Children who left Afghanistan or one of the refugee camps in Pakistan in more recent years spoke of a variety of push factors behind their departure. Many shared stories of lawless areas run by local warlords. Children fled for many reasons—because they were targeted for sexual abuse, religious views, political affiliation with the Taliban, or simply for befriending the daughter of a local strongman. One child told us he left because “his father did not behave well” and another was orphaned at a young age. All shared a history of child labor; hardly any were able to read or write, and many had gone to school for only two or three years before they took up work. Two Afghan siblings came to be reunited with their mother in another EU country. We did not interview sufficient numbers of children from other nationalities to draw general conclusions about the reasons for their departure. Several Somali children, however, told us they were from Mogadishu and fled violence and fighting. One African boy said he was persecuted after he tried to seek justice for the killing of his politically active family. A boy from Iraq fled after his entire family was killed and he became the target of insurgents. Human Rights Watch did not set out to research child trafficking and no research on contemporary child trafficking has, to our knowledge, been carried out by other organizations. 10 However, some of the children we interviewed appeared to have been trafficked. Furthermore, unaccompanied children who have made it to Greece risk falling into the hands of trafficking gangs operating in the country, including for the purpose of labor exploitation (see chapter VII for a fuller discussion). Unaccompanied girls, who face particular risks, remain largely invisible, with no specialized care center existing for them. In this report Human Rights Watch does not assess whether the children we spoke to have a case for being granted asylum. Some, perhaps many, undoubtedly do. The focus of the report is on how the protection and asylum regimes in Greece fail all of them—asylum seekers and migrants alike. 10 There are several reports about the trafficking of unaccompanied children from Albania, especially during the 1990s (see also footnote 1), but none about children from Africa or countries affected by conflict. The UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography noted in 2005 that the trafficking of unaccompanied women and girls from Africa appears to be a new trend in Greece. UN Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Juan Miguel Petit, Mission to Greece, E/CN.4/2006/67/Add.3, March 27, 2006, para. 12. Left to Survive 12