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To:
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CCME members & partners
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From:
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Date:
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26
September 2002
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Ref.:
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Memo on the IOM STOP conference
on „Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Human beings“ Brussels
18-20 September 2002
The „European Conference on Preventing and Combating
Trafficking in Human Beings“, which was organised by the International
Organisation for Migration under the EU STOP programme from 18th to 20th
September 2002 in Brussels, drew considerable interest from many sides.
The number of approximately 1400 participants (from all over
Europe and beyond) as such already is impressive, especially given that
originally an attendance of 500 persons was foreseen. According to the
organisers’ statistics around half of the participants were representing
national governments, the diplomatic corps or national parliaments, another 20
% international organisations as well as the EU institutions (NGOS accounted
for another 20 %). Some 66 discussion papers had been submitted to the
organisers before the conference and the media interest during the conference
was quite high.
Indeed representatives of the governmental side as well as of
international institutions were playing a very prominent role in programme of
the three-day conference. The programme was subdivided into a festive opening
and closing session as well as a session of presentations on the EU policies
against trafficking in Human Beings and three „working sessions“ on
a) Prevention of Trafficking
b) Victims Protection
c) Police and Judicial Cooperation
All sessions consisted of various statements by high-ranking
representatives of governments from all over Europe plus a few representatives
of national parliaments, international organisations and European institutions.
The three „working sessions“ were complemented by plenary debates,
during which representatives of additional governments took the floor as well
as representatives of NGOs (national and international).
Due to the format of the conference, the debate was only to a
limited degree interactive and giving space for a real controversy. However a
number of points, which all speakers had in common, emerged as well as a few
points about which there was recognisable disagreement.
All speakers underlined their deep conviction that trafficking in
human beings is a serious crime, a modern form of slavery and as such violation
of human dignity and underlined the work, which their respective
government/country/organisation is already undertaking to combat trafficking.
There also was an overall agreement that a response to trafficking needed to
combine preventive measures, assistance to victims as well as police/ judicial
action; that a response should be both national as well as international and
involve actors from the different sectors (government, police, NGOs etc.). The
need to combat the root causes, i.e. poverty in the countries of origin as well
as the demand in countries of destination, was also repeatedly mentioned.
It might in the concrete work of the CCME member organisations in
the different countries be helpful to follow up what the respective government
has committed itself to (the speeches as well as other documents should be
available at http://www.belgium.iom.int/STOPConference/Confdocs)
Apart from these areas, in which a broad consensus emerged, a few
controversial points became clear:
There was a longer debate on the question if one should combat the
phenomenon of prostitution as such (e.g. by penalising the customers of
prostitutes) as an integral part of the efforts of combating trafficking. While
several (mainly Scandinavian) speakers argued along these lines, other
participants felt that this would make it even more difficult to assists
victims of trafficking.
Another hotly debated issue was the question of assistance to
victims of trafficking and especially the question of residence permits to
victims of trafficking. The main debate here was whether the issue of a
residence permit should be linked to the willingness of a trafficked person to
testify against the trafficking networks (as a lot of governmental actors
argued) or rather be seen as a form of compensation for the victim of a crime
(as a lot of NGOs argued). There also was a longer debate if these residence
permits should only be granted on a temporary base. Several NGOs also in the
debate underlined that testifying for a lot of victims meant a considerable
danger for their own life and often those of their families.
It was also interesting to see to which degree certain governments
almost exclusively underlined the need for a cooperation in Justice and Home
affairs related questions, while others took a very integrated (prevention,
assistance, JHA cooperation) approach to the issue.
CCME had in cooperation with Caritas Europa submitted a statement
to the conference in which both organisations underlined the need for durable
and comprehensive assistance for the victims of trafficking and the need for a
cooperation between authorities and NGOs in such assistance measures. Representatives
of both CCME and Caritas also had the chance to underline these concerns in
oral interventions during the debate. Several other church-related
organisations (such as ICMC or JRS) were present at the conference and the
Patriarchate of the Romanian Orthodox Church (Mr. Cosmin Grigorescu) had both
submitted a discussion paper and made an oral intervention at the conference.
Among several speakers that underlined the role of Civil Society in the fight
against trafficking, the Romanian Foreign Minister Mr Geoana highlighted the
role of churches in this respect.
As an evaluation, one can in general say that the conference was
extremely important in terms of public acknowledgement of the problem of
trafficking and the scope of the problem. It also was good in the sense that a
lot of actors (especially governmental ones) made strong commitments to the
struggle against trafficking and the NGO-public partnership in this context- I
believe these commitments will become extremely important in our future work.
The conference also gave visibility to the activities undertaken
by the different actors to combat trafficking. Space for real discussion was
however limited, so that the real controversial issues could be mentioned but
not really debated. The visibility of NGOs and their concrete work in the field
and „on the ground“ in the programme left a lot to be desired, even
though a lot of NGOs took the floor during the debate. (The question where the
NGOs were involved in the planning process and during the conference itself
gave rise to a lot of criticism during the interventions and could not be
answered clearly by the IOM)
Regarding concrete results the picture is quite confusing. The
organisers had stated the intention that a „Brussels declaration“
would be adopted during the conference and had presented a draft of this
declaration. The draft underlined the need for prevention work, assistance to
trafficked persons and for a police/judicial cooperation, even though in very
general terms.
During the debates a lot of speakers had referred to this
declaration and suggested a number of concrete amendments/changes. It however
until the end of the event remained totally unclear what would happen with the
draft and the suggested changes - a point of further discontent for many
participants. It now seems (but yet I am not sure about it) that a team from
the organisers will redraft the text on the basis of the comments/suggestions
made during the conference and in a few weeks time will publish it as the
„Brussels declaration“.
It also seems clear that a permanent European experts’ group
on trafficking in Human beings will be established as a follow-up of the
conference. To me it would seem important that we strongly lobby for a strong
NGO participation in this context, so that our voices be heard in the future
deliberations on the issue.
Torsten Moritz
Brussels 24th September 2002
(additional, more detailed
information available upon request)