[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image source=”featured_image” img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”THE INTERNATIONAL ROUND TABLE WAS HELD ON 30 SEPTEMBER 2016 AT THE HAUS DER EUROPÄISCHEN UNION, WIPPLINGERSTRASSE 35, VIENNA, AND ORGANIZED BY THE REGIONAL IMPLEMENTATION INITIATIVE ON PREVENTING & COMBATING HUMAN TRAFFICKING.” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Montserrat%3Aregular%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” css=”.vc_custom_1477927077990{margin-bottom: 15px !important;}”][vc_column_text]In Cooperation with the City of Vienna – EU Strategy for the Danube Region EUSDR and CEIPA – Center for European and International Policy Action and supported by Austrian Federal Ministers for Labor, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection, for Education and Women, and of Health.
“This interesting discussion was chaired by Helga Konrad, Head of the Regional Implementation Initiative on Preventing & Combating Human Trafficking.
With a keynote address from Olivier Peyroux, Sociologist, France, research was presented on child trafficking and exploitation in Europe (published in his book ‘Fantasies and Realities Fuelling Trafficking in Europe’. To “shed light on the diversity of situations in which children from Eastern Europe become victims of trafficking and exploitation”. Olivier provided concentrated data and an analysis of the intersecting fields of migration, Roma history, European Human Rights and child exploitation. He described the most egregious human rights violations of our time: the pervasive trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable children in Europe, one of the world’s richest continents.
In the big western cities many minor delinquents are trafficked, but not as such identified by police and judges. Many children aged between 8 and 16 are pushed by their own families, who are themselves driven by poverty, or by groups considered by the children to be ‘families’, to steal, especially on the metro, and to perpetrate minor delicts.
These young people are not aware of being used or exploited; most of the time they believe to be part of a family, they trust their exploiters; in many case very young girls get involved through a genuine or sham marriage to a man living abroad, many of whom belong to the criminal network. Having been cut off from their biological parents (who receive a sum of money for the bride), the organisation takes the place of a family in a way that the girls are not even aware of. Once the girl is married, her exploitative family-in-law makes clear to her, she will have to repay the money they have paid for her, sometimes 10.000 € through stealing activities. Marriage becomes a form of debt bondage: exploitative marriage used for controlling young victims who come mainly from Algeria, Vietnam, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, and East Europe.
The groups use minors as thieves of mobile phones, for pickpocketing, begging, prostitution; having ramifications in Western Europe countries, in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Norway so they can be moved from one country to another. The victims don’t know they are victims, why they are indoctrinated, motivated; making it difficult, to speak to them once they are caught. Without total control over their silence, the criminal group face danger, and to be sure that victims do not report them, they use not only threats and physical violence, but also rewards, allowing them to gradually rise in the hierarchy of the group.
In many European countries, non-sexual types of exploitations are not included in the statistics.
In 2000 the Palermo Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children favoured the harmonisation of national legislations of the signatory states, a necessary condition for the development of European and transnational police and juridical cooperation. The Optional Protocol on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) broadened the scope of activities considered as exploitation such as the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
Migration is considered the only option to escape from a social condition, prestige is present in the different forms of exploitation – sexual forced criminality, drug dealing etc – this being a step towards a social recognition.
Ambassador Madina Jarbussynova, OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings, stated that trafficking in children is increasing especially through sex and labour exploitation, forced criminality and organ removal.
The New York Declaration to Combat Trafficking and Migrants shows the need of identification of the children: in Moldova there are many children left without parents, raised by grandmothers, who don’t have papers, whose birth has never been declared.
Trafficking is lucrative and has no risks; the traffickers are very innovative in their actions. Therefore, law enforcement and collecting data are imperative; the economic reasons should be studied further. Integration of migrants through education is very important. OSCE has established a project to implement training with social workers and police.
Peter von Bethlenfalvy, Director CEIPA, (Centre for European and International Policy Action, in Belgium) presented the European Union approach that put, since 1995, the problem minor under the ministry of foreign affairs, involving CS, NGOs and the origin and transit countries. He moved critic to some countries that don’t recognise the principle of solidarity, article 18 concerning the protection of migrants and victims, and the right to movement. (The right to asylum shall be guaranteed with due respect for the rules of the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 and the Protocol of 31 January 1967 relating to the status of refugees and in accordance with the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.) Concerning trafficking on the cities level, data collecting is needed, as is the developing of guidelines for the cities.
Mike Dottridge, expert and consultant in the UK, speaking about more effective protection and prevention of trafficking in children and minors, said that, most European authorities don’t pay much attention to the UNICEF reference guide, published a decade ago. Instead there are endless statements by political leaders which muddle the issue of trafficking and exploitation with question about irregular migration. The result is that the protection available for trafficked children is inadequate and prevention measures being implemented are largely a waste of money “the political response to trafficking failed, in the last 15 years there have been lots of technical solutions (drafted by UNICEF in Moldova), but EU politicians failed to study in the real way because of the South Europe Roma issue”.
Remedies can be first of all the distinction between facts and fiction,: Helmut Sax, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights , explained that trafficking can also be within a country, and child trafficking has many aspects to be careful of, severe forms of child labour, child pornography, illegal adoptions and forced/early marriage.
Despite international reports suggesting an increase in trafficking in children/minors, trafficked children are hardly visible and identified rather as perpetrators than as victims of cultural/ethnic tradition. They are put in jails denying them their most basic rights.
Astrid Winkler, Director ECPAT Austria confirmed that if a child runs from a shelter, it is difficult to bring him back because he would look for help from the family, ignoring that he has been abused. Therefore, an increase in training programs on identification and protection of trafficked children are needed.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_single_image image=”816″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_custom_heading text=”REFERENCE POINTS” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Montserrat%3Aregular%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” css=”.vc_custom_1477925946875{margin-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column_text]
- View the Presentation by Olivier Peyroux here
- UNICEF Child Trafficking in the Nordic Countries: Rethinking strategies and national responses. Read Technical Report
- Analysing the Business Model of trafficking in Human Beings to Better Prevent the crime here
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND NOTES” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Montserrat%3Aregular%2C700|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” css=”.vc_custom_1477927171897{margin-bottom: 15px !important;}”][vc_column_text]Olivier Peyroux: Délinquants et Victimes / Fantasies and Realities Fuelling Trafficking in Children in Europe, ECPAT France.
- Peyroux works with child victims of trafficking notably from the Balkans for national and international Organisations, including OSCE and EU, his book is the winner of the Prix Caritas-Insitut de France 2013
- The right to asylum shall be guaranteed with due respect for the rules of the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 and the Protocol of 31 January 1967 relating to the status of refugees and in accordance with the Treaty
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