Podcast: Trafficking in Human Beings – A Reality in the European Union, including in Ireland

This podcast [music] is brought to you by the IEA, sharing ideas, shaping policy. >> Thank you. So, um, good afternoon everybody. Um, you're very welcome to this event. My name is, uh, Dr. Jillian Wy. Um, I'm an associate professor in international peace studies in Trinity College, Dublin. and um my own research interests for a long time have lie in the area of human trafficking. So it's wonderful to have the chance to hear um Diane Schmidt talk on this topic today. Um we're delighted to be joined by Diane who is the current EU anti-trafficking coordinator and she's going to deliver a keynote address um on trafficking human beings a reality in the European Union including in Ireland and after Dian's address which will be for about 20 minutes uh we'll have a chance for questions and answers with the people in the room and also the people who have joined us online. So, when it gets to that point, um I'll be looking for people to raise their hands uh if they want to ask a question in the room. And for those of you who are online, you can join in the Q&A uh using that function on Zoom uh which you'll see in your screens. Um and uh we'll be watching I'll be watching the iPad here for questions coming in from online. Um just to say everything today is on record. Um, so be aware of that and when you do want to ask a question, it'd be great if you could tell us your name and where you're coming from. So over to a formal introduction to uh our speaker today, Diane Schmidt. Um, combating trafficking in human beings requires a comprehensive approach to prevent crime, protect victims, and bring perpetrators to justice. Diane Schmidt was appointed as the EU anti-trafficking coordinator in 2021 and she furthers this by her approach which includes improving coordination and coherence amongst the EU institutions, agencies and member states, cooperating with international actors and supporting the implementation and development of EU policy in the area. and she's actually been in Dublin for four days now doing all those things uh in the context of meetings uh in the context of the Irish presidency of the EU. Diane has had a long career in the European Commission. Uh she's held different positions including in the areas of migration, security and justice. Um, and at the moment the topic is extremely timely because the EU is working on a renewed strategy to combat trafficking in human beings which is due out this year. So Diane, we're very interested to hear about uh all of your work um on the anti-trafficking uh strategies of the EU um a reality in the European Union including in Ireland. >> Thank you very much. Uh I'm very happy to be here. I would like to thank the institute for the invitation and for organizing this event and uh I see there are many people here in the room and probably also many people uh follow us uh behind their screen. So um it's very timely to have this this discussion uh not only because I'm I'm here in Ireland now already for three days for three full days seeing all the authorities dealing with trafficking human beings uh meaning the the justice department the prosecutors civil society organizations the the health sector labor uh and I forgot uh I forget many others which chose that in order to address trafficking human beings, you need really a comprehensive approach and you need to work with different stakeholders which means that the coordination is important and this was also recognized some years ago when the European Council decided that there should be a European Union anti-trafficking coordinator to ensure coordination between different stakeholders and between different uh sectors policy areas in order to ensure a response which is adapted in order to prevent the crime to protect the victims s to bring traffickers to justice and also to ensure that there's an international cooperation with no new countries. Um I said we are at a we are now at a turning point because we see that there are new trends. We see that there are new threats. So trafficking human beings is is changing. And um but before I go to this uh perhaps only to a call what what trafficking human beings is because not everyone is aware first it's a crime uh often also organized crime is behind it but not only it's linked to migration but it's not migration it's not smuggling and it's about exploitation of people and we don't know necessarily or there are many people who don't know that trafficking is happening next to them. It can happen on the construction side of your house. It can happen in the restaurant where you have lunch or dinner. It can happen when you order your lunch and it's delivered by by a company. It happens online. You can also be scammed by victims of trafficking. It happens uh when in bearing berry picking or grapes when grapes are picked for champagne. when you drink champagne perhaps there's trafficking behind it there's exploitation behind it and it's the worst form of of a crime when you sell drugs I mean drugs are drugs so there are a lot of other crimes but here people are used like like commodities are abused and are used several times um if they would not be the victims there would be no crime um I was sometimes I give the example and Julian you have to stop me because sometimes I speak out of my my papers but I was in a shelter in one of our member state and I saw young girls who have been abused exploited who have who were mentally disabled and they really you see that they have been used like objects I mean this is terrible but it's not only about this these girls it's also it can everyone can fall into a situation of being exploited because of the economic situation or because uh because uh for example of the lover boy method uh which was which is still used where you have a nice boy coming to a girl either in person