<![CDATA[ Crianças traficadas para Portugal. "Uma delas engravidou" mais tarde ]]>

Between 2016 and 2020, the Public Security Police (PSP) managed to identify around 30 children who were trafficked from Romania to Portugal. The news was reported last Sunday by Jornal de Notícias , which explains that these minors were used to beg near hospitals and tourist attractions in the largest Portuguese cities, such as the Luís I Bridge in Porto. This was a scheme that in just four years earned these criminal organizations half a million euros, the equivalent of €500 per child per day. Five years later, what has become of them?

João Soeima, PSP commissioner, told SÁBADO that many of them "have emigrated", but that others ended up remaining linked to these criminal cells. At least one of them became pregnant.

"Some of these children, who are now adults, have moved on with their lives and have emigrated to European countries," João Soeima began by listing. "Some have returned to their families and others have ended up in some way linked to these organizations that trafficked them, as companions. We know that at least one of them became pregnant and that no harm has happened to those we have identified and located. Others have simply fled and still need protection."

At the time, these children were only “between 13 and 15 years old” and were “almost all girls”, according to the commissioner. Recruitment by these criminal organisations took place in various ways: some families received around €100 in exchange for these minors. In other cases, they were promised marriage to one of the members of the network. Some families were simply coerced into handing over their children.

In Portugal, they were urged to beg and "committed petty thefts and pretended to be deaf and mute". They pointed to an A4 sheet of paper around their neck to say that they wanted a "Certificate from the Regional Association for the Deaf and Mute Disabled" and that was how they extorted money, writes Jornal de Notícias .

These schemes took place in "Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra", according to João Soeima. Outside the national territory, they operated in "southern Spain, Italy and France".

These children are now between 18 and 20 years old. When asked why some of them ended up returning to their families, while some were sold by their own families, João Soeima explains: "We have to understand that we are on a different cultural level than Romania and of a different ethnic group. From that perspective, when you hand a child over to someone else, you expect the best."

In this context, nine men were named as defendants. According to the commissioner, "at this moment no suspects are in custody". "They are free", he assures.

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