Students are mostly victims of human trafficking

A TRNC member of parliament, has questioned the issue of “Higher Education and Human Trafficking” in the country, calling on the authorities to do more to stop it.

Refik Rogers on Tuesday noted that it is constantly said that the locomotive sector of the country is education and tourism, but that the support and supervision of the government is as important as the efforts of the universities in order to increase the quality of the universities in the country.

Stating that it was reported that the decrease in human trafficking in the world during the pandemic period was not seen in our country, Rogers stated that half of the people who applied to the human trafficking hotline in our country after the pandemic were people who were brought to the country through agencies to become students but were victims of human trafficking. Rogers stated that most of the people who are victims of human trafficking cannot come forward due to the pressure and fear they experience, so these calls may actually be the tip of the iceberg.

Rogers stated that the human trafficking penal clause, which entered the penal code in 2020, was not included in the investigations and that no one was prosecuted on this issue, and said that he wondered why.

Pointing out that the current police force was trained on human trafficking in the past and it should continue to be trained, Rogers said that the prevalence of human trafficking in the country is reported every year in international publications, it is important to audit the agencies that can play a role in this issue and to record it with a legislation, otherwise it will be out of time. He stated that these problems will lead to bigger criminal problems.

Wanting to know what YODAK is doing in this regard and what kind of communication there is between the police and the ministry, Rogers asked if there is a legislative study on agencies that bring foreigners.

Criticizing the lack of an official website where foreigners can get information about the country, Rogers said that making visa applications completely online would reduce the need for these agencies and solve a number of problems.