or now more and more through social media and the young person who might be somewhere in a member state thinks she will have a new nice life is uh goes with the lover boy uh to another member states and is sexually exploited. Um so there are really different cases which makes also that uh this crime is very complicated because it's often hidden because uh uh uh the victims do not want or cannot speak out and so it's a very very difficult crime also to investigate and is also very difficult to protect the victims and behind this crime uh according to uh the international labor authority there are profits which go up to 236 billion annually. So you imagine when traffickers can make so much money how difficult it is also to get behind it. So it's still a crime which with slow risk and high profits and it's that crime that we we have to tackle. To give you some data um about the situation in the European Union there was a big increase in numbers of registered victims. I insist registered officially registered victims because many more undetected. There was a big increase in 2022, an increase of 41%. Since then, we have around 10,000 victims, official victims in the European Union, all member states together. Why was there this increase? Probably because you remember there was the military aggression against Ukraine and there were many Ukrainian children and women who arrived. Uh Ukrainians were a lot already among the victims before the military aggression in the European Union. So there were a lot of awareness raising campaigns in the countries which led then to the detection not only of Ukrainian victims but also of other nationalities which shows that if you speak about it, if you raise awareness and if you explain also where you can get help uh you you manage to detect and protect uh more victim. So around 10,000 uh victims. Um we saw a shift of citizenship. Before the majority of the victims were EU citizens and we should also not forget that trafficking does not involve necessary transportation or crossing a border. It can happen in one member with one example because it's obvious. I mean for example in Romanian you have also a lot of victims who are of Romanian citizen citizenship who are exploited. This is also the case in other member states. So the majority at EU level were EU citizens also exploit elsewhere. Now the majority are third continents so migrants 64%. Um so there's a change in the in the trends. Um as regards Ireland we um I mean also being here there seems to be no officially registered Irish victim of trafficking. The majority also of the victims are uh women and girls um 63% uh which shows also that there's still a gender dimension in this crime and the majority I mean there are different forms of exploitation so the majority is uh sexual exploitation um and then labor exploitation is also increasing lately probably not because there's more labor labor exploitation but probably it's also more investigated ated and detected as being trafficking human beings which leads also to higher sanctions by the way. Yeah. Uh while before perhaps they looked only at is it nonrespect of labor law and they did also not protect the the victims as they were supposed to protect uh and when I say they I speaking here in in in the European Union in general. So now labor exploitation represents 36%. And then we have other forms of of um uh of trafficking. We have more and more trafficking uh um forced crim for forced criminality um which uh which is going up. You you know also that there are more and more miners involved in criminal activities. Some of them uh probably get into it because they get some money, want to buy new shoes uh accept to sell drugs, but uh at the end they they might be forced uh by uh by criminals not only to sell drugs but also to commit uh to to go and kill someone or put explosives in the house. So there are cases of of this. it. There for example, it's also very difficult to make the distinction between someone who who is really involved in the criminal activity and someone who is really forced to do something and who should not uh be punished uh for what he or she is uh forced to commit in the context of trafficking in human beings which goes also into the direction of the non-punishment principle. uh child trafficking represents 17% probably the number is higher but sometimes children are um brought into another protection system. Uh it can also child sexual abuse or it can be something else. So it does not the offense is not necessarily followed on the basis of trafficking but sometimes it's another offend. So here in in in Ireland we have similar trends except that uh really the majority of the victims here are third country nationals um coming from from uh from other countries outside outside Europe and sexual exploitation issued so 72% labor exploitation um around 22. uh in the last year um accordate statistics the number of suspects has has increased the criminal justice response is always very difficult because you have to find evidence if you do not have the testimony or the cooperation of the victims it gets very difficult and sometimes it's difficult to have the testimony of the victim because they're under pressure the family is under pressure so there's also a whole protection system which has to be made put in place immediately when a a person is supposed of when there is suspicion that it's a victim of trafficking. Um we have however good news in relation to prosecution and conviction in general in the EU because there was an increase. There have been a lot of efforts in the last year to improve the the prosecution of um um for for for trafficking and to bring uh indeed the traffickers to justice. I referred before to the man. Uh it's also important in the context of the investigation uh to look at uh uh at the money uh uh and to follow the money uh in order to come to to to