Based on the information from the director of the Institutional Office against Human Trafficking of the Ministry of Security, Dayra Castro, among the most frequent modalities registered are trafficking for sexual and labor exploitation.
However, she warned that the percentage of denouncements is still low, “there is an under-reporting of 50% of the crimes”, she remarked in declarations to the newspaper La Estrella de Panamá.
According to Castro, studies indicate that for every victim who goes to the authorities to file a complaint, there are 20 more waiting to be rescued.
She also explained that there are cases of people who have been exploited for more than 10 years and that for the first time, charges have been brought up for slavery-like practices.
In this regard, she called for the collaboration of the population urging them to report evidence such as people constantly entering and leaving an apartment, moving the girls, many men coming, and movement of vehicles, as symptoms that something is going on in that place.
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