Police hunt possible accomplices – Portugal Resident

Portuguese police are investigating whether a 45-year-old woman arrested at Lisbon Airport on Saturday had accomplices in an alleged operation to traffic a 12-year-old girl from the Democratic Republic of Congo to France for a forced marriage.

The child, who told officers she had been handed over to settle a debt owed by her family, will remain in protective care in Portugal for the time being. She has said she is afraid of being returned to her parents in case they attempt to use her as payment again.

The woman, holding a French passport, accused of transporting the girl remains in custody. According to Expresso, investigators believe the woman may not have acted alone. Portuguese authorities are thus seeking help from counterparts in the Democratic Republic of Congo to establish whether she met or communicated with possible accomplices at the airport before travelling through Dakar and on to Lisbon.

CCTV footage, aircraft seating records and details of how the airline tickets were purchased are all being examined.

Police are particularly interested in whether a third person travelled with the woman and child but moved away when the pair were stopped at the first line of passport control.

The journey through Lisbon was supposed to be only a stopover. The girl’s final destination was France, where she was allegedly to be placed in the care of a man to whom she had been promised in marriage.

The woman later admitted receiving money to transport and deliver the child, according to information released about the investigation.

Suspicion began with passport check

The case came to light during what began as a routine document inspection.

The woman claimed to be the child’s mother, but officers became suspicious of inconsistencies in their documents and of what was described as her cold behaviour towards the girl.

The pair were taken to a secondary inspection area for separate interviews and a more detailed examination of the passport being used by the child.

Officers discovered that the document belonged to someone else and that there was no family relationship between the two travellers.

With assistance from a Frontex border guard stationed at Lisbon Airport, police were able to communicate more fully with them and establish that the account initially presented was false.

The girl appeared calm and had not openly signalled that she needed help while at the passport desk. Once separated from the woman, however, she spoke voluntarily and without apparent hesitation.

“She began, on her own initiative, to tell us that she did not know the woman, that she was not part of her family and that she had been handed over by a man so that, after childhood, she could marry as payment of her parents’ debt,” PSP airport security commander Beatriz Cerqueira Silva said.

Although the child had previously passed through Dakar carrying another person’s passport, police cautioned against interpreting this as a straightforward failure by Senegalese authorities.

Border-control techniques vary between countries, Cerqueira Silva said, adding that no system detects every falsified document and that international systems work in combination with one another.

Child now “safe” in specialist centre

The girl was referred immediately to the specialist multidisciplinary team that assists victims of human trafficking, operated by the Portuguese Family Planning Association.

The Red Cross and Akto, an organisation running a reception centre for trafficked children and young people, were also brought into the case.

She is now living at the specialist centre with nine other children and young people aged between four and 19.

“What matters is that she is safe now. That is what she feels,” Akto project coordinator Ana Rita Brito told Observador.

On arrival, the child was able to bathe, eat and sleep. Staff allowed her to rest well beyond the usual waking time the following morning.

“We did not wake her; we want them to rest,” Brito explained of the children under her project’s care.

The girl has since begun speaking with other children at the centre and is reported to remain calm and cooperative.

Specialists say trafficked children often fear that a reception centre will resemble a prison, making it essential that initial contact is handled in a way that allows them to feel protected, rather than detained.

Brito warned that young girls promised in marriage may be exposed to several forms of exploitation. Traffickers can place a higher monetary value on a child believed to be a virgin, with victims at risk of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and forced begging.

Cases detected at Lisbon Airport often involve children travelling with adults who claim to be relatives. What distinguished this case was the girl’s willingness to state clearly that she did not know the woman accompanying her.

The Polícia Judiciária is now leading the criminal investigation. Its work will extend beyond the woman in custody to identify anyone involved in arranging the journey, supplying the false travel document, financing the tickets or preparing to receive the girl in France.

Source material: Expresso/ noticiasaominuto