Children in the claws of prostitutionPolice unveiled a juvenile prostitution chain in which children have been lured in bed with money and gifts
Daniela Trpcevska
Ivan Bojadziski
STIP – Perfumes, clothes, sim-cards, travels and money. These are the most common gifts that are used for luring young girls, as well as young boys in the prostitution chains in the country. Familiar with the situation say these are veiled forms that are difficult to be uncovered, but they’re showing up whenever somebody decides to talk about it. The last case, realized during the holidays, unveiled a juvenile prostitution network in Stip, in which businessmen and other powerful people were involved. For now only three men from Stip and Kocani are arrested, because they lured two girls at age under 14, they had illegal sexual intercourse with them, they were giving them money and gifts and there are suspicions that they offered girls’ services to their friends.
Familiar with the situation say that juvenile prostitution is growing recently, while young girls are not the only victims, as male children are becoming more involved recently. They ask from relevant institutions to take actions toward preventing the growth of this deviation and protect the children. “The public moral is going down, it’s necessary to protect the children immediately,” familiar with the situation appeal, while pointing the worrying data about the growth of juvenile prostitution as well as the sexual abuse of children in the country.
The shocking case in Stip was unveiled with the arrest of TG, 65 years old well known businessman from town, He was in custody while the police arrested two of his friends, KI (42) from Stip and PT (63) from Kocani, who allegedly were involved in the scandal of pimping and sexual abuse of the young girls.
According to the previous findings, the 65 years old businessman back in April and May this year, managed to schedule a meeting on the town square with the girls via cell phone, from where he took them in his appartment and made them available pornographic movies. Then he took one of the girls into the bedroom and had a sexual intercourse with her, while the other girl was left in the living room with a lot of sweets. While she was alone there, she made pictures of the living room and posted them on “Facebook.”
According to the Stip police TG continued with his pervert actions, as he had had another sexual intercourse, this time with the other girl and, in one occasion, with both of them. He paid the girls 3000 and 4000 denars for their services. When police arrested him, it was revealed that he also played the role of pimp, offering the girls’ services to his friends from the town and the region.
After the testimony of the girls police extended the investigation. One of the girls, testifying while her parents were present, said that in January KI took her in his car, drove to a little street on the exit of Stip and had sexual intercourse with her. At that moment she wasn’t 14 years old yet. The same day, the other girl said that back in July she had sex with PT, business from Kocani.
Arrested KI admitted that he knew both the girls, that he was giving them money and sim-cards, but he has never had sexual intercourse with any of them. Unlike him, PT defended himself with silence. Police proceeds with the investigation, while the children are sent to gynecologist.
The possible outcome of the case still remains unclear, but the relevant institutions say that this is a very serious problem which is growing recently.
According to Vasilka Bozinovska, juvenile delinquency judge, the children prostitution growth is worrying. “This is a problem with which mostly the youngsters from countries in transition are facing, where they live in very bad social and material conditions that makes them fall into the claws of prostitution, as that’s an easy way to earn some money for securing existence, buying food, clothes and drugs,” she said.
In the past years, the public was informed about cases for girls from Eastern Macedonia who were later found in the bars in Western Macedonia, mostly in regions of Gostivar and Tetovo, where under the cover of waitresses and pole dancers they have been offered to clients for sexual services.
Nevertheless, according to the familiar with the situation, there are a lot of other veiled forms of juvenile prostitution in the country that are not easy to be unveiled, unless someone decides to talk about it and inform the police. Some of the children are prostituting in order to buy drugs, other are seduced by perfumes, clothes or travels to Ohrid which they can not afford.
“Usually these are children from families with financial problems or dysfunctional families, but children from wealthy families also fall into the prostitution chains due to lack of attention by their parents,” Bozinivska concluded, according to her experience with cases of juvenile delinquency.
Judges are facing with cases of sexual abuse of four or five years old boys, as they become victims of sexual offenders more often recently. “Social workers and NGOs should be on the field all the time, so they would alarm about these cases as soon as possible in order to intervene and prevent them,” she said.
On the children helpline of the First children’s embassy in the world Megjashi last year there were only three calls related to juvenile prostitution, which is just one more indicator about the veiled forms that are difficult to uncover.
“Two of the calls were related to individual cases of juvenile prostitution, while the third one was related to prostitution chain in which girls were taken to veiled objects. We alarmed all the relevant institutions about these cases and we were informed that they have taken actions,” said Angelina Calakoska, coordinator of the helpline in Megjashi.
Those that we have consulted said that there’s lack of positive communication between parents and children, which is one of the major factors that leads to this deviation. They point that it’s about adolescents, who could easily be influenced by adults, while the pressure of the bad economic situation is just an additional factor to make them go in prostitution.
“There’s a lack of communication between children and parents, children feel misunderstood, there’s no one to give them advice about their everyday issues, but it seems that the most important factor is the lack of control mechanism by the parents,” the familiar with the situation said.
Public was disgusted earlier this year when a taxi driver lured two 17 years old girls and took them from Veles to Skopje, where they had been abused by several people for several days. Back in 2008 media informed about a case from Gevgelija in which a cafe bar owner organized young girls trafficking in his object.
Translated by:
Petar Todorovski
volunteer at First Children’s Embassy in the World Megjashi
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