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Title | Date added | Template | Body | Legal status | Document type | Year | Document code | Original document | Paragraph text | Thematics | Topic(s) | Person(s) affected | Year |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 30d | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Demand for the services of trafficked persons or for commodities they have been involved in producing may come from a variety of sources, including:] Businesses that buy services or products from other companies (i.e., a "supply chain"). |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 59 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The analysis of different aspects of prevention programmes described above highlights the cross-cutting importance of collecting accurate data when designing the programmes, as well as monitoring and evaluation to ensure their effectiveness. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 16 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In developing effective strategies to combat trafficking in persons, the Special Rapporteur has consistently advocated for basing such strategies on "5P's" (protection, prosecution, punishment, prevention and promotion of international cooperation) and "3R's" (redress, rehabilitation/recovery and reintegration of victims to assume a constructive role in the society) (A/HRC/10/16 and Corr.1). The role of prevention is critical in ensuring that the crime of trafficking does not occur in the first place. Despite its importance, the efforts to combat trafficking have been largely centred on a "symptom-specific" approach in that solutions are sought only after particular problems occur. It follows that resources and efforts are often concentrated on prosecuting traffickers or developing assistance programmes for survivors of trafficking but neglect the development and implementation of comprehensive and systematic prevention measures. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 17 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In examining what the "prevention" of trafficking in persons entails, it is useful to revisit the legal framework and standards on combating such trafficking. One of the fundamental objectives of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Palermo Protocol) is to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, paying particular attention to women and children. To that end, States parties are obliged to undertake measures such as research, information and mass media campaigns and social and economic initiatives to prevent and combat trafficking in persons. Article 9 of the Palermo Protocol further provides that States parties shall adopt or strengthen various measures to alleviate the factors that make persons, especially women and children, vulnerable to trafficking, such as poverty, underdevelopment and lack of equal opportunity and to discourage the demand that fosters all forms of exploitation of persons, especially women and children, that leads to trafficking. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 18a | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Those provisions make clear that prevention measures should address both the supply and demand factors leading to trafficking in persons. In that regard, guideline 7 of the Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking, issued by OHCHR in July 2002 (E/2002/68/Add.1), provides further guidance. The main prevention measures recommended by guideline 7 may be categorized as follows:] Addressing the root causes of trafficking, including poverty, lack of education and discrimination against women and other traditionally disadvantaged groups, with a view to reducing their vulnerability; |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 20 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The present report does not focus on the prosecution of traffickers as a method of prevention, although the Special Rapporteur acknowledges that it is an integral element of the fight against trafficking and may play an important role in preventing trafficking through deterrence. There are, however, increasing reports that the overzealous focus on prosecution and law enforcement may adversely affect the human rights of trafficked persons, as observed in some States where trafficking is addressed through the criminalization or prohibition of prostitution. For instance, as a result of the law prohibiting the recruitment of persons for the purpose of prostitution, women and girls who have been trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation are often arrested and charged with soliciting prostitution. One non-governmental organization documented several cases in the United States of America where victims of "domestic minor sex trafficking" were arrested by law enforcement officers, prosecuted, criminalized and revictimized by the justice system. In one of the cases, police in Las Vegas arrested a 12-year-old girl who had been picked up by a man in a truck for sexual services, while the police failed to locate and arrest the man. It must also be acknowledged that there is a limit to the deterrent effects of prosecution, owing to the complex nature of the crime, which makes it difficult to successfully prosecute and convict traffickers. For those reasons, the law enforcement approach should not be exclusively relied upon as a prevention method. In the view of the Special Rapporteur, measures to prevent trafficking will not be effective or sustainable unless the underlying social, economic and political factors that create an environment conducive to trafficking are addressed. Through this lens, the report sheds light on prevention measures to address the powerful and complex factors, along a supply/demand continuum, that increase vulnerability to trafficking. