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EU COUNTRIES NEED MORE RELIABLE DATA
ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING - EUROPEAN COMMISSION
[EUobserver,
Member state statistics on human trafficking are sometimes unreliable, says the European Commission (Photo: Hans Op De Beeck)
"We have so few figures and so few reliable statistics that it is difficult to make an evaluation to see if there is a significant increase or a decrease, we can’t really tell because it is such a black and grey sector," noted EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom.
A conservative estimate by the International Labour Organisation put the number of people trafficked worldwide to be some 20.9 million between 2002 to 2011. The UN crime-fighting office says around 2.4 million are in the process of being trafficked at any given moment.
In Europe, the numbers are difficult to
assess but most victims are thought to come from
Differing legal standards in member states, problems associated with identifying people as victims of human trafficking and reluctance of some to testify are among the problems national authorities face when collecting data.
In other cases, member states until
recently had no legislation to address the issue -
Meanwhile, preliminary data gathered by the EU statistical office, Eurostat, found that the number of people brought to justice between 2008 and 2010 has declined. Some 79 percent of the victims recorded by the EU bureau were women and girls, with three-quarters of them trafficked for sex.
To improve data collection, the commission
wants member states to set up so-called national referral mechanisms (NRM)
before the end of the year.
The NRMs would compel public authorities to work with civil society to better identify, refer, protect and assist victims.
"This will produce better data, more valid data and it will also help the victims," said Myria Vassiliadou, the EU’s anti-trafficking co-ordinator.
The
The
Last year - for the first time ever
-"the
"Each case was discovered prior to surgery ... none of the persons there had any of the organs actually taken out," an NRM spokesperson told EUobserver.
The Salvation Army, based in
Meanwhile, Soca says it still has intelligence gaps when it comes to the transport and routing methods used by traffickers. They also lack data on the use of false documentation with some traffickers confiscating victims identify papers to commit fraud.
The European Commission, for its part, adopted an anti-trafficking directive in 2011. Member states have until April 2013 to transpose it.
The commission will then issue a report in 2016 to assess its impact.
By Nikolaj Nielsen