Greece is a transit, source and destination country for women and children who are subjected to human trafficking, specifically forced prostitution and conditions of forced labor for men, women, and children. Female sex trafficking victims originate primarily in Eastern Europe and former Soviet bloc countries. Traffickers use physical, emotional, and sexual abuse for coercion. Greece's European Union membership, coupled with a shared border with Turkey, means the country sees massive flows of illegal immigrants looking to enter the EU. Traffickers also use Greece not only as a destination but also as transit stop and also as a source country where even Greek women are prostituted on the way to Western Europe.

The Government of Greece does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government made clear progress in prosecuting labor and sex trafficking offenses, identifying victims, implementing a child victim protection agreement with Albania, and advancing prevention activities. Concerns remain about trafficking-related police complicity, inadequate victim identification among the Hellenic Coast Guard, border police, and vice police, as well as inadequate funding for anti-trafficking NGOs. The economic crisis in Greece also places strains on allocation of funding and resources towards anti-trafficking efforts.

U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2"  in 2017.

Overview of human trafficking

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) defines human trafficking as "the recruitment, transport, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation." All of the world's countries are affected by human trafficking, either as a source, destination, or transit country, or a combination of the three. According to the International Labour Organization, an estimated 2.4 million people are victims of trafficking at any given time. Global trade in women is estimated to be worth between 7 and 12 billion dollars annually; the chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) stated that human trafficking may even have overtaken drug trafficking as a lucrative criminal enterprise.

As of 2010, an estimated 270,000 people are trafficking annually in Europe, with 40,000 women and children aged 12–25 trafficked annually to Greece, as well as an even larger number that are trafficked through Greece and from Greece to the rest of the European Union.  Foreign men are also trafficked into Greece for purposes of sex work  but their numbers are largely unknown.

Destinations

Greece as destination
According to the 2001 Greek census, there were 797,091 documented foreigners living in Greece, with a large number from Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia. Ten years before that, the number of legal immigrants was only 30,000. By 2009, the immigrant population had expanded to 1.2 million in a country of just of 11 million citizens—legal immigrants make up more than 10% of the Greek population, and the number of illegal immigrants increases the percentage of immigrants even more. The exponential increase in migration to Greece serves as a cover for traffickers, and facilitates their transportation of women for work in the sex industry in Greece, also because prostitution is legal in Greece. Because of the ease with which traffickers can disguise foreign victims among the immigrant population, Greeks are not typically the targeted victims of traffickers; instead women are brought in from outside the country to fuel the sex industry. Women are brought to Greece from a variety of places, but a large number come from Eastern Europe—a full 50–55% of sex workers in Athens are from former Soviet bloc countries. Greece is also a destination country for a large number of trafficked Romanians. Although, many foreign prostitutes can be disguised easily among immigrants in Greece, many Greek women have been involved voluntarily in the prostitution industry. Almost all prostitutes in Greece were Greek females before 1992. However by 2009, number of Greek prostitutes increased a lot percentage wise. Different reports state that number of Greek prostitutes increased 150% after 2009 by composing maybe half of the 20,000 estimated prostitutes in Greece.

Gateway to the European Union
A large number of trafficked persons are trafficked through Greece on their way to Germany or other Western countries. From the 1970s onwards, migrants from Asia and Africa began to enter Greece as a temporary stop on their way to other, more developed Western European countries. Since then, immigration into Greece, legally and illegally, in order to gain access to the rest of the European Union has increased, and traffickers have taken advantage of this as well. There are two main trafficking routes that go through Greece in order to reach the European Union. The first is the Balkan Route, through which victims are moved from the Balkans into Slovenia, Hungary, Italy, and Greece, and from there to the rest of the EU. The second is the Eastern Mediterranean Route, which moves victims from Turkey through Greece into Bulgaria and Romania. Some accounts have estimated that Greece's border with Turkey serves as the “back-door” entry point for close to 90% of the illegal immigrants to the European Union, and this number includes those transported illegally for purposes of sexual exploitation.

