Europe: Financial crisis leads to rapes

Several groups across Eastern Europe have called for a crackdown on mafia-run job agencies amid reports that their members are raping and torturing migrant workers who have lost their jobs in the economic crisis. Media in the Czech Republic have carried reports that thousands of foreign workers in the eastern European country who have become unemployed are becoming virtual slaves to semi-legal "job brokers". NGOs in other Eastern European countries report a similar problem of migrant workers being abused. Many migrants say job agencies are now forcing them to pay exorbitant fees for arranging documents, accommodation and work. They say they are often beaten and humiliated, and some have been raped. But many do not turn to the police for fear of being thrown out of the country. "Even we didn't know the depths of this problem," Lucie Sladkova, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) branch in Prague told IPS. "The torture, rape and sheer dependency of these people on these so-called 'job brokers' has shocked not just us but the public as well.