European Union Launches Website on Human Trafficking

In December, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs launched a new website devoted to combating trafficking in human beings.

The site will offer national information pages of all European Union member states information on legislation, action plans, prevention, assistance and support to victims, investigation and prosecution and international coordination.

Earlier Library Boy posts on human trafficking include:

• New Library of Parliament Publications (October 6, 2006): "Trafficking in Persons: 'The United Nations estimates that 700,000 people are trafficked annually worldwide – this is a fluid figure that is difficult to pin down (...) This paper will discuss the concept of trafficking in general terms and provide an overview of the legislative framework surrounding the issue at the international level and within the Canadian context. It will conclude with a discussion of potential gaps in Canadian legislation and policy with respect to trafficking in persons'."
• New Library of Parliament Research Publications (February 18, 2007): "Human Trafficking: 'Trafficking in persons is not the same as migrant smuggling. The key distinction is that smuggled migrants are usually free once they arrive at their intended destination, whereas trafficking victims may be held against their will and subject to forced labour or prostitution (...) The 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report [U.S. State Department] also indicates that 'Canada is a source, transit, and destination country …' Some 800 people are trafficked into this country each year, while an additional 1,500 to 2,200 are trafficked through Canada to the United States'."
• Library of Parliament Legislative Summary on Immigration Bill (June 19, 2007): "The Bill proposes amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow immigration officers to refuse to authorize foreign nationals to work in Canada if they are judged to be at risk of exploitation or trafficking."
• Annual U.S. State Department Report on Human Trafficking (June 27, 2007): "The State Department of the United States has been producing an annual report since the year 2000 called the Trafficking in Persons Report. It reports on foreign governments' efforts to eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons (...) According to the country section on Canada: 'Canada is principally a transit and destination country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Women and children are trafficked mostly from Asia and Eastern Europe for sexual exploitation, but victims from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the Middle East also have been identified in Canada'."
• New U.S. Reports on Human Trafficking (August 1, 2007): "The Government Accountability Office in the United States recently published 2 reports on human trafficking"
• International Day for the Abolition of Slavery (December 2, 2007): "Today is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery and the Dag Hammarskjöld Library of the United Nations has put together a web page with resources on contemporary forms of human trafficking."
• Council of Europe Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (December 8, 2007): "The Council of Europe website has a subsection about its campaign to combat trafficking in human beings. On the site, one can find Council of Europe legal conventions against trafficking in human beings, press releases, conference and seminar proceedings and publications on the issue. There are also links to regulations, conventions and legal texts from other international organizations (European Union, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, International Labour Organization)."
• New Library of Parliament Publication on Prostitution (May 1, 2008): "Each level of Canadian government attacks the problem in different ways, according to its priorities and powers. The end result is a broad network of prostitution-related measures that generally complement one another and work to resolve the problem at multiple levels. The federal government is striving to live up to its international obligations, and in large measure has succeeded through criminal law that punishes procurement, trafficking, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Nonetheless, trafficking in women and children remains a reality in Canada and a further battle for the government, which must also work to strengthen its social programs to provide protection and a viable future for the victims of such crimes."
• State Department Trafficking in Persons Report 2008 (July 7, 2008): "According to the country section on Canada: Canada is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Women and children are trafficked primarily from Asia and Eastern Europe for sexual exploitation, but victims from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean also have been identified in Canada. Many trafficking victims are from Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and South Korea, in addition to Russia and Ukraine. Asian victims tend to be trafficked more frequently to Vancouver and Western Canada, while Eastern European and Latin American victims are trafficked more often to Toronto and Eastern Canada. A significant number of victims, particularly South Korean females, are trafficked through Canada to the United States. Canada is a source country for sex tourism, and NGOs report that Canada is also a destination country, particularly for sex tourists from the United States. Canadian girls and women, many of whom are aboriginal, are trafficked internally for commercial sexual exploitation. NGOs report that Canada is a destination for foreign victims trafficked for labor exploitation; many of these victims enter Canada legally but then are unlawfully exploited in agriculture and domestic servitude."
