Brussels, 24/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - On Friday, the Council formally adopted the framework decision on the trade in human beings, on which the Fifteen had reached a political agreement ten months ago, on 28 September 2001. Since then, the various parliamentary reserves have been lifted after the Member States had presented the text to their national parliaments. From the moment when the decision is published in the Official Journal, the Member States will have two years in which to implement it. This framework decision gives a common definition of the trade in human beings and fixes a common minimum level of sanctions. The Fifteen agreed to ensure that for offences in any of the following circumstances punishment in terms of imprisonment should be with a maximum penalty that is not less than 8 years: - the offence has deliberately or by gross negligence endangered the life of the victim; - the offence has been committed against a victim who was particularly vulnerable. A victim shall be considered vulnerable at least when the victim was under the age of sexual majority under national law and the offence has been committed for the purpose of the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, including pornography; - the offence has been committee by use of serious violence or has caused particularly serious harm to the victim; - the offence has been committed within the framework of a criminal organisation In the other cases, the Member States must ensure that the infringements linked to the trafficking of human beings are liable to effective penal sanctions, that are proportionate to the crime and dissuasive, likely to entail extradition. Legal persons involved must also be penalised.
The trafficking of human beings is defined as being the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, subsequent reception of a person, including exchange or transfer of control over that person where: a) use is made of coercion, force or threat, including abduction or b) use is made of deceit or fraud, or c) when there is an abuse of authority or of a position of vulnerability, which is such that the person has no real and acceptable alternative but to submit to the abuse involved, or d) payments or benefits are given or received to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation of that person's labour or services, including at least forced or compulsory labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery or servitude, or for the purpose of the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, including pornography. The text specifies that the consent of a victim of trafficking in human beings to the exploitation, intended or actual, shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in this paragraph have been used. Furthermore, when the above conduct concerns a child, it shall be a punishable trafficking offence even if none of the means set forth above have been used.