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Help to Fight Sex Trafficking
Trafficked persons are victims of crime and violation of their human dignity. Sex trafficking is a worldwide crime and it is almost always a form of organised crime. Traffickers face few risks and can earn huge profits by taking advantage of large numbers of poor vulnerable people.
To successfully fight trafficking there must be both an international response, a national government response and local commitments in countries of source, transit and demand to see this violation eradicated.
The United Nations has taken an important step in coordinating the fight against sex trafficking. On the 15 November 2000 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the United Nations Convention Against Organised Crime. The Convention calls upon countries to take measures against organised crime and to cooperate together. The Convention came into force on the 23 September 2003. The United Kingdom is a signatory to the Convention.
The Convention states that each country shall take appropriate measures within its means to provide assistance and protection to victims of offences covered by the Convention (Article 25).
To supplement the Convention, a protocol also supports the fight against sex trafficking. This is the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime. As this Protocol was signed in Palermo, Italy it is often known as the ‘Palermo Protocol‘.
The Palermo Protocol
The Protocol defines “Trafficking in persons” to mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
The Palermo Protocol came into force on the 25 December 2003. It has not yet been ratified by the United Kingdom.
The Protocol requires those countries that have ratified the Protocol to introduce criminal offences to combat sex trafficking. It also requires under Article 6 that these countries must consider implementing measures to provide for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking. In appropriate cases, in cooperation with non-governmental organisations, this includes the provision of:
- appropriate housing
- counselling and information, in particular as regards legal rights, in a language that the victims of trafficking in persons can understand
- medical, psychological and material assistance
- employment, educational and training opportunities
Join with CHASTE in its campaign to urge this Government to ratify the Palermo Protocol and to introduce the full range of measures to protect and support the victims.
In particular CHASTE is campaigning for a three-month period in which the victims of this crime can reflect whether they wish to take steps to remain in this country and/or to assist the police in giving evidence against those who have abused them. The survivors of trafficking are traumatised and frequently extremely confused when they become apparent to the state authorities. Too often victims of sex trafficking are simply removed from this country by the Immigration authorities without the opportunity to seek the help they need to recover from their ordeal. They are returned to their countries of origin without appropriate support and/or places of real safety being available for them. This results in the ‘survivor’ being threatened with physical reprisals, families intimidated and the clear prospect of being trafficked again in order to ‘protect’ the trafficker’s initial investment.
To help fight sex trafficking you are urged to:
- join CHASTE as a friend to support CHASTE’s work
- Consider your part in providing safe housing for those who have been through terrible ordeals. The Sanctuary Project is our contribution to this struggle.
- consider whether you have any experience or skills that you can offer to CHASTE – contact its Chief Executive Carrie Pemberton at [email protected]
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