Victims
Experts struggle to profile human trafficking victims because they come from a wide variety of countries and backgrounds and experience different forms of economic and sexual exploitation and abuse. There are certain characteristics that many victims in Greece share, and they face similar challenges and dangers even after being rescued.

Characteristics
Over 60% of all migrants to Greece, legal and illegal, are female, and over 20,000 migrant women are trafficked annually to work in Greece. Approximately 40,000 women and children aged 12–25 are trafficked each year in Greece. The majority of these women today are from Eastern European and Balkan countries, such as Ukraine, Russia, Romania, Albania, Moldova, Bulgaria,  and Poland, but there are a fair number from Africa and Asia as well. More than half the women trafficked in Greece are estimated to be from Russia and Ukraine alone. One study from 2001 estimates that 75% of trafficked women in Greece are brought into the country under false pretenses and, believing that an opportunity for lawful employment awaits them in Greece, suddenly find themselves sold to those involved in the sex trade and threatened with violence and deportation if they refuse to cooperate, and they become too frightened to report it. The average age of a sex worker in Greece is also lowering, and currently sits at about 12–15 years of age. Trafficked women work anywhere from 6 to 12 hours a day and see anywhere from 40-110 clients a day. 70% or more of their earnings, however, go to the brothel owners or pimps in order to keep the women in debt bondage. Trafficked women are likely to face physical abuse, threats, intimidation, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and to experience drug and alcohol addiction, injuries resulting from violence, and various mental health problems as a result of the trauma they are exposed to. Women who are victims of trafficking also often suffer from sexually transmitted diseases and other infectious diseases. A survey completed in Athens in the late 1980s found that 12 of 350 registered prostitutes were HIV positive; in the late 1990s, 44 surveyed foreign prostitutes were HIV positive.

Challenges after trafficking
Even after having been freed from entrapping situations, victims may face symptoms consistent with posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of the physical, emotional, and sexual trauma to which they were exposed. Additionally, victims may be stigmatized, marginalized, and discriminated against as a result of their experiences. They often find it difficult to go back to their home countries, where they are no longer considered respectable women, and they find it equally difficult to start a new life in the country into which they have been trafficked.

Women freed from trafficking situations face the added danger of a possible return to the sex trade, whether because it is the only life they know or because they are not adequately protected. An estimated 80% of women deported from Greece by train never make it back to their home country because it is common practice for the traffickers to board the trains and force them back to Greece before they reach their destination.

Traffickers
Traffickers involved in Greece are largely Albanian, Greek, and Russian, and while Greeks are also victims of trafficking, Greek citizens do participate in the trafficking of non-Greek nationals. Traffickers recruit victims through false advertisements for low skilled jobs with good salaries, such as waitresses, nannies, dancers, or hostesses; one study of newspapers in Ukraine showed each newspaper contained 5–20 suspicious adverts. Traffickers sometimes use a woman's legal documents and visas to get her into Greece and then confiscate them so she cannot leave. Additionally, traffickers use threats, intimidation, and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse to control these women and force them into prostitution.

Contributing factors to trafficking

Historical factors
During the 1980s, the majority of foreign prostitutes in Greece originated from Asia, specifically Thailand and the Philippines. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, trafficking in women from former Soviet bloc countries rapidly expanded as women looked to improve their social and economic standings by moving West. This meant they could be taken advantage of by traffickers with the promise of a job in Western European countries. Former Soviet republics such as Belarus, Latvia, Russia, and Ukraine have become major sending countries for trafficked women. Today, 50-55% of trafficking victims in Athens are from former Soviet bloc countries, and more than half of the women trafficked into Greece overall are estimated to be from Russia and Ukraine.

Political factors
The political situation in Greece regarding immigration, legal and illegal, facilitates the trafficking of women into and through