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 21 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Strategies aimed at preventing trafficking in persons must address underlying factors that render people vulnerable to trafficking, such as poverty, lack of employment opportunities, sex discrimination and inequality, restrictive immigration laws and policies, war and conflict. The root causes of trafficking and migration overlap to a great extent; it is thus important to understand the motivations behind people's decisions to leave their homes. In many cases, people leave their homes in search of protection and opportunity. Evidence suggests that more than three quarters of international migrants move to a country with a higher level of human development than their country of origin in order to improve their livelihoods. Millions of people also leave their places of origin either internally or across an international border owing to insecurity and conflict. This signals that in a significant number of situations, the root causes of migration and trafficking can be attributed to the failure of States to guarantee the fundamental human rights of all individuals within their jurisdiction. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 22 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Women are recognized as the group particularly affected by such failure. In this regard, it is timely and important to recall the States' commitments towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, particularly goal 1 (eradicate extreme poverty and hunger), goal 2 (achieve universal primary education), and goal 3 (promote gender equality and empower women). While the overall poverty rate has been reduced somewhat, some regions, such as sub-Saharan Africa, Western Asia and parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, still need to make progress to meet the 2015 targets on poverty eradication. Sex discrimination still persists, and poverty puts girls at a distinct disadvantage in terms of education. Furthermore, women are still largely relegated to temporary or informal employment with little or no social security or benefits. This failure to provide equal and just opportunities for women to education and work encourages the feminization of poverty. This, in turn, compels women to leave their homes in search of better opportunities, resulting in the feminization of migration. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 23 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In this process, the dynamic force of globalization and trade liberalization exacerbates the feminization of poverty and migration. A number of reports indicate that structural adjustment measures imposed by global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund increased poverty, unemployment, inequality and the degree of insecurity in many countries. In many cases, such adverse effects fall on women, as structural adjustment often involves the privatization of the public sector, which reduces access to social services that women may rely on. Trade liberalization may also result in cheap imports so that certain industries dominated by women, such as agriculture and textiles, are not able to survive, causing a loss of employment of the women. These effects all contribute to creating powerful "push" factors for women to migrate to seek employment outside their countries of origin, even at the risk of abuse, exploitation and trafficking. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 24 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The next question then is: What contributes to trafficking, as opposed to non exploitative migration? It is important to recognize that there are crucial differences between trafficking and migration in terms of the means used and the purposes of people's movement. The definition of "trafficking in persons" under article 3 (a) of the Palermo Protocol makes clear that trafficked persons are deceived or forced (by threat or coercion) to move for the purpose of exploitation. Thus, while trafficking in persons and migration share the same "migratory space", as both involve the movement of people, trafficking in persons entails movement by fraudulent or coercive means for exploitative purposes. In the light of those factors, the Special Rapporteur notes that there is a strong causal link between restrictive immigration policies and trafficking. In contrast with trade liberalization, immigration policies have become increasingly restrictive, particularly for people with low skills, despite the demand for their labour in many industrialized countries. While a number of States have deployed immigration control and border security measures in response to the smuggling of and trafficking in persons, such measures are often counterproductive, as many prospective migrants are not deterred by them and would rely on intermediaries to facilitate their entry to destination countries through informal and clandestine channels. In many cases, people decide to leave home not as a matter of choice but as a matter of survival in order to escape from serious violations of their human rights. People's desire to move at any cost creates a lucrative market condition for traffickers and increases migrants' vulnerability to traffickers. