Scandal with Dominican prostitutes also rocks Slovenia

Santo Domingo.- A scandal has erupted in Slovenia over the authorities’ alleged complacency with the trafficking of hundreds of women from Dominican Republic who get work visas as dancers when they in fact work as prostitutes, Efe reports.

According to TV channel "POP TV" and newspaper "Delo" a former deputy of the ruling Conservative Party and other senior officials are suspected of having helped arrange work permits for the young Dominicans.

The main accused, Pavle Rupar, rejects the allegations as "lies" and announced legal action against Andrej Ster, the head of the consular section at the Slovenian Foreign Ministry, who has launched the charges.

Most of the Dominicans who’ve arrived to Slovenia since 2008 as dancers are actually prostitutes, the Slovenian press says. "It’s prostitution, with elements which makes it human trafficking."

According to Slovenia authorities 354 Dominican women have received work visas in the country in the last four years.

"The girls aren’t dangerous, but the organizers of this illegal network are," said Ster by phone, quoted by Efe, noting that the contracts dancers sign are "fairy tales written in the Slovenian language" which the women don’t understand.

With that in mind the official proposed to limit at once issuing visas for Dominican women to a minimum, paperwork typically done in the Slovenian Embassy’s consular section in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the center o f another scandal with Dominican prostitutes three years ago.