Hope for Justice makes recommendations to strengthen international response to human trafficking

Hope for Justice staff have shared their expertise on an international stage as part of a review of how laws around human trafficking are being put into practice.

We presented statements and took part in panel discussions and Q&A sessions at the 2024 Constructive Dialogues of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC).

Thematic topics included trafficking for the purposes of organ removal and national priorities on child trafficking as well as the intersections between irregular migration and migrant smuggling.

Phillipa Roberts, Hope for Justice’s Head of Policy and Research, said: “Notably there is a strong intersection between trafficking for the purposes of organ removal and migration, including forced displacement. For instance, people who are seeking protection and refuge, who are not able to access protection mechanisms including financial support, are extremely vulnerable to organ trafficking. They may resort to selling their organs because they are desperate to support themselves and their families and/or desperate to get to a place of safety.”

In a shocking interview, the BBC exposed how an organ trafficker preyed on Syrian refugees fleeing conflict in 2017. The perpetrator explained how people would sell their organs because they were “desperate and they [had] no other means to survive.”

We also spoke to the issue of child trafficking as part of the Constructive Dialogue on the Trafficking in Persons Protocol.

Atinkut Zewku, Hope for Justice’s Safeguarding, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Manager, said in his statement: “Vulnerability to child trafficking is fuelled by systemic socio-economic inequality and cultural factors. Conflict and climate change are increasing risks further. Child trafficking has a harmful and lasting impact on…children as they are exposed to and experience this grave human rights violation.”

Atinkut highlighted the lack of reliable data around human trafficking, which hampers the development of effective intervention strategies. We presented three key areas to address this:

Hope for Justice called for intervention that is collaborative, across both state and non-state actors at national and international level. We proposed multi-stakeholder task forces and public-private partnerships to achieve this.

We called for stronger emphasis on holistic prevention. We believe that civil society can work together with survivors, communities and businesses to support government to address gaps in policy and the implementation of law.

We emphasised the importance of a comprehensive approach to ensure that survivors of child trafficking can recover and thrive. We called for an approach that addresses the survivors’ needs, promotes healing and recovery, aids their reintegration into society, and reduces the risk of re-trafficking.

Atinkut said: “This opportunity allowed us to address the international focus on combating, preventing and intervening in children trafficking. The event offered a valuable opportunity for networking, knowledge sharing, and receiving constructive feedback, which will be instrumental in refining our programs and enhancing our efforts to support trafficked children.”

This week we also spoke on the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol. We explained the important differences between migrant smuggling and human trafficking, but also the fact that the two issues are nonetheless related. People who pay smugglers to get them across borders are at significant risk of further victimization, including human trafficking. Socio-economic and gender inequality are key vulnerabilities which are intensified by conflict, other humanitarian crises, and climate change. Restrictive and often hostile migration policies exacerbate these risks, enhancing the business model of organized criminals, enabling them to act with impunity (while the victims themselves are often criminalized).

We made the following recommendations on how civil society, survivors and businesses can implement the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol:

We emphasised the need for humanity not hostility and the role civil society, including survivors, can play in supporting government to develop humane, evidence-based and survivor-informed law and policy that enables controlled, safe and legal migration.

We focused on the importance of prevention, and working with communities to help them build resilience by addressing inequity and educating on the dangers of human trafficking and unsafe migration.

Hope for Justice then called for the principle of non-punishment to be applied to all survivors who also need access to independent, holistic, survivor-centred and trauma informed protection.

We recommended that state parties work together to address fragmented responses and improve coordination between counter-trafficking agencies, humanitarian agencies, immigration and law enforcement.

Finally, our closing statement posed this challenge to all: “We need a world with greater humanity and a less hostile approach towards migration, asking ourselves the question: how would we want to be treated if we had to move to or seek refuge in another country?”

Hope for Justice is grateful for the work of the UNODC Civil Society Unit in facilitating these Constructive Dialogues, which allow survivors and grassroots organizations to identify challenges and solutions that support governments in implementing the UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, including the Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Protocols.