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 26 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Thus, a brief analysis of some of the root causes of trafficking shows that there is a wide range of intertwined factors at play. One single factor such as poverty, gender discrimination or lack of employment opportunities per se does not necessarily lead to trafficking; rather, it is the combination of multiple factors that may place certain individuals at a higher risk of being trafficked. Thus, measures aimed at addressing the root causes of trafficking should be based on the recognition that trafficking is caused by a lack of comprehensive protection of such human rights, as freedom from discrimination, the right to work, the right to an adequate standard of living and freedom of movement. As an example, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) advocates for a comprehensive child protection system rather than measures that focus narrowly on trafficking. In its "system-building" approach, UNICEF promotes shifts towards building and strengthening social welfare, changing social behaviour and improving the legal and justice system for child protection in a holistic manner, based on the principles enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This approach can be offered to other groups at high risk of being trafficked, such as women or ethnic minorities, so that prevention measures are designed to protect the human rights of potential victims of trafficking in a comprehensive manner rather than focusing on alleviating one factor. Consistent with this approach, the Special Rapporteur welcomes the recent adoption by the General Assembly of the United Nations Global Plan of Action against Trafficking in Persons (resolution 64/293) in which Member States affirmed their commitment to adopt and implement comprehensive policies and programmes at the national level to prevent trafficking in persons in line with relevant policies and programmes on migration, education, employment, gender equality, empowerment of women and crime prevention. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 27 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The need for this "system-building" approach may be illustrated by experiences in poverty-reduction programmes. While such programmes may be often implemented as a preventive measure, experience suggests that increasing economic empowerment alone does not necessarily reduce the incidence of trafficking. In this regard, the International Labour Organization (ILO) stresses the importance of "packaging" interventions so that measures such as microfinance and other income-generating activities are combined with measures to address other factors that create conditions in which people are vulnerable to trafficking. The ILO project to combat trafficking in children and women in the greater Mekong subregion is a good example of how various interventions were integrated into one package and successfully mitigated vulnerability to trafficking. In this project, ILO combined information-sharing, capacity-building, awareness-raising, communication campaigns and direct assistance through employment creation, vocational skills training, educational support and microcredit schemes, particularly targeting at-risk women and children and their families. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 28 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Prevention programmes should also strategically target individuals who are at particular risk of being trafficked. This essentially requires a careful assessment of the salient characteristics of individuals who are being trafficked from a particular community to understand why they are vulnerable to trafficking. The experience of the United Nations inter-agency project on human trafficking in South-East Asia confirms that research into the circumstances in which people are trafficked is crucial, for it is the most important method by which evidence on the experience of trafficked persons is collected and by which preventive strategies can be made evidence-based, rather than being based on guesses or prejudice. The needs assessment of one village in the Lao People's Democratic Republic carried out by the project reinforces this point. The village was initially targeted for a microfinance project aimed at preventing trafficking, having regard to certain risk factors. This included the fact that the village was one of the poorest provinces, inhabited by the Hmong ethnic minority population, which has limited access to education and a low literacy rate. The needs assessment revealed, however, that there was a low risk of trafficking, as the village was far from the main road and traffickers were not known to be active in the area. Furthermore, the population did not have much aspiration or desire to seek another lifestyle. Thus, while donors were keen to invest resources in this project for the purpose of preventing trafficking, this would have achieved very little in terms of prevention, as the project was not strategically targeted at vulnerable populations. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 30c | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | [Demand for the services of trafficked persons or for commodities they have been involved in producing may come from a variety of sources, including:] An employer who wants a particularly docile or subservient worker; |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 31 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Demand for services is sometimes interpreted to refer primarily to the market for commercial sex, where trafficked women and girls represent a high proportion of those involved in providing commercial sex and demand comes chiefly from adult men and older adolescent boys. However, boys and some adult men are also trafficked for this purpose. Estimates provided by international organizations about the proportion of people who are trafficked to be exploited in prostitution versus those trafficked for other purposes vary, with ILO estimating in 2005 that the largest proportion had been trafficked for purposes other than the exploitation of the prostitution of others and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimating in its own global report in 2009 that the majority had been trafficked for sexual purposes. