A suspected kidnapping and imprisonment of two teenagers led to the arrest of three individuals in a building in the XIX arrondissement of Paris on Saturday. They were placed in custody by the brigade for the protection of minors (BPM) of the judicial police of Paris.
The case began on the Friday when one of the victim’s father received a phone call from his daughter. She explained that she had been kidnapped and was being held against her will after running away from a shelter in mid-January. Investigators were able to locate the victim’s phone in a building on Avenue de Flandres and suspected that the teenage girl was being forced into prostitution.
On Saturday around 4 pm, the investigators, along with police officers from the XIX district, took action. Upon arrival at the apartment, they were met by one of the occupants, who was drunk and brandishing a knife. He was quickly subdued with an electric stun gun. Inside the apartment, two other intoxicated individuals were arrested.
The police found not just one, but two young girls in the apartment. The second girl, also a minor, raised questions about whether she too was being held captive. The Paris prosecutor’s office did not provide specific details, but both victims were to be interviewed by the police to tell their stories.
In France, an estimated 15,000 minors are victims of prostitution. In 2021, a specialized group for investigating the prostitution of minors was created within the BPM to combat this growing issue in Paris and its surrounding areas. Christophe Molmy, the head of the BPM, stated in an interview in September 2023 that these cases had “increased tenfold in ten years.”
