confirmed as victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation. In the case of the province of Malaga, they were 936 women rescued, of which 239 have turned out to be victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation. The majority of women treated are from the Maghreb, Eastern Europe, Colombia and Romania, although cases of Spanish and Chinese women have also been detected.
Education as prevention
Likewise, López congratulated Betania for the organization of this event, “for the quality of the presentations” and for “putting the focus on a drama that does not fit in a civilized society”. For his part, the president of the Provincial Council of Malaga, Francisco Saladohas defended the need to bet on education as a preventive measure and to limit the content that young people access through the new technologiesplacing special emphasis on pornography and its influence on “specific cases that we are seeing violations and lack of respect for young people, consensual sex, etc.
Education has been one of the main axes on which this II International Congress of Human Traffickingwho dedicated the first debate of the event to talking about the need for education to be the basis of awareness and sensitization, to achieve a social rejection of prostitution and trafficking. In this sense, the mayor of Malaga He has stressed that it is good to talk about these issues so that young people have a proactive stance when it comes to “stopping these dynamics and ensuring that there is no demand for these services.”
Cybertrafficking
For its part, Begoña Arana Álvarezfounder and director of Betania, has also defended the idea that, from the most basic education, we must work to generate a rejection towards prostitutionthe pornography and the crime of sexual exploitation. “They are elements that cannot be dissociated. They are in a chain that adds to this scourge, this social problem, this slavery of the 21st century,” he added.
Congress programming
The other two debate tables of the Congress will focus on the need to enhance international cooperation to define and combat trafficking as a transnational crime, to finally end the day with a debate on the prevention of trafficking for sexual exploitation. In this last meeting, various experts will analyze how they are affecting the new technologies (cyberttrafficking) and the risks of this with the triple aspect of recruitment, control and exploitation.
“The post-covid panorama has given rise to phenomena such as cyber trafficking. It is very easy to access a website and easily become a deceived person in order to be a potential victim,” stated the founder of Betania, who recalled that the association has managed to intervene in the release of 876 trafficking victims. “Hopefully these figures will be minimized and we will be able to close centers and open awareness,” she concluded.