Lawyers of child sex trafficking victim seek her protection, say she has more names for police

A team of lawyers representing a 12-year-old Athens girl who has exposed one of the country’s biggest cases of child sex trafficking by speaking out about her own rape and exploitation by dozens of men is demanding a police guard for their client after she was attacked by a man with a knife. 

“ELAS provides officers to guard television personalities but has not taken any measures for this child,” one of the lawyers, Aspasia Tarachopoulou, told state broadcaster ERT on Tuesday morning.

Tarachopoulou also indicated that the 12-year-old is ready to provide evidence about around six more suspects she believes were involved in the racket. To this end, another lawyer on her team filed a request for a hearing on Tuesday with the special prosecutor for minors.

The 12-year-old has been seeing an expert psychologist since she first came forward last autumn and revealed that she was being pimped and raped by her mother’s 53-year-old employer. She has been able to provide investigators with details on dozens of men who paid to have sex with her or who contacted her with the purpose of arranging a sexual encounter.

According to a statement from her legal team on Monday, a man armed with a knife tried to force his way into the house where the 12-year-old is currently living and cut her hand as she slammed the door closed and started shouting for help. 

The incident with the knife was the third in what the lawyers say is a deliberate campaign to intimidate the child and prevent her from talking to investigators.

They said that last week a man had approached one of the girl’s brothers and put a finger on his lips, while a week before that, someone threw rocks through the windows of the house where the children are staying with an aunt.