TWELVE-YEAR-OLD SURVIVOR OF CHILD RAPE, TRAFFICKING AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF KOLONÓS (ATHENS)

Ilías Mihos, owner of a small supermarket in the neighborhood of Kolonós (Athens), has been prostituting and raping a twelve-year-old girl during several months. As the child and her seven siblings belong to a family with few economic resources, after school she used to collaborate in the store where her mother worked as a cleaner.

Ilías Mihos, a man known and respected in the neighbourhood for his role as benefactor with various causes and as a singer at the local church, took advantage of this situation. He not only repeatedly raped the girl but began to sexually exploit her under the threat of firing her. Between May and August 2022, he created dozens of false profiles on different online platforms, posing as a 16-year-old minor. Following these publications, the girl was raped by 16 paedophiles. Mihos charged them between 50 and 70 euros, an amount that he pocketed himself entirely. When the activity of the online profiles ceased in August 2022, 213 men were still on the waiting list to rape the little girl.

The case came to light in October 2022. The girl’s aunt discovered the heartbreaking situation she found herself in when she observed the panicked reaction she had every time she received a text message. The family went to court, rejecting a bribery attempt by the pimp’s ex-wife, Elisavet Lekka, who offered €10,000 to the child’s mother if she promised not to take action.

Following the complaint, both Mihos and several rapists identified by the girl were arrested. The pimp and rapist accused the mother of having been responsible for the sexual exploitation of her daughter. Based only on his accusation and a neighbour’s statement, the mother was imprisoned and continues in jail until today, five months after the case was made public.

It is crucial to highlight the complicity of the Greek government and police with this model of trafficking in which a man older than the victim gains her trust to be able to prostitute her. Not only was Ilias Mihos a known member of New Democracy, the current ruling party of both Greece and Athens, but Elisavet Lekka was a councillor from the same party in the Athenian city council and a member of the management committee of the city's public orphanage. In addition, several photographs show Mihos' close friendship with the local police chief. Among the 213 would-be paedophilic rapists are members of the ND (New Democracy) and police officers.

Although both Mihos and Lekka were expelled from the party due to the events, New Democracy systematically tries to downplay their role in the case and denies the high involvement of their members and political officials, along with the police, in the sexual exploitation trafficking network. Meanwhile, the fact that the Greek patriarchal justice keeps the victim's mother imprisoned for no other reason than the accusations of a single neighbour and especially Mihos himself increases the suffering of the girl and the whole family. Once again, institutional violence joins sexual, psychological, and economic violence.

As Encuentro Feminista Montequinto we express our solidarity with the twelve-year-old, her family and the Support Network made up of feminists and neighbourhood associations that do not stop demanding justice for her and her mother.

Against the criminal alliance of patriarchy, governments, police and patriarchal justice: solidarity, sisterhood and feminism!