Alex Trelinski
FIVE PEOPLE have been arrested by the Guardia Civil after they rescued a 17-year-old girl who was forced into prostitution at a shanty town camp in Nijar, Almeria.
Two of those detained were the teenager’s parents who sold her for €2,000 to a man who said he wanted to marry her.
The girl lived in Alzira, Valencia until the end of last year, when she was ‘recruited’ by the 24-year-old man via a social network.
He gained her trust and went with his parents to Alzira to meet her and proposed the financial transaction in exchange for her hand in marriage.
The Guardia got involved early in the summer when they heard that a minor was being sexually exploited by her boyfriend in Nijar.
She was forced into becoming a sex worker in one of the shanty camp homes and suffered beatings and psychological abuse.
“What he basically did is buy her to prostitute her and make money from it,” a Guardia Civil source said.
The boyfriend agreed on the prices with the clients who came to the shack with all of the money kept by him.
“Generally, he used it to buy drugs,” police sources said, stressing that the girl had no chance of escape.
He totally controlled her and plied her with drugs to keep her ‘totally bonded’.
“I have never encountered such an extreme situation,” says one of the officers involved in the case.
The Guardia raided the shack on July 12 and found the teenager in an area of four square metres, practically living as a beggar in dreadful unhygienic conditions.
The youngster- soon to turn 18- is in a child protection centre and a restraining order has been issued barring her parents, her boyfriend, and his mother and father from having any contact with her.
The girl’s parents-who came to Spain nine years ago- have been charged with human trafficking for the purpose of forced marriage.
The other three have been hit with the same charge, as well as inducement to prostitution, sexual exploitation, and causing injury.
