The drug trade is increasingly escalating into murder – and turning children into murderers.
The EU is now launching a series of initiatives to break the spiral of violence.
– They are the drug gang’s equivalent of child soldiers, says EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
Children exploited by drug gangs face the same plight as child soldiers who are forced to kill. This is the opinion of the EU, which is now launching a series of initiatives to crack down on cocaine smuggling in Europe.
Swedish Ylva Johansson, EU Commissioner responsible for internal affairs, says The Guardian that young people are getting caught up in an increasingly flourishing and brutal trade, which is seen by the EU as one of Europe’s biggest security threats.
– They are radicalized and prepared to become killers. They are the drug gang’s equivalent of child soldiers, she says.
– The drug trade orchestrated by organized crime is one of the most serious security threats Europe faces today and the situation is escalating, Ylva Johansson continues.
Critical situation in Sweden
Young killers, connected to criminal gangs, is something that has hit Sweden particularly hard. On Monday, only one was arrested 16-year old boy for three murders in the Stockholm area.
– This is just the latest in a series of murders carried out by children, says Ylva Johansson.
The new guidelines are presented in a situation where 50 percent of all murders in Europe are related to drug trafficking, writes The Guardian. The EU therefore wants to strengthen strategies to stop the new recruitment of children – including identifying early warning signs such as children caught up in shoplifting or dropping out of school.
303 tonnes of cocaine were seized in the EU in 2021, the most recent year for which complete data is available, which is five times more than a decade ago.
The EU’s new guidelines
The EU lists concrete and targeted measures with 17 measures in four priority areas:
A new European alliance for ports to increase their resilience against criminal infiltration, by strengthening the work of customs authorities, law enforcement agencies, public and private actors in ports across the EU. For example through state-of-the-art scanning and equipment.
To beat out criminal networks by facilitating financial and digital investigations, mapping the largest criminal networks, strengthening cooperation between specialized prosecutors and judges and using the Schengen Information System (SIS), to warn.
Measures to prevent organized crime through the exchange of practices and guidance between Member States, to prevent the infiltration of these groups into society and the legal economy, prevent criminal groups from recruiting young people and improve public safety and health.
Work with international partners to meet the global threat, including by strengthening information sharing, joint operations on the main drug trafficking routes and strengthening law enforcement and judicial cooperation with countries outside the EU.
Source: EU.