The exploitation affects ten million minors

The exploitation of people worldwide affects over 40 million people, higher than the number of inhabitants of countries such as Canada and Poland or Iraq. It is a phenomenon that, for the most part, remains hidden and feeds the exploitation of child labor or the trafficking of human beings, employed as slaves in various productive sectors, not only in countries without any protection of rights, but also in western democracies. Certainly one of the causes of an increase in this phenomenon is the forced emigration of populations affected by wars, famines and the difficult political situation of the states of origin. These emigrations, which take place without any protection and protection from the rich countries, which often even oppose them in different ways, and from international organizations put people in a position of weakness left to themselves and easy prey to criminal organizations. So on the political, but also health, issue, a legal issue that affects everyone is grafted, because, in addition to promoting the exploitation of people, it promotes the growth of criminal organizations, which easily find a workforce at very low or zero costs. Of the 40 million people who fill the exploitation statistics, it is estimated that those under the age of 18, minors, are around ten million, a percentage, therefore, of 25%. This data makes the relevance of the phenomenon even more serious, especially if we consider that the employment that affects the majority of these minors is connected with sexual exploitation. The pandemic and the consequent lockdown, has created an increase in the demand for erotic content services, with consumption increasing by 30% in some European states; these services, deeply connected with cybercrime, employ more and more minors, with a prevalence of approximately 68% of the total, a figure however firm in 2016 for Europe, of female persons. That the figure of 68% of the total number of under-exploited minors has not been updated for four years represents an eloquent factor also as regards the possibilities and the will to contrast the phenomenon; it should also be remembered that the closure imposed by school institutions, albeit justified, has eliminated a factor of control and social prevention, which has favored the use of minors in employment in undeclared and illegal work. The pandemic has however accentuated an already present phenomenon, which has its bases in those ethnic communities where the financial revenues are based on illegality and which exploit the state of need and the absolute weakness, represented by the fact of being outside the own countries, victims. The aspect of child exploitation, although present also in the nationalities of the Union, logically has an origin connected with immigration, especially illegal immigration and the presence of movements opposed to foreigners, shifts the political attention that would be necessary for the protection of minors also due to the ever-decreasing investments in prevention and control, based on the network that local authorities can provide, which have had their central contributions reduced. Although the case of sexual exploitation is the most regrettable, for the obvious moral implications, the sectors involved are also others and also include commerce, catering and the tertiary sector. It is therefore essential that at European level preventive and repressive laws of the phenomenon are needed, but also a greater coordination of national police forces and, above all, a univocal attitude towards the migratory question, of which this phenomenon is part and is included. Tolerating in Europe, which should be the homeland of law, such violations means discrediting the entire legal system of the old continent. It is not easy to reconcile the different positions on migrants, but, at least, to take a unified position on the violations of childhood and adolescence, even those who come from abroad in a non-legal way, should represent a point on which the unity of views should be guaranteed. The issue also falls in the contrast to organizations that exploit human trafficking before, during and after the arrival of migrants, gaining from illicit proceeds and therefore increasingly strengthening themselves with greater economic revenues. Stricter legislation with higher penalties and prevention with adequate structures capable of intercepting specific cases will also be an investment against domestic and foreign underworld.