Courses against trafficking: The courses in sewing and computers by Caritas Austria help young girls in Moldavia earn their own money and prevent them from the risk of trafficking.

Credits: Caritas Austria

Trafficking in human beings is defined as the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force and other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or position, or vulnerability.

It is also defined as 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.

This exploitation includes prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the removal of organs.

Victims of trafficking are placed in conditions controlled by the traffickers who exploit them to earn illicit revenues. Many are physically confined, and their travel or identity documents taken away from them. Those trafficked, or their families, are often threatened if they do not cooperate, and traffickers rely on the victims’ fear of approaching authorities in a strange country for help.

Already in 1949 the international community recognised the need for a joint approach to combat trafficking in human beings through a UN Convention. In 2000 this was further expanded to include the fight against trans-national organised crime with the so-called Palermo Protocol (see Part 5.3 for more details). However, it is important to keep in mind the general lack of support system for the victims of human trafficking.

Overall vulnerability is the main reason poor girls and women fall victim to trafficking.

Most of the women and children who are trafficked are done so for sexual exploitation. Addressing the demand side of this exploitation in an effective way calls for a gender-sensitive approach that goes beyond mere condemnation.

There seems to be a global increase in the trafficking of men for exploitation in labour intensive production that can be defined as slavery or similar to slavery.

The Caritas Confederation has established a guiding policy document on how to address trafficking in countries of origin, transit, and receipt, and at international level. We refer to this in regard to counter-trafficking programmes.

In activities related to advocacy on trafficking, the following international structures are relevant:

• Convention for the Suppression of Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949) and Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (supplement the UN Convention against Trans-national organised Crime)
• UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna (UNODC)
• COATNET (Christian Organisations Against Trafficking Network) which operates under the guidance and legal authority of Caritas Europa