OSCE, Council of Europe hold workshop for judges and prosecutors on protecting human trafficking victims’ rights
STRASBOURG, France, 27 April 2015 – The OSCE and the Council of Europe launched today a two-day workshop for judges and prosecutors to discuss important measures that will enable them to strengthen the legal rights of human trafficking victims.
The workshop will focus on the implementation of the non-punishment principle, which holds that human trafficking victims should not be punished for unlawful activities they were forced to commit by their exploiters.
“Non-punishment is tied to the State’s obligations to identify, assist and protect victims, and also to the State’s duty to investigate human trafficking in order to bring the true perpetrator to justice,” said Ambassador Madina Jarbussynova, OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings.
Promoting the non-punishment principle is one of the core areas identified for enhanced co-operation between the Council of Europe and the OSCE following a joint conference held in 2014 organized under the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship and the Austrian Chairmanship of the Council of Europe.
“More and more countries are adopting specific legal provisions concerning the non-punishment of victims of trafficking for offences they were forced to commit by the traffickers, but it is necessary to sensitize prosecutors and judges to the importance of applying these provisions,” said Petya Nestorova, Executive Secretary of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.
Speakers at the workshop included anti-trafficking experts from academia, government and NGOs from across the OSCE region.