The European Parliament adopted by 571 votes in favour, 61 against and 59 abstentions on Wednesday 10 February the joint own-initiative report defended by Spanish MEPs Juan Fernando López Aguilar (S&D) and María Soraya Rodríguez Ramos (Renew Europe) on trafficking in human beings and the criminalisation of the use of sexual services by trafficked persons.
In particular, MEPs assessed the 2011 Directive on Trafficking in Human Beings and called for tougher measures to penalise these activities throughout the EU.
On Monday evening, the Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, had indicated in a debate that she was considering the possibility of reviewing and tightening up this Directive.
She also stressed how “gendered” this crime is: more than 92% of victims of trafficking are women and girls and 60% of these victims are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Three quarters of the perpetrators, on the other hand, are men.
For Parliament, an article of the directive should be used and revised to ensure that Member States provide the same criminal response to such crimes, explained the S&D rapporteur.
It is also necessary to tackle all the crime related to trafficking, such as its ramifications with money laundering. Support for victims and those leaving these networks needs to be further strengthened.
The Parliament report specifically calls on the Commission to amend the Directive on the Prevention of Trafficking in Human Beings “to ensure that Member States explicitly criminalise the ‘knowing use’ of services provided by trafficked persons”.
Asylum seekers, refugees and migrants, especially women and unaccompanied minors, are particularly vulnerable to trafficking, MEPs also point out.
They call on Member States to ensure that anti-trafficking and asylum procedures are interconnected.
Parliament also notes that the pandemic has worsened the situation of trafficked persons and increased the demand for child pornography.
On Monday, the commissioner had estimated that the profits generated by this crime worldwide amount to €30 billion per year.
The reflection that could be launched on this directive could target economic sectors in which the phenomenon is most widespread, such as “agriculture” or construction, she suggested, since trafficking partly concerns seasonal migrants. Europol’s role in tracking down online networks could also be strengthened.
Link to the report: https://bit.ly/2Z6XwoB (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)