FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING
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Situation
In 2019, the International Labor Organization estimates that some 40.3 million people were victims of modern slavery. One in 200 people in the world is still subjected to forced labor and restrictive living conditions as a result of human trafficking. The billions of revenues generated by this human exploitation fuel, among other things, armed conflict and finance violent extremism.
The UN estimates that human trafficking brings in some US$150.2 billion a year to the mafias involved. The FIZ (Center for assistance to migrants and victims of women trafficking) states that human trafficking in Switzerland has reached a record high with 255 cases, the majority of which were exploited in the sex trade.
Objectives
Legal instruments are not lacking however to block the road to human trafficking:
- United Nations Conventions and Declarations, including Articles 5 and 6 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,
- Articles 4 and 5 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
- Articles 1 and 2 of the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others, 1949,
- Articles 34 and 35 of the 1989 International Convention on the Rights of the Child,
- The Additional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Palermo Protocol of 15 November 2000,
- Strategic Objective D.3 of the Platform for Action and the Beijing Declaration of 1995,
- The Council of Europe recommendations in this field, in particular Recommendation No. R (2000) 11 7 on combating trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation, Recommendation No. R (2002) 5 8 on the protection of women against violence and Recommendation 1545 (2002) 9 on a Campaign against Trafficking in Women,
- The IOM Brussels Declaration on the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Human Beings, especially its points 7 and 8,10,
- OSCE Ministers’ Decision No. 1, meeting in Vienna in 2000, to strengthen the OSCE’s efforts to combat trafficking in human beings,
- The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 12, and in particular Articles 5, 4, 21 and 23,
- European Council Framework Decision of 19 July 2002 on combating trafficking in human beings.
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Implementation
Vivere is at work in three countries-source of traffic: Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Moldova -including Transnistria, and two destination countries in the Persian Gulf region.
Vivere act with the goals of:
- Strengthening the legal prohibition of trafficking in human beings
- Reinforcing the sanctions against all the backers and accomplices of the traffic
- Protecting and assisting victims of trafficking, both in the country where they were deported and in the country of origin where they are repatriated
- Strengthening preventive activities, especially through education and awareness-raising of young people and orphans potentially targeted by trafficking
Since its involvement in assisting victims of human trafficking Vivere has rescued and repatriated 2659 people.