• Wiki on Forced Migration Issues (September 17, 2008): "Librarian Elisa Mason, who has worked at the UN High Commission for Refugees and the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford, has created the Forced Migration Guide using wiki software. The guide offers descriptions of resources for the study of refugees, internal displacement and human trafficking."
• Library of Parliament Publication on Trafficking of Humans (October 21, 2008): "This paper will discuss the concept of trafficking in general terms and provide an overview of the legislative framework surrounding the issue at the international level and within the Canadian context. It will conclude with a discussion of potential gaps in Canadian legislation and policy with respect to trafficking in persons."
• UN Study on International Organ Trafficking (October 19, 2009): "The United Nations and the Council of Europe have released a new study that calls for an international convention to combat organ trafficking (...) The Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women was concerned that organ trafficking and trafficking in human beings for the purpose of organ removal, long considered to be myths, seem to be realities all over the world. These phenomena exist for many reasons, but particularly because of extreme poverty and discrimination, including gender discrimination. In general, victims of trafficking in human beings tend to be women and children who know far too little about their rights or how to appropriately assert them."
• New Research Guides on International Law and Human Trafficking (July 14, 2010): "The GlobaLex collection at New York University has just updated two of its legal research guides (...) The Exploitation of Women and Children: A Comparative Study of Human Trafficking Laws between the United States-Mexico and China-Vietnam by Christina T. Le (immigration lawyer in Houston, Texas): 'This paper seeks to understand the push and pull effects of human trafficking and to determine what may be the appropriate government practices to combat the problem. The research will focus on two parallel country conditions: United States-Mexico and China-Vietnam. The four countries on both sides of the world are experiencing similar problems with human trafficking. Preliminarily, the push and pull causes of human trafficking between the countries appear to be quite similar with the more affluent countries, China and the United States as the receiving country. The United States and China with better economic opportunities are seeing an influx of trafficking victims into their country from their southern neighbors. However, the policies the countries choose to address their human trafficking problems are quite different. The United States has a unilateral enforcement approach to stop human trafficking whereas China has a bilateral approach in working with Vietnam to address the situation. How each respective country has chosen to deal with the problem provides a great opportunity for research and analysis'."
• United Nations Report on Globalization of Crime (September 5, 2010): "The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime recently published a report on The Globalization of Crime A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment. The report examines a range of transnational criminal activities, including human trafficking, the heroin and cocaine trades, cybercrime, maritime piracy and trafficking in environmental resources, firearms and counterfeit goods."
• Library of Parliament Legislative Summary of Proposed Human Smuggling Law (December 1, 2010): "The Library of Parliament recently published a legislative summary of Bill C-49: An Act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Balanced Refugee Reform Act and the Marine Transportation Security Act: Specifically, the bill: (...) amends the definition of what constitutes 'human smuggling' under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), introduces new mandatory minimum sentences for human smuggling, and adds new aggravating factors to be considered by the court when determining the penalties for the offences of 'trafficking in persons' and 'disembarking persons at sea'; (...) There have been some recent high-profile cases where a large number of persons have arrived in Canada by boat to claim refugee status, such as those arriving on the Ocean Lady in October 2009, and on the Sun Sea in August 2010. These events highlighted a growing trend of individuals paying large sums of money to human smugglers to assist the migrants in gaining entry into Canada. A key objective of Bill C-49 is to deter large-scale events of irregular migration to Canada, particularly where these involve human smuggling."
• United Nations Proposes Model Law Against Human Smuggling (December 11, 2010): "The federal government's proposal to crack down on human trafficking has been heavily criticized by the opposition parties (...) In the midst of all this, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has released a new publication on a Model Law Against the Smuggling of Migrants. The document was prepared  in response to a request by  the UN General Assembly  to  the Secretary-General  to  promote  and  assist  the efforts of Member States to become party to and implement the United  Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the  Protocols thereto."