manage also to to bring the traffickers uh to to justice. So trafficking is evolving as I said uh I think the crossber dimension is more and more important um because every case has often a crossber dimension uh not necessarily the trafficking case but can also be money laundering so it's difficult and then the online dimension of course abolish all the border and then there are you have organized criminal groups who sometimes are also organized in cells one cell is in charge of transportation in in one state and there's another cell organizing uh the exploitation as such and then again another cell who specialized in in money laundering. So the the crossber dimension is important which means also that we have to work more and more hand inhand in the European Union but also with our partners outside um the European Union and then um as I said taking into account that the majority of victims are now third country national. Of course one has also to combine this with the with the migration dimension understand how they come to Europe if they are smuggled through smuggling networks. Um and uh I mean and then indeed al also cooperate uh with the countries of origin or the countries of tra uh transit because often the traffickers have the same nationality than the victims. For example in the European Union we have a huge increase of victims uh from Latin America. This is uh something quite new in the last last year. Now we see in involvement uh evolvement in relation to to this. So of course the cooperation also especially with Brazil, Colombia has increased from a law enforcement p perspective but also in in in the context of the protection of the victims and also in the context of awareness raising in the countries of origin of the victims. Uh when we look at data at U level, the majority of victims are still Nigerian, often women uh exploited in the context of uh sexual exploitation, but uh we have also many victims from Morocco and as I said many victims from um from Latin America. And then we see some some some other trends also from southeastern Asia here in um here in Ireland who have also uh many many Vietnamese um uh who some of them are exploited in the context of force criminality on um cannabis plants. So you see really that for trafficking there are different different forms and different ways of of of of uh exploiting people. So it has also an impact on the economy um and leads also to unfair competition when we look look at labor exploitation. Obviously if people are not paid if they exploited and live in very difficult situation this has also consequences. One big no novelty not now completely new but um is the is the online dimension. Um uh since co you know when everything went online also in relation to sexual exploitation for example you had when was happening in borders or in um on the street uh everything went into private homes and uh and a lot has been organized uh online also the exploitation is now happening online. So this makes things also much more complicated for law enforcement. Um this this started with COVID but of course the techn the modern technology and the whole evolution of the online dimension uh makes that there also again almost all case has an online dimension somehow be it in the context of the recruitment uh be it in the context of the exploitation of the organization. Uh so which means also of course it makes it more difficult but then on the other hand it le it it leaves also traces including on phone on phones on platforms which which are are used. Artificial intelligence we will also see where we are going there. So the the modern technology is a difficult point but on the other hand it can also be used by uh law enforcement and others uh in order to uh to detect better trafficking or to get the evidence. Um also for civil society organization it can also help uh to um if for example in terms of interpretation language information uh providing information uh so it's not only for for law enforcement but uh we have also to look at the positive aspects of modern technology then there are there are new forms of of of exploitations I mentioned mentioned already the increasing force criminality. Um but I will come back later to the directive but there also new forms like exploitation of surrogacy we are speaking about exploitation of surrogacy not surrogacy as such uh trafficking prostitution as such is not trafficking so it's forced prostitution exploitation context of prostitution and European Union is not dealing with prostitution or with sugia as such the regularizing or not that's the member states competence. So I prefer to say this immediately because sometimes there are misunderstandings. So trafficking human beings comes in when the conditions of trafficking are met which means the act the means and the exploitation. Uh the the means are not needed if it's a child a minor be below uh 18. Yes. Um then uh of course we have to look at the money the profits. There's also often a link with corruption and more and more an infiltration uh I'm sorry for that and infiltration in the in the legal economy. Another point also which is important of course if you have a crisis situation like the one we had with Ukraine where we were immediately all active at EU level and also at national level uh this creates vulnerabilities. we have now sea where trafficking is not the main topic but of course when you have so many minors uh there's a risk of course of course they are in a vulnerable situation but there's a risk of course that someone might use this vulnerable situation and we know also that in the European Union already unaccompaned miners from Morocco and Moroan citizens in general are already among the main uh citizenship uh in the context of trafficking. So how do we address all this? uh we need a co coordinated approach uh uh working with different stakeholders and uh when I look