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 34 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In addressing the demand for exploitative commercial sexual services, it is important to recognize that such demand is socially constructed in that the desire to buy sex is often encouraged by men's need to socially identify themselves as "real men" or "adults". The feminized entertainment and sex industry is predicated on male-centred ideological assumptions: that sex services are largely a male right and a commodity; that commercial providers of sex services are largely women; and that women in prostitution exist as sexualized and commodified bodies. The Special Rapporteur notes that there are divergent perspectives on how to tackle the demand for exploitative commercial sexual services. At one end of the spectrum is the argument that prostitution is inextricably linked to trafficking in persons and thus that trafficking cannot be prevented without curbing the demand for prostitution. On the basis of that approach, some States have adopted legislation that criminalizes the buying or soliciting of sexual services, which has reportedly led to a significant reduction in the number of foreign women engaged in street prostitution, thus creating an unprofitable market for sex trafficking. At the other end of the spectrum, the "free choice" advocates draw a clear distinction between prostitutes who voluntarily work in the sex industry and trafficked persons who are forced to work as prostitutes. They do not view the abolition of prostitution as an effective strategy for reducing the incidence of trafficking and advocate for prostitutes' right to earn their livelihood and to organize themselves to assert their rights. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 36 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | As has been observed, while proponents on both sides of the debate hold tenaciously to their convictions, there remains no conclusive link between the legalization or criminalization of prostitution and the existence of trafficking for sexual exploitation. Although the Special Rapporteur does not wish to draw conclusions in this debate, she wants to shift the attention away from exclusively tackling consumer demand and to underline the critical need to ensure that undivided attention is paid to prevention strategies that focus on tackling the structural root causes of trafficking while respecting the human rights of trafficked persons. In this context, the Special Rapporteur notes the evidence that the majority of clients of commercial sexual services are not concerned whether the services are provided by persons who are prostitutes by choice or trafficked persons. The evidence also suggests that trafficking results mainly from the demands of employers or third parties (such as recruiters, agents, transporters and others knowingly participating in trafficking) who control and exploit people, coupled with the lack of labour rights protection that allows exploitation to take place. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 37 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | In this regard, despite her view that demand for all types of commercial sex should be eliminated, the former Special Rapporteur on the human rights aspects of the victims of trafficking in persons reached a different conclusion about the measures appropriate to reduce demand in cases other than prostitution, notably when goods were made by workers who had been trafficked. In her report (E/CN.4/2006/62, para. 59) she expressed the view that:
States parties need not eradicate demand simply because that demand is occasionally met by goods produced by trafficked labour. For example, the consumer market for athletic shoes could be met occasionally by shoes produced by people who have been subjected to one or more of the means of trafficking listed in the Protocol definition. There are reasonable steps States parties may take to discourage the demand side of such markets without seeking to wholly eradicate the consumer demand for athletic shoes. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 38 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | From this perspective, the Special Rapporteur believes that it is important to address the lack of regulations and labour rights as one of the key structural factors fostering trafficking in persons, whether for sexual exploitation or labour exploitation. In destination countries, the exploitation of migrant workers often takes place in the context of economic activity that is illegal or informal, or poorly regulated or unregulated, or in sectors in which it is difficult to enforce regulatory controls and profit margins are extremely low (CTOC/COP/WG.4/2010/3/para. 15). Indeed, studies show that the demand for exploitative labour or services is almost completely absent where workers are well unionized and labour standards are routinely monitored and enforced. Therefore, it is imperative to address the demand for cheap and exploitable labour and services through the framework of labour rights protection and migration management. A good example of regulation in sectors where trafficked persons are found is the introduction by the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act in 2004, which created a compulsory licensing system for all employment agents supplying workers for agricultural activities, gathering shellfish and related processing and packaging activities, supervised by a special licensing authority. Thus, reforming employment laws to check abuses in sectors that have formerly gone unpoliced, such as domestic work in private houses or training and deploying labour inspectors or other officials to check the contracts and working conditions of migrant workers is imperative for preventing trafficking for exploitative labour. