Human trafficking at Lisbon airport!!

An incident that caught my eye while scanning the news at Lisbon Airport the other day, frankly made my blood run cold while reading it. If it weren't for the attention of the police officers on duty at border control, the life of a 12-year-old girl would have been completely ruined. The incident took place on Saturday at Humberto Delgado Airport. A 45-year-old woman, coming from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, approached the passport control with a 12-year-old child. The woman initially claimed that the child was her daughter, but the documents she submitted and the contradictory answers she gave did not go unnoticed by the police. When the documents were examined in detail with Frontex teams, the facts began to emerge one by one. ### Debt Marriage Allegation The identity documents used by the little girl actually belonged to someone else and she had no kinship with the woman next to her. When the police took the child to a private environment where he would feel safe and listened to him, the terrible extent of the incident became clear. Her own family literally "gave" this little girl to a man who was forced to marry her in France in order to pay their debts. The woman next to him admitted that he received money to take the child to France and deliver it. He is currently detained on charges of human trafficking. ### Little Girl is Protected The most heartbreaking part was the following words the 12-year-old boy said to the police: *"I am very afraid of returning to my country or being handed over to my family and used as a means of paying off debt again."* Fortunately, Portuguese authorities took immediate action. Child protection mechanisms and teams specialized in child abuse were immediately activated. The little girl is now in a safe place, and her follow-up and psychological support are being carried out meticulously. If it wasn't for the attention of those officials at the airport, who knows what kind of nightmare this child would be in the middle of in France today. Neither one's mind nor conscience can comprehend it, but unfortunately, such things can happen right under our noses.