Human trafficking in Portugal worries Amnesty International

Amnesty International (AI) is concerned about the increase in the number of people subject to human trafficking in Portugal. In the 2023 annual report on the state of human rights in the world, released this Wednesday, that non-governmental organization recalls that the number of victims of this crime grew by 18.2%.

The report on human rights reveals that, in March last year, the Portuguese Government’s annual internal security report “detected an 18.2% increase in the number of people subject to human trafficking, almost half due to labor exploitation”.

A month earlier, in February, “an adult and a child died, and 14 other people were seriously injured, in a fire in an overcrowded house in the Mouraria neighborhood, in the capital, Lisbon”, explains the AI, highlighting that “they were all migrants” .

Regarding human trafficking, the annual internal security report, which serves as a source for AI, shows that 235 victims were reported in Portugal, of which 181 cases are related to labor exploitation. “They are mainly in the agricultural sector, but also in football and domestic servitude”, concluded the authorities.

National records indicate that the districts of Beja and Leiria are those that stand out for being negative in this crime. The majority of victims come from Asian countries, especially Nepal and India, but there is also exploitation of migrants from other geographies, such as Morocco, Algeria, Brazil, Romania and even Portugal.

Lack of prisons and shelters

AI’s human rights report identified other problems in Portugal, such as “low prosecution rates for domestic violence suspects” and “insufficient provision of shelter” for victims seeking safety.

What is also not enough is the number of prisons, as “more than half are overcrowded”, says the report. In this chapter, AI notes that there is “ill-treatment inflicted on detainees by agents of the security forces”, and gives the example of the seven GNR soldiers who filmed themselves attacking Hindustani migrants. They were convicted in January.