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 40 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | However, there are overwhelming concerns that States construct and operationalize the concept of safe migration within the framework of the protection of national sovereignty and border security. As a result, it has been observed that measures to ostensibly promote safe migration and prevent trafficking tend to discourage migration altogether in violation of the right to freedom of movement. For instance, a number of States reportedly prohibit certain citizens from migrating, judging them to be potential victims of trafficking based on their sex, age, status or destination countries. For example, India prohibits any female household worker below the age of 30 from obtaining employment in Saudi Arabia. In this process, women are often disproportionately scrutinized, owing to the perception of their vulnerability and hence the need for State intervention to "protect" them from harm. Thus, some States prohibit women under the age of 25 from migrating without the permission of a guardian, or prohibit women from obtaining travel permits, restricting their freedom to travel in search of a livelihood or educational opportunities. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 42 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | These practices illustrate that some measures directed at countering trafficking or promoting safe migration are misguided and result in violations of the human rights of prospective migrants. Strategies to promote safe migration should not be based on the restriction of migration channels that States may regard as potentially dangerous without concrete evidence. Rather, any prevention strategies should be underpinned by the recognition of freedom of movement and the creation of more opportunities for legal and non-exploitative labour migration. In fact, a lower incidence of trafficking is reported where opportunities for regular migration are available within a multilateral framework or under a bilateral agreement between the sending and receiving States, or where there are otherwise established channels of migration. In this regard, bilateral or multilateral agreements providing for legal labour migration are strongly encouraged. Steps must be taken, however, to ensure that such agreements are consistent with international human rights laws and standards and that the implementation of the agreements is independently monitored so that they do not result in the "exporting" of migrants under abusive working conditions. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 43 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The provision of adequate information about migrants' rights, as well as practical advice on how to avoid risks during the migratory process and in destination countries, is also an integral aspect of promoting safe migration. While some Governments conduct pre-departure training programmes for prospective migrants, reports indicate that they often fall short of equipping prospective migrants with relevant knowledge about their rights or where to seek assistance when they encounter problems in destination countries. In this respect, some initiatives by non-governmental organizations provide useful lessons. A project aimed at promoting safe migration, implemented by an international non governmental organization in the Xishuangbanna Prefecture in China, is a good example of how a safe migration channel for children and young people has been created among the places of origin, transit and destination. In this project, the organization raises awareness of potential migrants in the place of origin (Manxixia) and nearby villages on the risks associated with migration and trafficking. The recruiters are registered and linked to the young people who are eligible for and interested in work. In the place of destination, the organization works with the community government of Liming and the youth league of Xishuangbanna Prefecture to raise migrants' awareness of the risks associated with migration, such as labour exploitation and trafficking. The community government also helps to mediate any labour disputes between migrants and their employers. In this manner, migrant children and youths are provided with a comprehensive pre- and post migration support and protection system. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 12 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | The present report focuses on the prevention of trafficking in persons, which is an integral part of the comprehensive framework to combat and eradicate such trafficking. While the increased attention on the issue of trafficking in recent years has resulted in numerous initiatives and programmes aimed at preventing trafficking in persons, there are concerns that some of them result in the violation of human rights of trafficked persons, particularly when they are not designed on the basis of accurate data and evidence or when the impact and effectiveness are not closely monitored and evaluated. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 15 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Through the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Member States pledged to promote universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms. In combating trafficking in persons, this is a fundamental starting point that which warrants more attention than it currently receives, as violations of human rights are both a cause and a consequence of trafficking in persons (E/2002/68/Add.1, guideline 1). Thus, universal respect for human rights must be ensured not only as a goal in itself, but also as a means of preventing trafficking in persons while placing the human rights of trafficked persons at the centre of all prevention efforts. