Abstract
A key component of protecting and assisting victims of human trafficking is ensuring that they are not criminalised or otherwise punished for acts they have committed as a direct result of being trafficked. This chapter grapples with the questions of what we should do with those who return home after having spent time with a terrorist organisation; those who could be victims of human trafficking. Should they be punished (if they committed crimes), or should they be identified as victims of human trafficking and thus be protected from liability, under the non-prosecution and non-punishment principle (e.g., enshrined in Article 26 of the 2005 Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings).
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Notes
- 1.
Here, presumably, Piotrowicz and Sorrentino write about victims of human trafficking who may have been compelled to commit more “traditional” crimes, such as cultivating cannabis. However, their analogy is borrowed and seen as applicable to those potential victims who are compelled to join terrorist organisations.
- 2.
Importantly, human rights are increasingly prevalent within the military domain. For example, in the UK, the Ministry of Defence formally adopted the concept of human security within defence doctrine, recognising that “protecting civilians from human rights violations is as much a military task as defeating the enemy” (UK Government 2019).
- 3.
“An example of the sword function can be found in the area of domestic violence, whereby legislative development common to many jurisdictions have been influenced by the recognition of women’s and children’s rights as human rights at an international level…For example, in the UK, the Family Act 1996 has been amended by the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, which extends provisions to combat domestic violence by criminalizing certain actions, such as the death of a child or vulnerable adults as a result of neglect or abuse” (Weber et al. 2014, 95).
- 4.
In many contemporary conflicts, states fight against non-state actors, including terrorist groups which are unbounded by sovereign territorial boundaries and which are preferring tactics aimed at civilians often far from any traditionally understood battlefield (Blank 2010, 3).
- 5.
A 19-year-old, who left east London to join the Islamic State group in 2015, and was stripped of her British citizenship in February 2019 when she sought to return home. This was contrary to the UK strategy for Countering Terrorism (CONTEST) for returnees from Syria, which expressly refers to a managed return, potential use of a Temporary Exclusion Order, investigation into criminality and/or rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Moreover, in 2018, an estimated 400 individuals had been allowed to return to the UK after engaging in fighting with groups such as ISIS. It is thus unclear why Shamima Begum was prevented from returning where many others have not (van Ark 2019).
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Muraszkiewicz, J. (2020). Applying the Non-punishment Principle to Returnees from Terrorist Organisations. In: Muraszkiewicz, J., Fenton, T., Watson, H. (eds) Human Trafficking in Conflict . Crime Prevention and Security Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40838-1_11
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