They “are too often prosecuted and penalized criminal for the offenses committed accordingly of their exploitation”, continues the organization, while “international and European law nevertheless requires recognizing and protecting them as victims of trafficking”.
Young boys often foreign
According to data from the interdepartmental mission for the protection of women against violence and the fight against trafficking in human beings (MIPROF), more than two thirds of the persons concerned by criminal exploitation (pimpness, drug trafficking, shooting, burglary, charity scams, fraudulent documents …) in France are under 18 years of age.
“Young people exploited are often recruited under false promises.”
Among the minors identified by associations, 92 %would be unaccompanied minors (MNA), which would be mainly from the African continent (81 %) – in particular Algeria and Morocco – and Europe (19 %), mainly from Romania and Bosnia and Herzégovine.
The majority of victims would be boys or young men (89 %).
Children under control
“Young people exploited are often recruited under false promises, or forced to act to survive or repay a debt,” emphasizes Corentin Bailleul, in charge of advocacy for Unicef France. Those who exploit set up different strategies: addiction, blackmail, threats, psychological pressure, violence. »»
But on the ground “their exploitation is little recognized, with a few exceptions,” he added, citing the trial called “small thieves of the Trocadéro” in January 2024. Six Algerian nationals, who had initiated drugs and kept under the influence of isolated adolescents to force them to commit flights to tourists, had been sentenced to sentences going up to six years in prison.
The Paris court had described a “operating mode where minors” were enslaved and “reified”, “reduced to the state of tools”. His decision had been qualified as history and exemplary by the associations which had welcomed the “consecration of the status of victims” of minors.
A change in legal texts
For UNICEF, it is time that France “explicitly” inscribes in its penal code “that a person victim of exploitation cannot be criminally responsible when the offense committed is a consequence of the trafficking”. The UN agency also calls Paris to specify in its civil code “that any minor exploited, even occasionally, is deemed to be in danger and is the protection of the children’s judge”.
“The look that is on them is not the right one, it is necessary to form the police and justice so that their first reflex is to consider them as victims and not as offenders and put an end to this double penalty,” abounds Geneviève Colas, coordinator of the collective together against the trafficking of human beings, which brings together 28 associations engaged on the issue.
Especially since the situation deteriorates, alerts the representative of Secours Catholique – Caritas France. “We had before adolescents, now we have kids from 8 to 10 years old who are milking. We also note that we have more and more minors “victims of” multifaceted “milkings and which” are used from one to the other according to the needs and desires of the exploiters “.
