Abstract
Since the 1990s trafficking in human beings has increasingly become a priority in the international and European policy agenda. The international community took action against it with the United Nations Protocol against Trafficking (2000), the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (2005) and the Directive 2011/36/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human Beings and Protecting its Victims. In the same period the number of studies and research works on it has increased. Nevertheless, some of the most important research questions remain almost unanswered. In particular, there is a paucity of data about the effectiveness of the policies against human trafficking. This paper provides some knowledge in this field. In particular it presents some considerations on the effectiveness of the Italian policies on the protection of and assistance to victims in the period 2000–2008. The data analysis suggests that the effectiveness varied across years and that the entry of Romania in the European Union, apparently, had an impact on the phenomenon and on the policies effectiveness. The lesson to be learned is that under the umbrella of human trafficking very different situations, changing across time and countries, coexist. In order to be effective a national policy should be capable of a) planning actions which take into account the national characteristics of human trafficking; b) monitoring whether and how the phenomenon has changed and change the policies accordingly.
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Notes
THB “shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation […]. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs” (UN Protocol Art. 3 Par. (a)).
This is because, even when present, it is a non-informed consent: the victims may be aware of their future job in the destination area, but they do not know the real conditions in which they will be forced to live so the consent initially expressed is in general obtained using deception or threat and therefore it cannot be considered valid (Goodey 2004).
The physical, psychological and social recovery of victims should be carried out in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, other relevant organizations and other elements of civil society. The main measures are: appropriate housing; counseling and information on their legal rights explained in a language that can be understood by the victims; medical, psychological and material assistance; employment, educational and training opportunities (UN Protocol Art. 6, Par. 3).
Country of origin and country of destination should ensure a legal and safe repatriation of the victims considering both the status of the legal proceeding and the fact that the return should be voluntary. The country of origin should verify the right of the victims to stay within its territory and should issue the documents to enable them to travel and re-enter its territory (UN Protocol Art. 8).
“Each party shall, in accordance with the basic principles of its legal system, provide for the possibility of non imposing penalties on victims for their involvement in unlawful activities, to the extent that they have been compelled to do so” (CETS 197, Art. 26).
See also EU Council Directive 2004/81/EC. It underlines that Member States have to introduce in their legislation a renewable residence permit for victims of human trafficking that decide to collaborate with local law enforcement authorities. Physical, mental and social measures should also be ensured to the victims.
Not all EU states have introduced or have adopted a specific definition of this crime, a specific anti-trafficking legislation and specific protective measures uniform to those contained in the conventions (Shinkle 2007).
Law 228/2003 provides also measures related to the offenders’ prosecution. It updates the definition of human exploitation contained in Art. 600 of the Italian Penal Code, increasing the penalty associated to this crime (from 5 to 15 years to from 8 to 20 years) and adding aggravating circumstances, if committed against minors. Another innovation introduced is the human trafficking definition contained in Art. 601 of the Penal Code which punishes the trafficking of people also with only one victim (Resta 2008).
It should be noted that the two programs have separate calls for actions (“Avviso”).
The residence permit lasts 6 months and is renewable for 1 more year. It can be converted in study or work permits if the official requirements occur (Legislative Decree 286/1998, Art. 18, C. 4).
In “Avviso” 1, 6.3 % of men has come back in illegal market against 13.2 % of women.
The data we refer to are the sum of all victims included in the protection projects (Art. 18) from 2000 to 2008 (see Table 5).
A logistic regression using data contained in the “exit” forms has been carried out by the authors. This analysis has considered as dependent variable the output of the program “autonomous integration” and as independent variable the dichotomized variable referring to the gender of the victims (only male and female have been taken into account while transsexuals have been considered as missing value). The control variables used are the age of the victims and their being or not being of Nigerian nationality (which accounted for 50 % percent on the total of the victims). The latter variable has been chosen to verify the hypothesis according to which the probability of carrying out a successful integration is less high for non Europeans. Taking into account the age and the Nigerian nationality of the victims, what emerges is that males have a higher probability to obtain an autonomous integration than females (the results are statistically significant at a level of p ≤ 0.01). On the contrary, the Nigerian nationality and age do not seem to have a statistically relevant impact on the specific outcome considered.
In particular, if the information available in the “entrance” forms referring to the kind of exploitation is considered what emerges is that 80.7 % of the victims included in “Avviso” 8 of the protection program (Art. 18) was involved in sexual exploitation (N = 1.125). Considering the victims included in “Avviso” 1 and “Avviso” 2 of the assistance program (Art. 13) respectively 55.4 % and 61.0 % were involved in sexual exploitation (N1 = 390 and N2 = 423).
It should also be noted that the regularization law passed by the Italian Government in 2007 gives the opportunity, especially for Eastern European people, to get a residence permit and a decent job.
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Acknowledgments
This article took inspiration from the project performed by Transcrime and funded in 2008/2009 by the Italian Department of Equal Opportunities with the aim of supporting the start-up of the Observatory on Human Trafficking.
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Caneppele, S., Mancuso, M. Are Protection Policies for Human Trafficking Victims Effective? An Analysis of the Italian Case. Eur J Crim Policy Res 19, 259–273 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-012-9188-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-012-9188-9