at the guidelines of the guiding principle of the presidency Irish presidency of the council it's uh I will not I will not I will say it in English it strength with unity and I think this is also exactly what we need uh in in relation to addressing trafficking in human beings uh and uh here um we have um we have already a very strong legislation which is the anti-trafficking directive which dates back uh to uh 2011 and which was changed in 2024 so the council on the basis of a proposal from the commission the council of ministers and European parliament adopted new legislation this legislation had to be transposed into national law um for the 15th of July So, it's over. [laughter] It's not over because member states have still to do what they did not do if they did not do it. But I can tell you that European Commission will send to several member states a nice letter in the coming days to say, well, you are a little bit late. Please do your job otherwise we could launch infringement procedures. So um the anti-trafficking directive um foreseees um reinforces the re response in terms of prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution and assistance to to victims. I only will give a few examples. There's more behind if you have questions I'm happy to reply. There there are the new forms of exploitation as I said exploitation of surrogacy but also exploitation of illegal adoption and forced marriages. Um for the first time we will have the criminalization of the users. So not only the traffickers, the perpetrators but also the users of services of victims of trafficking. Um with the condition that is the knowing use. So you have to prove the knowing which is not so easy. But this is a directive which means that member states can go further. So they don't need to require the knowing. Um and but only to underline also is the services from victims of trafficking and which does not mean only sexual. It can also be in the context of labor exploitation. And here it might perhaps be helpful when you have a company who is hiding be behind in media. You do not get them because they say oh I have nothing to do I did not recruit the person. And um but here uh if you have someone working on a field which belongs to you perhaps being recruited by someone else which is housed in terrible conditions and which does who does not get money. I mean it might be more difficult for uh for for um for the the company or the firm or whatever to say I was not aware. Um so then we have sexual exploitation committed through information and communication technologies. uh will be or is now um an aggravating circumstance which is also good. Why is not everything which is done through technology an aggravating circumstance? very simple because then probably all the cases would be an aggravating circumstance because as I said before I mean there is almost in all the cases nowadays an online dimension um and for sexual exploitation is because also um I mean there's a specificity because the outreach is even uh bigger um in in this in this context the national referral mechanism are mandatory uh we have member states who have well no or almost no mechanism. Then we have those who have more or less good functioning mechanism, those who have a nice mechanism on paper and then those who who really have uh have a good functioning me mechanism but now it's mandatory and uh we have also we are working with the anti-trafficking hub which is service provider which is working for the European Commission and they have also done a very good study which will be published in the next days uh which where also member states can see how a norm referral mechanism should look like. you don't have one good mechanism because the situation is very difficult. You have a German federal state cannot be the same than here in Ireland or or in uh in Italy. Um so and also member states have to appoint national focal points for crossber cases which should help also not necessarily in law enforcement but to refer victims uh from one country to another. Okay, I'm told that I'm already a little bit too long. So, I will uh um stop with the operational part because legislation is good, but then you have also the whole operational part with law enforcement, judicial cooperation. uh I I'm here uh we we met now as I said the law enforcement authorities from the different member states in the context of uh operational cooperation which is happening in the context of impact with the support of Europole EU agencies Europole Euro Jas Frontext European labor authority also and this leads to very very concrete results. Um uh I must say also Europe is of course also there to support bilateral cooperation or trilateral cooperation. But sometimes they have big operations like global chain which uh which is quite recent and which which led uh I will not now give the numbers for Ireland which are also impressive but uh this was supported by 59 countries and not only you led in a few days to 27 potential victims of trafficking in human beings. the arrest of 1,024 suspects uh and it was linked to sexual exploitation, forced criminality, forced begging. So you see really that when you work together, you can uh you can make a difference and this kind of operations happen also online uh where then um online platforms are also identified as being used by by criminals. So um the new trends, the evolution of the situation leads us to have a new strategy. So the European Commission will present hopefully before the 18 18th of October uh which is the anti-trafficking day, a new strategy uh with uh actions based on on the new trends. You will also have the progress report on what has happened in the last years on THP. At the same time and I will stop here. [laughter] >> Thank you Diane. There you go. Thank you very much. >> This podcast [music] is brought to you by the IEA. Sharing ideas shaping policy.