Under-age female prostitutes in Oslo

The girls are most likely controlled by managers and traffickers, and are scared to say how old they are, according to the Church City Mission. Because they seemingly have their papers in order, Child Services doesn’t do any further investigations.

However, conversations that the mission has had with some of the girls indicate that they are well under 18 years of age. "We were in contact with 40 women in the Rumanian community in 2011, and many of them are very young. We estimate that at least ten of them are less than 20 years old," Olav Lægdene from the Church City Mission tells NRK.

Lægdene says that they don’t know exactly how many of the girls are younger than 18, but that based on the information they have received they have reason to believe that several of the female prostitutes in the Rumanian community are minors.

In 2010, authorities registered 79 children as victims of human trafficking in Norway. The ombudsman for children, Anders Prydz Cameron, is worried that child services at the municipal level will not be able catch the ones that need help. "It is important for the City Council to look at how its services are organized," he says.

Anniken Hauglie, the Vice Mayor for Social Services, says that more resources have already been devoted to the city center of Oslo. Two people have recently been hired to closely follow youth and their situation downtown, especially the ones that we suspect may be victims of human trafficking, she tells NRK.

(NRK)

Julie Ryland