Men are buying young, poverty stricken women for sex for the price of a sandwich as six years of painful austerity have pushed the European country to the financial brink and left women and children at the mercy of opportunistic sexual sadists, a new study showed Friday.

The study, which compiled data on more than 17,000 impoverished prostituted women in Greece, confirmed that men, like men anywhere, choose to buy women, including women in their own country, and traffickers can’t make a quid from sandwiches and must send their Eastern-European victims elsewhere.

“Some men just do it because they can, and a starving woman who needs to eat is not in a position to say no” Gregory Laxos, a sociology professor at the Panteion University in Athens, told the London Times newspaper. “Others [do it] because it is more pleasurable to pay to sexually abuse and rape a woman instead of helping her pay taxes, bills, or urgent expenses or for a quick and necessary [drug] fix, or counselling, which she needs to cope with these predators,” said Laxos, who conducted the three-year study.

When the economic crisis began in Greece, some men bought women for sex for on average 50 euros ($53), the London newspaper quoted Laxos as saying. Now, they are able to do so for as little as two euros ($2.12).

Laxos said the some 400 such desperate women he found may be “nominal compared with the thousands of other prostituted women men are buying nationwide, but they had never been taken advantage of for such low cost as commodities until the financial crisis. Apart from way back in Ancient Greece of course.” He said Greek men enjoy sexually abusing/raping Greek women who now account for 80 percent of the prostituted.

He said his wide-ranging study showed that thousands of men are enjoying the increased availability of young women who, due to poverty and desperation, are forced in to paid rape — “It doesn’t look like these numbers will fade,” he told the Times. “Rather the men who buy women to sexually abuse them are growing at a steady and consistent pace.”

The price of women is falling globally, as the Internet provides more and more men with females online. The 180 euro ($191) average price of a one-hour sexual abuse/rape session of a woman in Europe has dropped dramatically, the paper reported.

Prostitution is legal in Greece, but very few of the country’s brothels are licensed, the paper reported, pushing many of the estimated 18,500 prostituted women in Greece onto the streets. While sex-traffickers have found it unnecessary to try and meet male demand by trafficking women in, there is prime motivation to traffic women out to other wealthier countries where it is also legal for men to sexually abuse/rape them, thus pimps will do as they always do, and continue to take advantage of female poverty and not lose much in profits.

“Factor in the growing number men who take advantage of even more girls who are drifted in and out of trade, depending on their desperation, and the total number of male predators who will pay to sexually abuse/rape the increasing number of female prostituted (whom they call ‘sex workers’) is startling,” Laxos was quoted as saying.

The study showed that most of the men are buying Greek women who are being coerced and forced into prostitution between the ages of 17 and 20.

The study comes after a shocking report last month that a priest and a retired man bought a 12 year old girl from an impoverished mother. The mother, 44, was sentenced to 33 years in prison and fined 100,000 euros ($106,153), the paper said. The Greek media dubbed the woman “monster mom,” and the country was outraged by the case.

Laxos said last month’s widely publicized incident — and his study — “reflects a society in denial about the fact that men care absolutely nothing about how the changes taking place impacts on poor women, rather, they are benefiting from it and are still legally allowed to sexually abuse/rape girls and women, but now at a lower price” in Greece.

“State authorities must finally act rather than continuing to remain indifferent,” he warned.

Plundered from Deane who reported from London, (and Laxos also misquoted/Corrected) by Spin, prostitution victim.

Original article here : https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/young-greek-women-selling-sex-for-the-price-of-a-sandwich-new-study-shows/2015/11/27/c469695e-94d9-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6_story.htm