Efforts to combat trafficking, children included, must focus on both effects and roots of this crime, OSCE officials say on world anti-trafficking day

WARSAW/ VIENNA, 30 July 2018 – Effective policies to combat trafficking in human beings, including the trafficking of children, must focus on both the effects and the roots of this terrible crime, OSCE senior officials said today, on the occasion of the World Day against Trafficking in Persons.

Such policies need to include a focus on a survivor-centred approach, tailored to the needs of both adults and children, as well as on measures to eliminate the ability of traffickers to profit from their crime, the officials said.

“A survivor-centred approach that is gender and culturally sensitive can be achieved by strengthening national referral mechanisms to include survivors’ voices and a focus on their needs in all aspects of policy development and implementation. This is important to guarantee that rehabilitation of, and assistance to human trafficking survivors is rooted in international human rights standards,” said Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). “At the same time, disruption strategies should be in place to ensure that this crime becomes unprofitable, by curbing demand, inhibiting financial flows to organized criminal networks and empowering survivors to prevent re-trafficking and re-victimization.”

According to the 2016 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 27 per cent of reported global trafficking cases occur within the OSCE region. More than half of those trafficked worldwide are women, and one in five is a child.

OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger noted that UNODC had chosen responding to the trafficking of children and young people as the focus for this year’s World Day and stressed that in recent years, there has been an increased focus within the OSCE on combatting the trafficking of children in particular.

“With the adoption of a comprehensive Ministerial Council decision against child trafficking as well as other forms of sexual exploitation, the OSCE unequivocally reiterated that there is no place in our region for the abuse of children,” Greminger said. “While maintaining close attention to persistent forms of child exploitation, both transnational and internal, our Organization is committed to helping countries engage partners, including civil society, the business community, the travel and tourism industry, the technology industry, and international organizations across the full spectrum of anti-trafficking efforts to prevent harm, protect victims and hold traffickers accountable.”

Valiant Richey, the OSCE Acting Co-ordinator for Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings, stressed that the Organization’s efforts to address trafficking in children directly benefit from such engagement.

“Mindful that the best interest of the child is a primary consideration, and that a trauma-informed approach should take into account the respective gender-specific concerns of girls and boys, the OSCE is aiding in the promotion of innovative, partnership-oriented and informed responses from policy to practice,” said Richey. “Through our research on technology, our ground-breaking training programmes and our workshops on migration, we are working to enhance the protection, safety and health of all children, while building more effective and efficient criminal justice systems to investigate and prosecute traffickers.”