Prosecutors also took action in Nógrád and Fejér counties for the crimes of human trafficking and forced labour. In both cases, young women in vulnerable situations were allegedly forced into prostitution.
The Chief Prosecuton Office of Nógrád County has indicted a couple from Pásztó who forced a vulnerable young woman into prostitution. According to the indictment, a 36-year-old woman from Pásztó and her 38-year-old husband met the 19-year-old victim, who was struggling with housing difficulties, in a public works programme around 2016 and took her into their home.
The girl was later offered for prostitution by the couple on a website advertising sexual services from summer 2019 until the end of 2020. The appointments were arranged by the couple members by telephone, setting the rates for each service and providing the venue in their own house. The young woman was provided with detailed instructions on the sexual acts to be performed, and threatened with assault if she refused.
Over the years, the couple made a profit of around 15 million forints, of which the victim received only a few thousand forints.
In its indictment against the couple for the crime of trafficking in human beings and forced labour, the General Prosecutor's Office proposed that the Balassagyarmat Regional Court sentence them to imprisonment and banishment from public office, that it also apply a confiscation of property against them, and the accused be ordered to pay the criminal costs of almost three million HUF.
In the event that the defendants plead guilty at the preliminary hearing and waive their right to trial, the prosecutor general's office has proposed a sentence of 8 years 6 months for the wife and 7 years for the husband.
The Chief Prosecution Office of Fejér County has proposed the arrest of a man suspected of forcing a woman into prostitution and taking her earnings for the crime of trafficking and forced labour.
In January 2018, the man used promises of love to persuade the victim to move from Heves County to his home in Sárosd, where he lived with members of his family. The woman accepted the offer in view of her living situation at the time and moved in with the suspect. The man soon persuaded her to engage in prostitution and took the earnings from her. The victim, fed up with the man taking all her money, tried to leave him, but he forced her to continue the sex work, first by promising and then by abusing and threatening her. The accused used the money for his own needs and those of his family members living with him.
The victim lived in a two-room house without any comfort with five other people, and the man punished her refusal to perform sex work by depriving her of food.
As there are reasonable grounds to fear that the man will make it difficult to prove his case by influencing witnesses, and given his multiple criminal record, the prolonged nature of the offence and his lack of legal income, there is a real risk of re-offending.
The Székesfehérvár District Court ordered the arrest of the accused, the decision is not final due to a defence appeal.
You can read the news in Hungarian on the website of the Office of the Prosecutor General: