Student Post - Will the European Union's Latest Attempts to Combat Human Trafficking Be Successful?

On March 25, the European Commission released a proposal designed to combat human trafficking and the sexual abuse of children. The proposal contained a series of laws that must be approved by member countries before being enacted into legislation. The child sex abuse provisions mandate longer prison sentences for persons convicted of sex crimes against children, give the European Union jurisdiction over EU citizens who commit sex crimes against children outside of the EU, and address new uses of technology that aid offenders in committing sex crimes against children. The provisions dealing with human trafficking offer protection and support to human trafficking victims, provide law enforcement with the ability to utilize techniques such as phone tapping, eavesdropping, "and other similar tools" to combat trafficking, promote penalties for clients of human traffickers, and "establish[] independent bodies to monitor implementation of these actions."

In creating the proposal, the EC estimated that over one million people are victims of human trafficking, that the majority of human trafficking victims are women and children, and that a significant percentage of human trafficking victims are forced into prostitution. If approved, the new proposals will supersede prior human trafficking proposals. This leads directly to the question of whether the new proposals will be more effective in combating human trafficking than the EU’s prior efforts.

The proposal contains a variety of provisions designed to protect victims of human trafficking. The proposal offers human trafficking victims medical care, psychological assistance and police protection when necessary, establishes guidelines regarding the handling of victims designed to prevent victims from suffering further trauma, and provides victims with free legal aid. These victim protection provisions could potentially have a sizable impact on the prosecution of human traffickers because, although an estimated hundreds of thousands of victims are trafficked annually in Europe, in 2006, only 3,000 victims received any type of assistance. Amnesty International has reported that "[m]any of those trafficked do not report their plight for fear of reprisals. Others are detained and prosecuted for unlicensed prostitution or illegal entry and are deported, only to be trafficked yet again." It is possible that the proposal will help alleviate victim’s fears of retaliation and deportation, thus encouraging victims to come forward, which will aid in the prosecution of traffickers. Victim awareness of the protection provisions then appears to be necessary to the success of the proposal, since victims who are not aware of the new protections they will be afforded under the proposal will not be encouraged to come forward.

The proposal also calls for the establishment of independent bodies to monitor implementation of the proposal. The effectiveness of these bodies in monitoring implementation will be crucial to the success of the proposal. Weak monitoring provisions have severely decreased the effectiveness of prior international efforts to combat trafficking. The frequency at which member nations are required to report to the independent monitoring body is also a factor that will weigh heavily on the success of the proposal. Unfortunately, at this time, no specific information about the proposed independent monitoring bodies is known, making it difficult to predict the effectiveness of the monitoring provisions of the proposal. However, with strong monitoring provisions and victim awareness of the proposal’s victim protection plans, the European Commission’s proposals have the opportunity to be very effective in combating human trafficking in the European Union.

Comments

[Daniel]

I found this posting ironic in light of CRY previous posting. I doubt there is any really serious attempt to deal with the issues surrounding human trafficking. Rather, most of these proposals are simply back-door attempts to get around much of the anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe. "These people are not coming to take your job, they are victims of abuse." Yeah, and I have swamp land in Arixona to sell, too.