EU plans financial strategy to target human traffickers

THE EU authorities plan to advance in-depth financial investigations into human traffickers in a drive to boost the prosecution of people responsible for “the slavery of our times”.

By tackling the money trail behind trafficking, the European powers aim to get the additional proof required to secure more prosecutions, without victims being obliged to testify in court.

It is part of an initiative unveiled in Brussels yesterday by EU commissioner for home affairs Cecilia Malmström, who said: “Unfortunately slavery hasn’t yet been left to the history books.”

The objective is to identify, protect and help victims of trafficking while stepping up international co-ordination against it.

Citing International Labour Organisation figures, Ms Malmström said some 21 million adults and children worldwide were coerced and deceived into forced sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and organised begging and shoplifting.

Denise Charlton, CEO of the Immigrant Council of Ireland and a trafficking expert, said the plan reflects the prevalence of trafficking for sexual exploitation and the disproportionate number of women and girls involved.

“The pattern for Ireland is no different to that highlighted in the strategy,” Ms Charlton said.

Research suggests children are forced into criminal activity and traded as commodities with a €20,000 price tag, while trafficking in general generated more than €25 billion in annual profits for criminal gangs.

“We should be able to confiscate the proceeds,” Ms Malmström said. Victims were “cooking our food” and “selling sex many times a day in shabby brothels and apartments”.

Despite increased trafficking, the number of convictions in the EU dropped to 1,250 in 2010 from 1,500 in 2008. “Human trafficking is a crime which is on the increase but we see the opposite in terms of convictions, which is scandalous,” Ms Malmström said.

The commission believes gathering financial evidence could prove crucial in certain court cases. The objective is to tackle the absence of technical proof in such cases.