SEF investigates allegations of trafficking of women and children

Since the beginning of the Ukraine-Russia war on February 24th, two dozen cases of trafficking have been reported to the SEF, including the disappearance of minors from Ukraine.

Since the invasion of Ukraine, the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) has already received about 20 specific complaints about potential cases of trafficking in human beings, which involve refugee children and women who have travelled to Portugal. All of them led to the opening of investigations, mainly related to disappearances during the escape route in ‘humanitarian caravans’, or the entry of minors into national territory without parents or family members. Most cases have, so far, been discarded.

One of the cases being investigated by the SEF took place in the Algarve. Two brothers, aged 17 and 5, had departed Poland on a bus packed with refugees fleeing the war, bound for Portugal, but were not among the registered passengers on arrival in Faro.

“We fear that the children had been taken to one of the staging points, somewhere in Europe, to be placed in human trafficking networks that are taking advantage of the weaknesses of these refugees”, says a source in the process.

Source https://postal.pt/