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The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking
in Persons, especially Women and Children (also referred
to as the Trafficking Protocol) is a protocol to the Convention against Transnational Organised
Crime. It is one of the two Palermo protocols, the other one
being the
Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and
Air, adopted by the United Nations in Palermo, Italy in 2000.
The Trafficking Protocol entered into force on 25 December 2003.
By October 2009, the Protocol had been signed by 117 countries, and
there were 133 parties.[1]
The United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is responsible for
implementing the Protocol. It offers practical help to states with
drafting laws, creating comprehensive national anti-trafficking
strategies, and assisting with resources to implement them. In
March 2009, UNODC launched the Blue Heart Campaign to fight human
trafficking, to raise awareness, and to encourage involvement and
inspire action.
The Protocol commits of ratifying states to prevent and combat
trafficking in persons, protecting and assisting victims of
trafficking and promoting cooperation among states in order to meet
those objectives.
Content
of the protocol
The Protocol covers the following:
- defining the crime of trafficking
in human beings; essentially, trafficking is the transport of
persons, by means of coercion, deception, or consent for the
purpose of exploitation such as forced or consensual labor or
prostitution:
-
- "Trafficking in persons" shall 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.
- facilitating the return and acceptance of children who have
been victims of cross-border trafficking, with due regard to their
safety;
- prohibiting the trafficking of children (which is defined as
being a person under 18 years of age) for purposes of commercial
sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), exploitative labour
practices or the removal of body parts;
- suspending parental rights of parents, caregivers or any other
persons who have parental rights in respect of a child should they
be found to have trafficked a child;
- ensuring that definitions of trafficking reflect the need for
special safeguards and care for children, including appropriate
legal protection;
- ensuring that trafficked persons are not punished for any
offences or activities related to their having been trafficked,
such as prostitution and immigration violations;
- ensuring that victims of trafficking are protected from
deportation or return where there are reasonable grounds to suspect
that such return would represent a significant security risk to the
trafficked person or their family;
- considering temporary or permanent residence in countries of
transit or destination for trafficking victims in exchange for
testimony against alleged traffickers, or on humanitarian and
compassionate grounds;
- providing for proportional criminal penalties to be applied to
persons found guilty of trafficking in aggravating circumstances,
including offences involving trafficking in children or offences
committed or involving complicity by state officials; and,
- providing for the confiscation of the instruments and proceeds
of trafficking and related offences to be used for the benefit of
trafficked persons.
The Convention and the Protocol obligate ratifying states to
introduce national trafficking legislation.
References
See also
External
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