The criminal justice response to trafficking should be more effective, says OSCE Special Representative

Criminal justice response practices require significant change to strengthen anti-trafficking action, the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, said during an international training seminar focusing on penal law, migration, trafficking and international co-operation, in Rome on 5 April.

Participants in the event, organized by the Italian Judicial Council in Rome, included judges and prosecutors from Italy, France, Romania, Spain, Albania and Afghanistan, lawyers and professionals from non-governmental organizations, and representatives of Eurojust, an EU judicial co-operation body.

“The law enforcement and criminal justice response to trafficking is still weak; too often cases of trafficking, especially for labour exploitation, are not qualified as such, criminal networks are not disrupted, perpetrators go unpunished, and assets are not seized and confiscated,” Giammarinaro said. “Moreover, victims are not properly identified nor do they have access to justice and legal remedies.”

“It is essential that law enforcement professionals, judges and prosecutors fully apply national legislation adopted in compliance with the UN Trafficking Protocol. Its spirit should be reflected in their interpretation of national law to enable a more effective criminal justice response to the ever-changing modus operandi of traffickers.”

Giammarinaro outlined that the modest results of anti-trafficking action often relate to the predominant cultural paradigm preventing law enforcement officials, prosecutors and judges from identifying the features of modern-day slavery. She stressed that trafficking does not necessarily involve violence or total deprivation of freedom of movement. It rather implies abuse of the trafficked person’s vulnerability, which is a result of multiple dependencies deriving from economic and social constraints, irregular migration status, debt bondage and social isolation, which leave her or him with no other option than to submit to the exploitation.