TEHRAN An international network smuggling Eastern women into Italy to work as maids or deliver babies for Italian families was discovered and its members were arrested in the city of Naples.
The network comprised a 51-year-old man and three Ukrainian women aged 24, 40 and 44. It smuggled girls and women from Eastern countries into Italy and forced them to deliver babies for Italian couples who could not have a child.
Among the girls who were brought to Italy by the network was a 20-year-old Moldavian girl who was a nurse back home, receiving an income of $10 per month. She accepted to receive $6,000 and deliver a baby for an Italian couple.
The members of the network have been convicted of conducting illegal activities such as the smuggling of young Eastern girls into Italy, mistreating them and forcing them to work as maids and take care of aged people.
The Ukrainian girls who were brought to Italy had to pay 200 to 350 dollars to middlemen, and later they had to give a percentage of their income to the network.
Illegal immigration is a hot issue in Italy. Italian papers on Friday reported that an Iraqi Kurd who had hidden in a Greek ship and tried to enter Italy illegally was frozen to death before his arrival in that country.
The Iraqi Kurd, along with three other Iraqi Kurds, was hidden by smugglers in a coal container. The Iraqi Kurds had paid some 3,000 marks to a smuggling network in Iraq but were stranded in Turkey.