Who are the victims?

Anyone can be trafficked, regardless of gender, age, education, occupation, nationality, place of residence, preferences, etc. It is true that certain circumstances in which a person finds themselves can contribute to making a person more vulnerable to the pitfalls of trafficking in human beings. In Slovenia, persons trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation or the abuse of prostitution are still the most frequently perceived and identified as victims of trafficking in human beings. In most cases, we are talking about women and girls, both Slovenian and foreign nationals (citizens of Ukraine, Serbia, Romania, Dominican Republic, Brazil, etc.), who find themselves in prostitution in various ways, but most often traffickers and pimps take advantage of their poor economic situation, history of violence, various forms of abuse and addiction, and exploit them through manipulation, threats, psychological, economic, physical and sexual violence. Exploitation of prostitution also takes place among young men and boys – the exploitation of homosexual prostitution (often involving young drug addicts or unaccompanied minors).

Other forms of trafficking we have seen in recent years are forced marriages within some communities (young girls, Slovenian and foreign nationals, who are forced into “marriage” and victims of various forms of abuse and violence), coertion into committing crimes, forced begging (mainly Romanian, Bulgarian, Slovak and some Balkan nationals, including children), forced labour (workers in construction, catering, tourism, agriculture, mining, transport, etc.), servitude (especially cases of women from the Balkans and African countries).