OSCE countries need to intensify efforts to prevent human trafficking for labour exploitation, high-level meeting concludes

VIENNA, 17 November 2006 - The OSCE's 56 participating States need to co-operate within and across borders to intensify their efforts to combat human trafficking for purposes of labour exploitation, participants at a high-level meeting ending today concluded.

Eva Biaudet, the OSCE Special Representative on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, called on all OSCE States to ratify the Palermo Protocol, which requires governments to prevent trafficking, prosecute offenders and protect victims. About a dozen OSCE countries have yet to ratify the document.

"Protecting victims' rights makes a crucial contribution to the prosecution of perpetrators," she said. "Both aspects are needed to effectively fight trafficking in all its forms."

To respond to trafficking for labour exploitation, actors such as labour inspectorates, immigration services, police, prosecutors and NGOs must co-operate, speakers at the meeting said. They also emphasized the need to always protect the human rights of victims.

"Addressing exploitation should be the departing point of our interventions," Ms. Biaudet said. "Law enforcers need concrete guidance to become sensitized to the detection of situations of exploitation. They need guidance to be able to apply the law, punish perpetrators and provide legal redress for the victims.

"But this alone is not enough. OSCE participating States should also tackle xenophobia and racism, which create an environment where trafficking for labour exploitation can take place."

OSCE Secretary General Marc Perrin de Brichambaut said the meeting illustrated how the Organization can contribute by building co-operation in a complex, cross-cutting issue.

"The OSCE is here acting as a network generator between States and a range of other relevant actors in order to mobilize innovative thinking and the will to act by all concerned," he said.

The meeting brought together government anti-trafficking co-ordinators, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, law enforcement agents, labour inspectors and experts in the field.