‘Anti-trafficking policies should respect human rights’

Trafficking of persons is generally recognised as a serious violation of human rights. However, current policies meant to prevent trafficking and protect trafficked persons often have adverse effects, said organisations from different countries at the expert meeting ‘Anti-trafficking policies and measures: Do they protect people’s rights?’, organised in Prague by La Strada Czech and Aim for human rights.

‘Repressive policies, restrictions on freedom of movement and insufficient protection and compensation for trafficked persons violate the rights of such groups as trafficked persons, young women, sex workers and migrant workers’, says Irena Konečná of La Strada Czech. ‘In the Czech Republic a new criminal code which will come into force in January 2010 will introduce a notification duty on the crime of trafficking in human beings. The purpose was probably to identify more trafficked persons, but we expect that it will have the opposite effect. When social workers will have the duty to notify the police immediately when they hear of persons being trafficked, their clients will hesitate to ask for support.'

Negative effects on human rights
The speakers at the meeting reported how negative effects of anti-trafficking measures occur worldwide, in ‘sending’, ‘transit’ and ‘receiving’ countries. Victoria Nwogu of the Global Alliance Against Trafficking of Women discussed anti-trafficking policies in West Africa. ´A national policy adopted in Nigeria in 2008, obliges returning victims of trafficking who start rehabilitation programmes, to complete them. As a result victims are often held in closed facilities for up to six weeks.´

Ruth Morgan Thomas of the International Committee on the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe, said that in many European countries the conflation of sex work and trafficking jeopardises the health and safety of sex workers and those who have actually been trafficked into the sex industry. 'In the United Kingdom, the current proposal to clamp down on trafficking by criminalising clients of sex workers ‘controlled for gain’, would force sex workers to work in isolation and expose them to greater risk of attack, while also reducing the likelihood of both clients and sex workers reporting concerns about those who are being coerced.'

Assessing the impact of policies
The organisations believe that careful assessment of the human rights impact of anti-trafficking measures will help to create measures that effectively address trafficking as well as respect human rights. To this end, they are developing a tool that can be used by organisations around the world when lobbying for better anti-trafficking measures. This method will help organisations to compare the effects of policies with the human rights obligations of their countries. The tool will be tested in spring 2010.

  

The project: 'Assessment of the human rights impact of anti-trafficking laws and measures' is funded by the European Commission and co-funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For more information see the theme page