Bilbao (EFE) coercion because with their attitude “they contribute to their dehumanization”.
“We invite and make a call to the conscience of the users so that they stop doing it and in any case report it when they see that this type of activity could be bordering on sexual exploitation,” Itxaso stated.
The Government delegate in Euskadi has appeared at a press conference to disclose more details of the operation that last week made it possible to dismantle a network of sexual exploitation in Bizkaia.
The Civil Guard arrested seven people last week and released thirteen women victims of sexual exploitation in the framework of the “Alipar” operation in which three searches were carried out in the towns of Barakaldo, Bilbao and Fruiz.
The origin of the investigation was the statement of a protected witness who denounced before the Civil Guard.
As Itxaso explained, the criminal organization recruited women in South American countries, mainly Paraguay and Colombia, taking advantage of the situation of vulnerability and poverty in their countries of origin, offering them “promising” living and working conditions.
subhuman conditions
The criminal organization had its victims confined to a house in the Bilbao neighborhood of Zorrotza where they lived in “subhuman and unhealthy conditions”, “overcrowded, among the remains of food and dirt” and shared a single bathroom.
The network monitored the women on a daily basis, including through closed circuit television.
They could only leave the farm for one hour a day and were forced to accept clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
They also organized theme parties where they had to agree to customer requests and forced them to consume cocaine, Itxaso has described.
He has indicated that the agents have verified that the organization had been operating since at least 2017 and that the leadership was assumed by a woman, along with five other women and a man who carried out the different tasks.
money and drugs
In the operation, more than 35,000 euros in cash, cocaine prepared for distribution and consumption, marijuana, numerous mobile phones, a large quantity of sildenafil and amoxicillin pills, as well as documentation of interest to the investigation, were seized.
Numerous bank accounts, properties and vehicles have also been blocked.
The detainees are charged with crimes of trafficking in human beings, prostitution, sexual exploitation, against public health, money laundering, belonging to a criminal organization and against the rights of foreign citizens.
At the time of their release, the victims were assisted by the NGO Fiet Gratia, which Itxaso has thanked for their work, as well as the Civil Guard agents who have dismantled this network in an investigation that has been directed by the Court of Instruction 6 of Bilbao.
Violation of Human Rights
“Trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation is one of the darkest faces of the violation of Human Rights. It passes around us, it is close to us, in the apartment next to our house”, Itxaso stated.
The Government delegate in Euskadi has also insisted that sexual slavery “degrades the human condition of those who practice it and deserves the greatest punishment.”
Itxaso has indicated that in the last five years the Civil Guard has carried out six operations of this type in Euskadi with 134 detainees and 72 victims released. EFE