Fictitious marriages is one of the most widespread forms of human trafficking.
Ireland and the UK dominate in the numbers of registered marriages. The popularity of fictitious marriages in these countries affect many factors:
- the liberal approach to both registering the marriage and checking it after;
- Ireland and the UK are members of the EU but are not members of the Schengen zone;
- in these countries there is a rather large community of third country nationals which provide support to fictitious marriages for example recruiting victims.
These factors interact with the process of Latvian girls traveling to Ireland and the UK seeking work. They either in full awareness or misled and forced marry third country nationals thus facilitating third country nationals` entrance to the EU and Schengen zone. Most of the recruiting takes place online (see "How does recruitment happen").
