Child Pornography, Hate Speech and Cybercrime Surge in Balkans

Child Porn Scandals Rock Romania, Croatia

In April, Romania saw a surge in cases involving child pornography, with victims as young as seven years old. Croatia recorded similar cases.

Women with their eyes covered with violet scarfs participate in a flash mob in front of Romania's Internal Affairs Minister in Bucharest, Romania, 01 March 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/BOGDAN CRISTEL

One of the most egregious cases in Romania on April 4 involved a family in Cotorca, a village near Bucharest, who produced and sold child pornography. The victims were an underage boy and a girl who were forced to have sex with adults and be recorded. The videos were sold for 50 to 100 euros each. One suspect was arrested, but the others remain in Cotorca, leaving many wondering whether justice has been served.

Another case, on April 7, involved the trafficking and pimping of two underage girls in Mehedinti, a county bordering Serbia and Bulgaria. The girls were physically and psychologically abused, coerced into prostitution and sold to men in Drobeta-Turnu Severin, a town over 350 kilometres west of Bucharest. The suspects, three young men aged 16 to 23, used social media and escort websites to recruit the victims.

In another case, Romania's Directorate for Investigating Terrorism and Organized Crime on April 10 arrested three individuals for a pimping scam involving underage girls recruited on Facebook. Two suspects acted as "lover boys," convincing two girls aged 14 and 15 to prostitute themselves in Austria, Germany, and the UK. The suspects continued to pimp the underage victims across Europe, using escort websites to find clients even after they were already under investigation by Romanian prosecutors.

Besides these cases, several arrests...