VII. Exploitation of Children Unaccompanied children outside of care have to fend for themselves. Children who have not applied for asylum do not have a regular status and as such are barred from legal employment. In contrast, children who have filed an asylum application and are over the age of 15243 are, in theory, permitted to work in non-hazardous jobs; however, due to the dysfunctional guardianship system described in chapter II, they are often unable to secure the necessary guardian’s consent to obtain a work permit.244 As a result unaccompanied children who live outside of state-sponsored care arrangements—most unaccompanied children—find themselves in a daily struggle for survival, compelled to accept any type of work they find. Operating outside the legislative framework, many end up performing exploitative and hazardous work. Children interviewed were paid wages below and sometimes far below the minimum wage, and they worked for extensive hours. Work under such conditions amounts to exploitation that may reach the level of forced labor.245 Although Human Rights Watch’s research did not focus on trafficking, some children whose testimonies are documented in this report may have been trafficked, as defined in international law.246 243 Presidential Decree 62/1998, Measures for the protection of youth, in accordance with Directive 94/33/EC, Official Gazette A 67, arts. 2, 4; Law 1837/1989, Employment of minors – protection of minors, Official Gazette A 85, arts. 2(1), 3. 244 Civil Code, arts. 1619-1620. See also Papageorgiu and Dimitropoulou, Unaccompanied Minors Study, pp. 80-84. 245 Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention 182, art. 3(a). 246 For the purposes of this Protocol: (a) “Trafficking in persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs; (b) The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used; (c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article; (d) “Child” shall mean any person under eighteen years of age,” Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime (Trafficking Protocol), adopted November 15, 2000, G.A. Res. 55/25, annex II, 55 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 60, U.N. Doc. A/45/49 (Vol.I) (2001), entered into force December 25, 2003, art. 3. 75 Human Rights Watch December 2008