Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 45
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- The Special Rapporteur is especially concerned that many awareness-raising campaigns simply use scare tactics to prevent people from leaving home. Such campaigns are counterproductive and cause unintended negative effects. There are reports, for instance, that awareness-raising campaigns resulted in a decrease in children's school attendance because the parents were afraid that their children might be abducted and refusal by some to travel overseas because the traveller thought she would be trafficked if she left the village. Furthermore, some awareness-raising campaigns may result in the unintentional stigmatization of certain groups of trafficked persons, such as women. The Special Rapporteur observed that many of the images and messages used in awareness-raising campaigns tend to focus on women trafficked for forced prostitution, thereby giving the public the wrong impression that trafficking is about prostitution and that all trafficked women are prostitutes. In some countries, such misdirected awareness-raising efforts have reportedly produced overly suspicious law enforcement officers who hinder the exercise by women and girls of the freedom to travel abroad. In addition, such stereotyping and stigmatization may pose obstacles to the reintegration process upon their return to their communities. For example, the Special Rapporteur discovered during her country visit to Belarus that male victims trafficked especially for forced labour in the Russian Federation refused or were very reluctant on their rescue and return to take advantage of psychosocial support designed for the recovery and reintegration of victims owing to the prevailing severe stigmatization in the community of persons who have been trafficked.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Movement
- Violence
- Person(s) affected
- Children
- Families
- Girls
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2010
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Paragraph number
- 45
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