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 44 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Raising the awareness of potential victims about the risks associated with trafficking is an essential part of prevention strategies. A study conducted by UNICEF showed that the vast majority of trafficked children had very little information about the risks of abuse and exploitation. This demonstrates the importance of providing potential victims of trafficking with appropriate and adequate information about the risks of human trafficking. In fact, awareness-raising campaigns targeted at potential victims of trafficking appear to be the most common prevention measures in many countries of origin, owing, perhaps, to the lower complexity of designing and implementing such campaigns. While this has resulted in a plethora of large-scale public campaigns in many countries, reports suggest that the campaigns do not always reach groups that are at higher risk, that many of them use detrimental images of women and girls and convey distorted messages about the risks involved in trafficking and that their impact is barely monitored and evaluated. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 45 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | 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. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 46 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | These analyses provide useful insights into the key elements of effective awareness-raising. First, awareness-raising campaigns must be based on accurate and adequate information. Before embarking on such campaigns, it is important to acquire a solid understanding of the manifestations of trafficking in a given context. Awareness-raising based on inaccurate or insufficient information may leave potential victims off-guard. For example, one study showed that information campaigns in the Republic of Moldova had disseminated information that the main destination country was Turkey, when in reality it was the Russian Federation. It is desirable to conduct a needs assessment or study to identify what the target audience already knows and does not know in order to ensure the maximum impact. It is simply not useful or effective to implement broad-brush campaigns to "stop human trafficking" if the populations do not even know what human trafficking really is. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 47 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Second, it is important to recognize that awareness-raising is never enough in itself to prevent trafficking and needs to be complemented by programmes that reduce the vulnerability of potential victims and provide them with viable alternatives. Awareness-raising campaigns implemented alone as a preventive measure are based on the assumption that increased awareness of trafficking issues will encourage people to make alternative decisions that minimize their risk of being trafficked. While this may work well in some circumstances, it disregards the dynamic "push" factors that compel people to leave home despite their knowledge of the risks. The anti-child trafficking project implemented by an international non governmental organization for children from the Egyptian community in Albania is a good example of how the provision of information was combined with efforts to reduce the vulnerability of children who are particularly at risk of being trafficked. After finding that there was a correlation between children dropping out of school and their risk of being trafficked, the organization strategically provided advice and material support to families with children at risk. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 48 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | Third, the powerful role of the media should be fully acknowledged and exploited in awareness-raising campaigns. The media has tended to sensationalize stories of trafficked persons and highlight their "victimhood" rather than educating the public about the underlying social and economic factors that led to the violation of their human rights. Given its influential role and ability to reach wider audiences, however, the innovative use of media should be built into awareness-raising activities. The ILO project to combat trafficking in children and women in the greater Mekong subregion is a good example of the effective use of a radio programme and television drama in Cambodia to provide adolescents with practical information about safe migration and warnings about trafficking. Given the large number of existing information campaigns, it is also useful to deploy innovative methods to disseminate anti-trafficking messages. The MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) campaign, for example, used the power and influence of music, film and celebrity to attract the interest of youths in trafficking issues. In addition to producing a number of documentaries, animated films and music videos, it held live concerts across Asia and Europe featuring local and international artists. It maintains profiles on social networking and video-sharing sites such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. The Blue Heart campaign, an awareness-raising initiative launched by UNODC in 2009, also makes use of social networking sites to reach out widely. While the impact and effectiveness of such campaigns needs to be analysed and assessed more closely, the innovative use of media and information technology to reach out to youth appears to have a positive impact. |
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Prevention of trafficking in persons 2010, para. 50 | Aug 19, 2019 | Paragraph | Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children | Non-negotiated soft law | Special Procedures' report | One of the core values of human rights-based programming is the participation of rights holders in developing policies and programmes that affect their interests. The importance of the participation of rights holders is recognized in a number of international instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In line with the Declaration on the Right to Development (resolution 41/128, annex), the participation of rights holders should be active, free and meaningful, so that it goes beyond mere consultation and empowers rights holders to reflect their views and expectations in the relevant policies and programmes. |
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